Take Me To Your Leader

Feeling like an alien in my perimenopausal body

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This week's article is a personal reflection on my experience of being perimenopausal and what I do to help myself. I'm always happy to share my experience with anyone who asks, and I sprinkle it into articles; however, I've never been the focus of my own article before.

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

As I’ve mentioned before, I've been experiencing perimenopausal symptoms for around 7 years now. It's difficult to pinpoint the exact start, but looking back, I can identify when the way-out symptoms began.

At that time, I didn't have access to the discussions and information that are available today. It wasn't until I began skipping periods, a clear indicator, that I realized I was going through "the transition." Personally, I prefer to call it an "adjustment" rather than a transition. It’s a more gentle word.

I believe that we’ve done a disservice to women by labeling the entire experience as "menopause." I used to think that I only needed to start preparing for menopause once I started skipping periods and then had gone 365 days without one. I had plenty of time. However, I now know better.

We understand that perimenopause is the challenging phase leading up to menopause, and menopause itself marks the culmination of our body's adjustments. I appreciate that we now use the term "perimenopause" to differentiate the years before reaching menopause.

Perimenopause has been one big adjustment after another. The person who I was prior has slipped into the background as a new Shelby 2.0 emerges. This time has been about shedding things that no longer serve me because I don’t have the energy to put up with crap anymore, reclaiming my preferences and my voice for those preferences by asking myself, “What do you like?” and aligning my outer personality with my inner self.

Sounds fun, right? But it’s also been about not recognizing my body or my thoughts as my own as I adapt to this new normal. I am relearning who I am while changing my definition of myself.

My Extraterrestrial Life

There are days when I feel like an alien in my body. I don’t mean this as a joke; this is honestly what it feels like to me. So many things are changing at once that I can hardly keep up. It’s gotten better now because I’m deeper in perimenopause and am getting used to things, but I have to look in the mirror every day to see if I still look the same.

Did a new wrinkle form overnight? Have I lost more hair? Do I have a rash that I didn’t have yesterday? Has the cold made my joints hurt? The changes seem to happen overnight.

I've noticed that I react differently to products or foods than I have in the past. I have to make an effort to keep my blood sugar balanced, even though I don't have diabetes or insulin resistance. And, so long coffee - you were good going down, but what you’re capable of doing to me now just isn’t worth it.

I've found that I no longer need to wear sweaters, my flat shoes are too flat, my clothes itch and don't fit correctly, and my normal bras are too tight against my ribs and uncomfortable. #fuhgeddaboutdit. I packed up my clothes that no longer serve me and am storing them for a day when I can hopefully wear them again. Emotionally, this was not an easy task. Who am I if I’m not wearing a sweater? I usually run cold. Another hit to my identity and change I need to adjust to.

Initially, when these changes were happening, nothing, and I mean nothing, made sense. My periods were still regular, and everything seemed fine. Why would I think it was perimenopause doing this to me? Surely someone would have mentioned it along the way, right?

As humans, we need things to make sense. Our brains will literally swirl and ruminate trying to make sense out of something. With nothing making much sense in my body, all my mind could do was try to solve the answer to an unknown question.

With so much changing inside ourselves, we look to the outside world for grounding. Yet, for me, the outside surroundings were just as confusing. It was during the pandemic, and nothing was making sense outside of me either (it still doesn’t a lot of the time). This has been very disorienting. I feel like I’m just floating around in space waiting to see where I land.

#JustNotFeelingLikeMyself

Several months ago, I wrote an article on a groundbreaking study, “Not feeling like myself,” which classified and determined what perimenopausal and menopausal women meant when they said they weren’t feeling like themselves. You can read it here, Just Not Feeling Like Myself.

The top 4 categories that made us feel this way were anxiety, mood changes, brain fog, and fatigue.

Looking at the “Not feeling like myself” study, I can now see that my symptoms fell into the top 4 categories for making me feel like an alien.

Had I had this information back then, I could have better described my symptoms instead of rambling off a bunch of seemingly unrelated issues. It would have given the doctor a clearer picture of what may have been happening with me. Like others, my symptoms came on fairly suddenly, were not expected, and were new to me.

Here are some examples of some of my symptoms for each of the top 4 categories:

Anxiety

• I felt like a racehorse trapped behind the starting gate with built-up energy that I could not expel

• I startled easily

• I couldn’t tolerate music, loud noises, violent movies, crowds, supermarkets

• I looked in the mirror but could not recognize myself (a weird byproduct of the type of anxiety that perimenopause can cause)

• Widespread pain, which can be caused by anxiety, and an overstimulated nervous system left me feeling like I was going to jump out of my skin

Mood Changes

• I’m not a crier, but I was crying at everything – movies, other people’s graduation videos, commercials, and things people said. I was crying at myself for feeling this way. I was crying for all the hurts that I had encountered in my life. Perimenopause unlocked a part of my brain where I was storing all of the sadness in my life. It gave me the sensation that my life was flashing before me from a negative point of view.

