I’m 53. On any given day my internal temperature seesaws from glacial to center of the sun. I haven’t slept more than 2 hours straight in a moon’s age. My svelte figure (oh why did we beat up on our young selves when we were so so lovely?) has rapidly gone the way of the dodo to be replaced by a daily surprise roll. 

I never dieted; now I diet and gain weight. How? When I was pregnant at 39 people always told me about brain fog. I never got it. But now… I stood up a friend last night. I completely forgot that we had set a date (and I would have put it in my calendar when we set the date but I was driving and messing with the a/c at the same time because my body was quickly turning to liquid.) He is unforgiving and I feel terrible. Not for him being unforgiving; that I could do something so rude, no matter how unintentional it was. But I have apologized in voice and text and yet he still harbors anger. I think to myself, he is upset that I left him alone in a restaurant for 30 minutes. I am terrified of sitting in a restaurant and having to leave for fear of a leak or stain or gawks from onlookers. 

My body is changing and it’s like a different entity. I feel like I am two people: the young person I once was and think I still am in my brain, and the other me, a hard hatted contractor moving ahead with the wrecking ball despite many attempts from me to lay down in front of the trucks and declare a strike. 

I am hot, foggy, bloated, patchy and yet when people ask me in the store or shopping or new clients “How are you?” I say “I’m great! GREAT! GRRRREAT!” while side eyeing the sofa with the nonperformance fabric thinking I can’t sit on that... and it reminds me of my other self, the bipolar self, who always has to put on a fake smile and soldier on, no one being the wiser. 

I read somewhere that in certain parts of Europe companies are now taking menopause seriously and offering “support services” (not sure what that would be) to women. To my European Moodscopers, is this true? I work for myself - I started years ago when I realized my bipolar and sitting in an office chair 40 hours a week did not fly. So I am fortunate on the bad days that I can work from home in my underwear and six fans on high directed at me. But I feel menopause is another secret disease - one that is not talked about in polite society. It happens to half the population and yet we must soldier on, pretend everything is okay, while gasoline gets poured on the fire. 

I would write more on the subject but right now I have to go turn up the a/c. 

Lexi
A Moodscope member