Hot wings and What the hell is going on down there?

  I live in four cycles in life right now they are in the following order.

  Sweat, period, ovulation cramps, period cramps, sweat, period.....repeat
  I have learned to accept this is life now as I approach whatever the fuck perimenopause is doing and I stopped trying to rationalize or communicate with it when it would act stupid and instead focus on ways to shut it up, ignore it and pretend it wasn't even there.

 I sweat. I worry, I stress and I hide it all behind the clothes I wear and the smile on my face. There is no sick leave for this condition and it is a state of mind to people that don't understand it and absolute freaking hell to those it is happening to.
  It was happening to me but it was two years before I would find out what it was still.

 I didn't know that panic conditions and anxiety can actually begin in perimenopause but after a year of researching now, I feel confident that my severe anxiety began at the start of perimenopause. A lot of things started with perimenopause. Panic was already there but became a big influencer in my life basically controlling just about anything at any time for any reason.

 My cycle since age 11 was always 29 days never ever failing and me knowing every time I was pregnant because of how totally regular my body was.
  By the time I was in my late 30's, I really hadn't thought much about the fact my period was coming every 28 days and sometimes maybe every few months 27 days until I was trying to conceive and realized it was fluctuating.
 I made excuses then that it was from caffeine or stress. All the shit we convince ourselves of because we don't want to hear the truths.
 I just made a note so I understood when to buy my monthly menstruation shit. But by 38 my cycle was at every 26 days which meant some months I was having two cycles and it was absolutely miserable.
 Every single symptom that came along with ovulation pain to premenstrual pain was there and it felt like I wasn't getting a break.

 It was pretty difficult to try and plan ovulation and pregnancy attempts when I was so tired and could barely make it to 3 pm.
 The last time I had been this tired all day was when I was pregnant with my kids when I slept the entire 9 months of my pregnancy and it made shit go by pretty fast so no regrets.
 But this was like watching paint dry all day. My eyes would start stinging, I would feel a slow down around 2:30 every day usually heading to bed by 7.
 This made sense to logical me as I was getting less sleep now and waking up more often in discomfort, but it was hard to go to social gatherings without appearing bored or uninterested even though I was pretty bored and uninterested because depression was stripping all my happy time away from friends and family.

 I wish someone had explained that I would also be thinking so much. Past relationships even past friendships haunted me.
 The thought I was going to inherit the title of the oldest in the family was also looming closely and I thought about so many what-ifs.
 What if I had tried a bit harder in that first marriage.
  What if I had tried a little harder in my failed friendships, told people a little more.
  What if I run out of time or never even make it to 60. What if I outlive my kids for some reason?
  What will happen after I die?
  Is there a god?
  Why didn't any dead relatives come to tell me what happens after death?
  Am I dying?
  How will I die?
  How can I make the most out of what little time is left?
  Should I get chicken wings that day? There was always time for hot wings.

 My memories were my biggest concern. I had many good recollections of my youth so why was I living in constant dread recalling bad pictures in my head of memories I thought were pleasant?
 And just what the hell was going on down there?!

  If I wasn't dealing with menstrual pain I had mid-cycle pain and if I didn't have mid-cycle pain I was tanking every month by day cycle day 26 with pain and depression. It was no way to live.
 The pain caused me to get into a bad place mentally because I had no doctor that was listening and I couldn't deal with having to face another doctor to tell me I was just sad. It was so much more than just depression. It was days turned to weeks, Nights turned to morning. I had no desire to call friends or even get out of the house sometimes which made it worse since I worked for myself.
 I would tell my head it was ok to skip a day of work but that would turn into many and the constant war in my head would go on while my body plagued me with several issues at a time.
 I'd always been on a 29-day cycle and here I was dealing with this twice in a month now. What the actual heck man!?

 When I wasn't riddled with sads I was being awful also. Short-tempered and lack of proper sentence forming, I was a force to be reckoned with because I was pissed about everything.
  I was mad that I had fought so hard in life to overcome the terrible memories of the worse events I went through only to be twenty years older thinking about these horrid thoughts of the past days all over again.
 It made no sense because I had worked so hard on forgetting and moving on.

  I did not like the game I was playing called 'is it perimenopause or your period again'.
  The life cycle I was living was leaving me only a few days of normalcy and many people saying " you're getting older Titania"
 But getting older and age doesn't cause this severe of a shift in a person. Surely I was way deeper in this. Perhaps I even had a brain tumor. I explored every fucking Wikipedia symptom you can imagine. I had self-diagnosed myself with bipolar conditions, possibly cancer, fibroids, depression and anxiety and I had suspicions about uterine cancer. I just had no explanation as to why I had always known my period was coming every 29 days like a clock and now it was coming sooner with harsher more amplified pains and underlying symptoms.

  My cycle was 5 days of a period, five days of normalcy minus some ongoing pain (which existed way before Perimenopause ),mid-cycle pain including shooting pains in my breasts that lasted usually 5 -7 days doubled over pain some months requiring multiple ways to ease pain, an additional 5 days leading to my period, my period, lots of weed and lots of crying.

 I had never been so tuned into my cycle and body in my entire life. I was also very annoyed I had never been so tuned into my body so much because I would have had a baseline to say that shit wasn't right
 I lived in secrets. Between secret relationships and secret pain and secret ways to treat pain and secret memories and secret depression and I was so fucking tired..just...tired.