• Outbursts towards my family (which I call “Family Rage,” lol) over small things

• I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster

Fatigue

• I had very low energy for life.

• I couldn’t exercise, or I would have to lie on the couch the rest of the day, walking included

• I couldn’t tolerate walking on hard surfaces in flat shoes; it was too exhausting

• I had no energy for even the things I enjoyed in life

Brain Fog

• I would stop talking in the middle of sentences, forget that I was even talking, and never finish my thought.

• I couldn’t get my mouth to say certain words; don’t ask me to say “regularly.”

• Lack of concentration and focus. I love to read and I could no longer read more than a sentence.

• Thinking felt scattered

Mentioning all of this to a doctor would have been too much for one appointment. I wish I had the structure of the study to help me collect my thoughts and be better at describing what was happening.

Bring Me Back to Earth

I had to find a better way of dealing with my body's changes than how I originally handled it. I used to push through like I always had, but what worked before doesn’t always work once you reach perimenopause.

These are some things that really helped me:

Menopause Mindset

Remember that menopause is called “the change” for good reason. Your body is going through a major biological transition from the old way of making and using hormones to the new way, and there are going to be bumps along the way.

Your body is not betraying you, it is fighting very hard to help you to re-balance. We just need to give it the tools and time that it needs in order to recalibrate. I found that learning about exactly what was going on with my body was key. I’m here to help with that!

Honor Your Feelings About Aging, Perimenopause, and Biology

It’s popular now to say “feel your feelings,” which means allow them without judgment or shame. You'll often feel better once you work through what you’re feeling or thinking about. I had to do a lot of work around this because I was really angry with the whole thing. It takes time to process your feelings and rewire your brain’s thinking patterns from a negative place, but it is possible thanks to neuroplasticity (our lifelong ability for our brains to adapt, learn, and change).

Stay Connected with People

Even as an introvert and someone with social anxiety, I now say, “It’s far better to have an awkward social interaction than none at all.” Every social interaction is helping your mental health and making you more resilient. Our bodies need connection. You know from our pandemic experience what happens when you shut yourself out from people.

My motto has become “Do it anyway.” And, on the plus side, in a few days, I’ll forget all about the embarrassing experience that I thought it was due to my memory. Remember how we initially had to ease back into society when things started opening back up from the pandemic? It can feel the same way to go out with “a new body.” It’s the same feeling; you’ll feel self-conscious at first, but then it will become the new normal.

Bring Back Joy and Fun

This is a tough one for women. Who has time for fun? Life is serious business. But fun and pleasure are so important. If we develop a sudden aversion around crowds, honor that feeling¹, but get out there anyway.

Be reminded of all the things that you used to love and do in the past before life weighed you down. Bring back your sense of humor. I didn’t even realize I had lost mine. Share your wins with friends no matter how small they are, check out funny things online, think about what brought you joy as a child, or try something completely new. The options are endless.

Shift Perspective

I spent a lot of time working on this. Somehow, perimenopause exposed my faulty thinking about many things. Traditionally, I take things very personally. I use it as a weapon against myself. It wasn’t until perimenopause that I realized how my thinking was causing unnecessary stress. It’s a process, and I’m working through it, but I’m getting much better.

Life on a New Planet

It’s been a tremendous help that I know what I do about the biology of perimenopause now. I spent 3 years researching what I know today, became certified as a menopause educator, and completed 6 months of training to be a coach. I can distinguish crap information on the internet meant to sell a product rather than educate or something that’s just wrong. It’s my “super skill” now.

I do what I can do when I can do it and am successful many times, but some days, my hormones and body still have a mind of their own. On those days, I’ve learned to work with my body when I can instead of forcing it to do something that I shouldn’t. Not gonna lie, it’s not easy. I’m a Type A person living in an aging body that doesn’t move or think so fast anymore.

By paying attention more closely to what my body needs instead of fighting against it all of the time, I was able to minimize the debilitating perimenopause symptoms I once had and described above. There is hope. We just have to get out of our way sometimes. For me, getting back to basics lowered my stress level and improved my symptoms.

I still find it frustrating that I can't always do the things I want to do, but dwelling on what I can't do won't benefit me in the long run. I've tried that approach before, and it didn't work out well for me.

This adjustment time is about being comfortable with discomfort on so many levels. I believe perimenopause isn’t so much about living in uncertain times, but it’s about living in nonsense for a bit before things straighten themselves out.

I hope shedding some light on what life in perimenopause can really feel like has helped you. Thank you so much for all of your reading time. Feel free to leave a comment to share your story, add to what I’ve written here, or just to say hi. I’m genuinely appreciative.

Be well, stay cool…

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1. Something like “I know you’re scared, but this will be good for you.” usually works for me.