Experiencing The Fades...

...and I don't mean the British TV horror series.

Hello again, you fabulous creature! Thanks for hanging out with me again today.

Today’s rant chat is on a topic I’ve been reading about again recently, because it’s still going on -

Menopause.

Except now I’m experiencing it slightly differently. As they say in some circles - but wait, there’s more! (surely not….she says, curling up into the foetal position)

For starters, I wrote about the dreaded ‘pause about two years ago. If you’ve not read that post, here it is again for your enjoyment, so you can then read on as to what’s different now:

I read that essay and remembered fondly those times when I couldn’t remember where I’d parked my car at the local shopping centre, and when I was making a cake and had no idea if I’d added the flour yet or not.

Menopause messes with your brain, there’s no doubt about that. The thing is, it messes with your brain, and your stomach, and your ligaments, and your bones, and your gums, and your hair, and your ability to speak like a grown up, and your patience, and your ability to put up with the shizz in your life.

Those hormones that allowed us women to be caring and nurturing in our child-rearing years, and gave us an enormous capacity to absorb emotional labour and tolerate chronic dissatisfaction?

Gone. Like warm, fresh pikelets on a Sunday morning.

I have to restrain myself from licking the computer monitor right now.

Suddenly, we are unable to supress the way we’re feeling. All of our ‘fluffs’ have been given (insert any other F word you care to consider). We can no longer absorb someone else’s moods in order to keep the peace in the house. The fact that again and again we set aside our own needs in order to accommodate someone else (who has no clue how good they had it) starts to rankle and feel wrong. Because it is.

But our hormones - those glorious little sunbeams streaking through our bodies - allowed us to function in a situation that could potentially ruin us. They enable us to hold it all together. All the invisible weight gets carried ‘effortlessly’. We multi-task as if we’re born to do it. No one in the house even stops to consider if we can absorb yet one more thing, because we can. Those hormones are better than wearing our undies on the outside.

Do you ever look at young mums with four kids and think - how the hell is she doing that?

Hormones.

Do you ever look back on particularly intense parts of your life and think - how the hell did I get through that?

Hormones.

And, if you’re in the magical kingdom of women aged between 45-55 (give or take a decade), and you’re wondering why now everything pi**es you off, why jumpers feel extra scratchy, why eating bread now makes you look 36 months pregnant, and why your marriage might be looking particularly one-sided?

Yep. Hormones.

Ah, to be a feathered red or blue polar bear on display at the WA Art Gallery, and have nothing to do with this menopause nonsense.

I can imagine if a woman going through this fraught time of life had a supportive partner, someone who actually cared enough to research her symptoms, to offer cool packs, time out, supportive non-sexual hugs, chocolate, wine, whatever - then this time of life would be a real revelation. A revelation of how much love these people shared, how supportive they are of each other, and how, when the symptoms eventually (apparently) subside, that the relationship would be deeper and closer because of it.

Alas, not for me.

I eventually sought help with my menopause symptoms from a gynaecologist late last year. I discovered that not only do I have the dreaded ‘pause drudgery going on down there, but a stage two prolapse.

Oh, the joys!

So a pessary was prescribed, and twice a week I winkled a plastic pen-like object up my nether-regions, deposited a smidge of magic cream, and then washed the pen-like object and pretended I didn’t just do that.

Ugh.

But it worked.

Praise God!

The extreme hot flushes calmed, my brain seemed less like fairy floss, and I admit I did feel better. But after about six months, I just couldn’t bring myself to do that anymore. The flushes have returned, but in a much more cope-withable degree, and occasionally I get the burning tongue thing.

I’ve been speaking to a lot of my excellent friends who also happen to be women going through this midlife nonsense, and am appalled to learn that so many GPs still aren’t trained to recognise menopause symptoms. Some health problems are brushed off as ‘just menopause’, i.e. go away and get a life, or at other times, friends have been diagnosed with something a bit worrying, prescribed heavy medication, only to find out months later that it’s not helping because - bingo - it’s JUST menopause.

I went to the dentist this morning - after a rather long lapse since my last appointment. What can I say? My life was crumbling underneath me when I got the reminder to make an appointment last year. Who wants rubber gloves and whizy sharp things in their mouths when your life has just exploded? Not me! I finally got there this morning, and the lovely dentist asked if I’d been having any problems. I said I hadn’t, other than a few sensitive spots (worrying about having fillings was another major reason for me NOT to hurry with making an appointment) and the fact that I thought menopause was making my teeth move.

You might have read that and thought, “Wait, what? Teeth moving?” My dentist confirmed it. Apparently as we age (and not just because of the ‘pause) our teeth continue their inexorable slide westward (or whatever direction they’re headed) and our bite-shape changes.

Why does nobody warn you about these things?

There should be some sort of Guide Book for Getting Old, which explains in great detail, all the things you might expect as you age … actually, maybe that’s not a good idea. I don’t think I want to know ALL the things that might happen to me as I get older. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, right?

But this lovely dentist said the thing that we do have to keep an eye on with regards to menopause and mouth-health, is our gums. Because changes in hormones can make our gums weaker and more susceptible to disease. Fabulous. My gums are robust and pink (yay) but after years of brushing my teeth just a teensy bit eagerly, there’s a bit of decay happening there.

Decay.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

It’s not a very nice word, decay. Google tells me that the word means:

“… a gradual process of breaking down, deteriorating, or falling into worse condition”

No

Thanks

But we can’t avoid it, can we? We all get older every day. We all bear the scars and wrinkles and grey hairs and saggy bits of a life well-lived.

Perhaps that’s what menopause is really all about.

It’s the opportunity to stop and reflect on one’s life. To take stock of the things one has been putting up with for however many decades, and consider if one wants to take those things into the last few decades of one’s life.

And with a report released in the New York Times very recently, the word from women in their 50’s and 60’s is No Thanks.

Grey divorce is a very real and increasing phenomenon. Women are waking up and realising they’re in ‘empty shell’ marriages. I’m pretty sure menopause has something everything to do with the clarification and insights of these realisations.

So is menopause a bad thing?

No, I don’t think so. I mean, sure, the symptoms suck, the brain fog is real, all of it is terrible and awful. But if it gives us an insight into what our lives are really like, if it allows us to take stock of present situations without the rose-tinted glasses of the flow of regular hormones, I actually think that’s a good thing.

If you can look around you and see support and love and grace from the person you’ve just spent many decades taking care of - then what a wonderful future lies ahead for you.

But if you look around and just see lists and tasks and loneliness and sadness and energy-suckers - then maybe menopause is the not-so-gentle nudge for you to try and change that.

Just how you go about doing that is completely up to you.

Go gentle and God bless.

Maggie