What no one tells you about perimenopause? If you’re a female or in a relationship with one!

There are and always will be women that breeze through it or don’t know they’ve gone through it until they’ve finished menopause and no longer have menstrual cycle! But for others - it is an absolute fuckery that NO ONE talks about!!

I mean I hadn’t even heard about it until 4yrs ago at 39yrs old - menopause - sure, perimenopause? I had no clue. My naturopath suggested it could be what I was going through purely as my hormones were real low. But I wasn’t experiencing anything that I understood to be menopausal shit, like hot flashes (the only symptom I knew of). My ego wouldn’t even entertain it, that was ‘old people shit’. I’m young, fit healthy blah blah.

Turns out….it was potentially the start of it, it may have even started before that. It can start for some women even as young as 30 depending on what you’ve put your body through when you’re younger and even genetics.

What fuckery though, it’s been slowly and progressively been growing over the last four years, symptoms I experienced being explained away by anything and everything that logically made sense to me, because I had no idea what symptoms perimenopause can present as, and it can be vastly different for everyone. Mine - chronically fatigued was the main one, absolutely scattered brain, BPPV (a type of vertigo), memory function - I was internally worried I was having early onset dementia some days (lol, not lol), itchy ears, random excruciatingly painful boobs, needing to nap or go to bed during the day or sleep in the car, mooooooooody, and the overly emotionally sensitive bouts and towards it all coming to a head, I’d say I experienced some depression. A lot of these I put down to me being introverted and drained (for 3yrs lol), hormones due to my cycle, being run down, maybe a virus (even if I wasn’t actually ‘sick’), then the recession hit my business hard and that had a huge impact on me mentally and my feelings of purpose, and look, that would have been hard anyway but my inability to manage it was wild. The negative narrative that was SO SO loud day in day out, my partner was so supportive and reassuring, and it would help for a minute when we’d talk about where my head was at. By the time it came to ahead - it was SO LOUD I was making plans in my head to leave Auckland, leave my relationship and move to the South Island. I was convinced I was of no benefit to the people in my life and they, especially my partner, were better off and would be happier without me!

The thing with me as well is that I am a sharer, so I do talk about things I experience in life, but towards this coming to a bit of a head, I stopped talking to most people about it, I couldn’t talk about it anymore, I was over it. I was tired of it and really wanted to just leave and deal with it on my own and not burden others with it.

Usually, I am a happy person, I love life, I love my life, I love the people in my life, my work, adventures, exploring and a multitude of other things. This is what fucked up hormones can do to you….it can literally adjust the human experience you have.

I eventually got my hormones checked again, for me, my testosterone was almost non existent, critically low one might say, my other hormones weren’t as bad, still ovulating, some other things were low which would contribute to the lack of testosterone, estrogen a little low too. So I sought out some hormone therapy and this for me is where things made sense, things clicked and I felt so fucking validated with the struggle I’d be going through - with my body now having some testosterone……fuuuuuuuck me. I felt like me over 4yrs ago, before the decline of me started. I have energy, good energy, I’m not tired all the time, I feel mentally lighter and myself again, I’m not struggling through workouts and training anymore - the negative narrative had shut its damn mouth. Like wow!!

I had zero idea a lack of testosterone and low estrogen could fuck a person up so much. Truly. That is all it took for things to change for me.

I started talking about the journey once I was getting my bloods done and new I wanted to try hormone therapy - what shook me the most is the people around me and in my life that had or were going through it or had even gone through it, so many women and I never knew!! I cannot express enough the need to talk about this shit, so people are more aware and can reach out and support you or you support others.

Don’t be afraid to go down the hormone therapy route. Advocate for yourself, my doctor wasn’t great and wouldn’t request a full hormone panel, I had to exaggerate my symptoms to even get the ones he sent, and still had to pay for the rest myself to get an accurate picture. You need to push to be heard, which is fucked and even if your results are ‘within normal range’ but you know you feel like trash mentally and physically and not remotely optimal, advocate for yourself and push. Like what is even normal?? We’re all so vastly different as humans.

FOR THE MEN - your partner will not be optimal, she might be sensitive, she might just not be the person you met in some ways but IT WILL PASS, be patient, listen to her, don’t shut her down and don’t fucking minimise what she’s going through, be kind to her, and even if you think you’ve talked through whatever she’s struggling with and the next day it’s back….please be patient. It’s not an excuse for her to treat you like shit….so don’t accept shitty behaviour and please don’t throw around the ‘it’s your hormones talking’ - sure some things she might be reactive and sensitive where normally she wouldn’t but she feels what she feels, just talk to her about it calmly and ask, ‘hey do you think your hormones might exacerbate what you’re experience here’ - she’ll likely be far more receptive. But please don’t invalidate her.

All of this I’m talking about it my personal experience, you might have a completely different experience and thought process around it and I’d love to hear about it, whether it’s your experience or your the partner of the person experiencing it.