 It was impossible for me to even consider at my age that I would be experiencing any issues like this. I was told this was for my golden girl age after me and my besties had long killed our hubbies off with bad cooking and too much sex, we would sit around and laugh about our periods of long ago.
  I was still young, I was still ready to have more babies.

 My ideas were brilliant. I spent so much time thinking about ways to improve business productivity and little time keeping track of my brilliant creations. I wasn't able to remember the ideas I would come up with the next day because I was already on another fifteen projects and had too many new issues the next day to tackle.... in other words, my mind raced all the time.

 I had never really been one of those women that announce the arrival of her monthly visits but lately, I was complaining all the time. How do you base any dating life off an unpredictable body and how do you tell a guy your period comes every 24 days. I wasn't about to share my old lady issues with my 27-year-old donor. Fuck that shite. I was a strong independent woman. I could deal with this and cry it out at night.

 When I really got into research just this year on ALL the clear symptoms I had of perimenopause were there. The issue wasn't me not wanting to get to the bottom and face it, the issue was unless you randomly found something on perimenopause the symptoms mimicked a lot of things that included cancer and mental issues.
  It was scarier looking up my symptoms of this stage of my life than meeting a stranger to draw a contract, to make a baby because I had no one to take my information to I didn't even have a name for this yet.
  Was I to call every OBGYN within 20 miles and ask if they believed in this mythical unicorn I knew about that may or may not be a word I saw 'perimenopause'?
 It was a personal fight in my head to get help only because there was zero information that made it seem serious. I was afraid of being laughed at again.
 It was a love-hate relationship with my vagina.

 There was a day a few years back when I had one of the largest meetings I had ever had in my life.
 It was a filmed conference with over 200 guests all seeking large amounts of funding. I was there as the chair of the board to overhear the 3-minute pitches and ask a series of questions after.
 I remember this day because there is no way to forget it. This day is why I carry extra everything in my purse and carry a freaking purse now too. I didn't carry a purse until now because I knew how to plan life before perimenopause.

 I listened to the pain clinic go through their allocation request and felt a mad rush of hot down my leg. I was feeling pretty confident in my tight white pants that day. until that moment.
 I knew what was happening and that at some point I had to stand and leave in a single file with four other board members following me out and I also knew I was bloody and wearing white. All fucking white. it was only on cycle day 16. Sometimes your new body won't give a shit about a 26-day rule or when your period should come.
  Until you learn the ways to help regulate these things through meditation, herbs, etc it can pretty much control you. Today it was in control

 3 minutes turned into this dude explaining last year's request and being denied and I was squirming. I had no questions for Mr whoever and some of the board looked at me in horror as I was always the tough question gal.
  All I cared about was what everyone was about to see when I got up.  ALL FUCKING WHITE with a splash of perimenopause!

 Everyone knows what happens when the brain gets involved with vagina in the war of hormonal changes, You just don't mess with stuff after brain kicks in. The brain was saying, this is a great time to freak out! Let us freak out! Please lets freak the fuck out right here!!!!
 Oh shit.
 Here comes the cold sweat death feeling.

As I slowly watched the small man disappear into the darkness as my eyes shifted to my lap, I slipped my sweater around my waist, intentionally let out a small squeal distracting everyone as I pretended to spill my lukewarm coffee and grabbed my nose saying " oh no. I have a nose bleed, please excuse me.
  I was premenopausal, not ignorant and I was out of there.
 No one ever was the wiser but I, and I was never going to wear white after period day again.

  My body was a mystery to me and I only had a suspicion at the time of what it was. I had pretty much ruled out cancer after reaching 6 months straight at a 24-day cycle.
  It became pretty apparent when I stayed consistent and added herbs and got my cycle to 26 days that it made sense this was indeed hormone-driven not a sickness. I was changing. I was in a different place neither terrible or great once I realized what it was. Just a different me. Was it a change before the change or a lead into even worse symptoms? I had no clue and still don't. I just know I share these stories out of hope that they will reach some woman that needs some answer she cant find through multiple searches.
 I wish to just be that voice of comfort that wasn't present to me during these rough times when it came to mental health. 
 I want to be the voice of reason when someone is called 'crazy' for being an absolutely normal woman going through life changes and shifts that cause actual health worries. You matter!

 We as women really spend too much time judging and breaking each other down when we are all going to be going through the same things.
 Secretly or outwardly most of us really just need to be hugged and told we will get through it stronger and with even more insight.
  We just want to be happy and try to gt through life not think about things more than we do and live in fogs because our body is screaming and no one will hear it.

 The beautiful part is I was learning to love and listen to my body and respect what it was telling me without even knowing I was in a life lesson.
  It has been a time of growth in this soul attached to this body I had known for so many years but had never really listened to before Perimenopause began teaching me.
  No matter what I thought I could trick my mind into believing, my body; if not part of the plan would not participate.
 It made me realize each organ was so separate from one another and still so highly involved.

 By the end of this story, I am fairly certain I will emerge with a great wealth of appreciation and love for each minute I am here and every day I can celebrate being a woman.
 
  For now, I was just like any other unprepared women entering into this strange realm.
  I was navigating the waters of life without a clue where the storm would lead me next andwith no idea what the hell was going on down there.