December daily: freestyle

[resonant]

Today's a day with no requests, so I'm going to talk about the peeve that's second-foremost in my mind (because I'm sick of talking about how much I want a real job), and that is how much menopause sucks.

In fairness, life is particularly stressful right now, and some of these things might be caused or exacerbated by stress, but nevertheless, the Wrath of the Res is leveled at menopause.



1. I forget words all the time. It's as bad as when I was a sleep-deprived mother of a newborn. One of the things I love is coming up with exactly the right comparison, and half the time I can't any more because I can't remember the right word. Or I remember the first couple of syllables of it and then finish wrong, so that I'm reaching for "complexity" and end up with "complimentary."

2. My hair is thinning at the back of my part.

3. Hot flashes, OK? I have all these lovely wool sweaters and turtlenecks, and I don't dare wear any of them for fear of spending the whole day wiping sweat off the back of my neck.

4. Interrupted sleep, though that seems to be getting better; nothing wakes me up now except hot flashes, whereas for a while there I was waking up multiple times a night for no reason at all.

5. Loss of moisture in the lady parts. For some time I've been standing in drugstores noticing that lubricant has been moving from its tiny corner under the condoms to an entire shelf on the tampon aisle, and now I understand why! I was born in the very last year of the baby boom, and that means that all those hippie chicks who took off their tops at Woodstock (when I was in preschool) are past menopause and providing an excellent market for self-heating, tingle-sensation, cinnamon-flavored lube.

6. I think the official term for this is emotional lability. You know how a kid of about three will sometimes ask for milk in a red cup, and then you give her milk in a red cup and she dissolves into tears of profoundest sorrow because she wanted apple juice in the blue cup, and you claim to love her, so how could you do such an awful thing and disappoint her like this? -- yes, well, I'm like that now.

(Actually once I made the comparison with the toddler thing, I found this part easier to handle, because I could address it exactly the same way I did when I was the mother of a toddler: an earlier bedtime, a shorter gap between snacks, and try a hug/a cuddly blanket/a favorite book/a powerful distraction instead of even attempting to engage with the putative cause of the meltdown.)

Comments

[laurashapiro]

Boy, I can hardly wait. :/

I keep meaning to do something to make the Fenopause LJ comm more active, but being in peri myself, I am losing energy all the time...

[resonant]

I'd forgotten Fenopause -- I don't even check LJ any more.

[laurashapiro]

I still have a couple of close friends who are posting to LJ and not DW, so I stay. I should think about cloning the comm to DW, though.

[arduinna]

The word thing, man. I'm never sure if it's menopause or too many years of sleep apnea that damaged my language center, but it's maddening. I used to have an amazing vocabulary that never failed me, and now I stumble over words all the damn time. Argh.

The hot flashes at least allow for a bonding experience with other middle-aged women? /clutching at straws. I was in a clothing store one day when one hit -- I don't go full-on sweaty, just warm all over, and was just standing there being all "cripes, too warm!" sort of dazedly, and an employee came over to see if I was okay, because standing there clutching shirts looked a bit odd. And I was all "oh, er, I just got hot..." and we wound up in a 2-3 minute chatty convo about mandatory layers and other annoyances, heh.

[resonant]

What I hate most is when I start one word and finish another. I never realized, until all this started, that sometimes my mind would wander between the beginning of a word and the end of it.

[isis]

Menopause, fully? I'm in perimenopause and I wish my uterus would just give it up already. Because argh.

But #1 has always been a problem for me, ditto #4. I'm noticing #5 now as well too, oh, joy. I'm hoping these don't get worse. It doesn't sound like it. Much sympathy.

[resonant]

Yeah, haven't had a period since January, so I think I'm officially menopausal if I don't get one in the next thirteen days.

[mergatrude]

THIS! I would say something more...umm something or other, but you know?

[resonant]

I think I used to know, but I forgot. What were we talking about?

[umbo]

Oh, the word thing is incredibly frustrating, isn't it?

[resonant]

Especially for someone whose self-esteem turns out to be distressingly word-oriented.

[springwoof]

Courage! It DOES get better once your uterus gives up and stops trying to make you fertile. SO MUCH BETTER. In the meantime, though, my sympathies on your suffering.

oh, wow, #1 was menopause? What a relief! I thought it was my brain going on the fritz. At first I'd forget the names of people I didn't know very well; then I kept forgetting the names of people I saw every day; then I forgot the Proper Names of things; then it was nouns.... :-(

#3 was *epic* for me: the *Spouse* would wake up in the middle of the night because I'd be radiating heat like a d*mn furnace (and I started sleeping with a towel on my pillow, which I'd end up soaking with sweat before the night was through). Fortunately, though, it was only at night. I'd never get cold during the day--when other people were pulling sweaters on, I'd be fine in short-sleeved shirts--but I'd never actually get hot flashes during the day.

#4 hasn't gotten much better for me, alas.

#5 Hahahaha! Oh, yeah. Yep. Flavored lubes are *great*!

#6 ::pets:: glad you found a way to deal with this. This part gets a *lot* better later on. In fact, if the current status quo is how emotions feel without hormones sending them in all directions and bringing the drama, I might have gotten a hysterectomy years ago, just for the blessed relief.

It gets better! It gets better! Hang on!

[resonant]

This is a very comforting and reassuring comment!

Long ago the spouse and I decided that our marriage would be a lot happier if the snorer (me) and the insomniac (him) slept in different rooms. And oh! I am so happy to have my own bed and be able to fling covers off as I please! I have a fan with a remote control.

[carolyn_claire]

I've heard lots of women talk about #5; I think I'm the only one I've ever heard of that has the opposite problem. It's...disconcerting, really. And not terribly comfortable, either.

[resonant]

I haven't heard of that before! Nature doesn't do moderation, apparently; it's too much or too little.

Vocabulary woes

[dorothy1901]

The word thing, oh god. I've always had an occasional bit of trouble dredging the exact word that I want out of my memory, but at least I had a feel for what the missing word was like: it was three syllables, Italianate, started with a "K" sound; that kind of thing. Now there's nothing but a blank. Also, it's happening with a wider variety of words, not just adjectives and actors' names.

Re: Vocabulary woes

[resonant]

Ha! I am and always have been hopeless at actors' names, but now I can't even call up the names of the movies to say, "It's that guy! That guy from ... oh, to hell with it."

[elynross]

The losing words thing is ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING omg. Gah.

[resonant]

Yes, and it's a bad combination to forget words and also have a lot of difficulty coping with frustration ...

[elynross]

All I can add to that is: don't pray for patience, unless you want LOTS OF OPPORTUNITIES TO PRACTICE. *kof*

[reginagiraffe]

The word thing happened to me the second I hit 40, well before menopause (I *may* be at the beginning of peri).

I actually had my doctor order an MRI, just to check that it wasn't a tumor (it's not a TUUmor) because it freaked me out so much.

[resonant]

Wow, yes, that would be scary if it happened suddenly. I was oldish when I spawned, and when I was 40 the kidlet was only 6, so probably I was still attributing all my troubles to sleep deprivation.

[myalexandria]

damn. I've been so looking forward to menopause (I'm really really tired of the whole rigamarole every month) and this makes me look forward less :(

[resonant]

Well, I suppose that ought to put it in perspective -- all my life I've had the world's easiest menstrual cycle, with nothing worse to deal with than a little mess, so I suppose I'm getting back a little of what normal women deal with every month.

[lastscorpion]

If it's any comfort, it does all get better in a few years, especially 3, 4, and 6. I honestly look back at how upset I used to get about (upsetting, I swear!) situations, even before all of this (peri)menopause stuff, and I'm all, "huh."
:-)

[resonant]

My mother is still having hot flashes -- they got sparser, but they never went away. So I'm kind of trying to resign myself to them. They're not the worst of it by any means! I told her, "I found that when I stopped getting mad about them, they seemed to get less severe," and she said, "I never managed that."

So glad this stuff gets better, though. It's annoying, and probably bad for my allergies, to cry every single day.

[brynwulf]

I would love to see fenopause over here in DW!!!

And so much yes to what everyone else has already replied with. I was a tech writer and a damn good one at one time. So so glad I only farm now. Words aren't so important when you're talking to goats and dogs.

I will never get used to the hot flashes. I'm going on year four of them. Between that and the sleep apnea, I am constantly sleep deprived! Sorry you're suffering too, but you're certainly not alone.

[resonant]

It stinks, doesn't it? Some people tell me you eventually get your vocabulary back, and others tell me, "Sorry, kid; get used to it."