Dear Menopausal Self - Note #1 - Intro
Dear Menopausal Self (MS),
This shithole probably started around the summer of 2019 when insomnia suddenly became a huge problem right before your period was supposed to start.
Then the pandemic hit and there was no fucking way you were going near anyone who even had a cold. But it was fine…this was a low priority considering everything else that was going on.
By chance, Unilever hired you to write articles for a new menopausal product they were launching. You did almost a hundred hours of research on all things perimenopause. You were ahead of the curve!
You learned about NAMS (North American Menopause Society) and thought it was a gift sent from the heavens.
You started looking into holistic (integrative) doctors but most of them do not accept health insurance and an initial visit costs around $1,000. So basically cheap, pill-popping prescribing doctors are for the poor who need health insurance to foot the bill. This discovery was not ideal and so you put it off…
But then in the spring of 2023 the insomnia was almost EVERY fucking day for two months! You got pretty scared…you went back to hunt for a doctor and found an Endocrinologist at Weil Cornell who specializes in menopause. WINNING!
But guess what? You needed a fucking referral from another doctor. Ok, money hungry bastards…game on! You found a sweet, kind, and compassionate Physician who understood this shell game and she was great and gave you the referral.
Four months later you finally got a virtual visit with the Endocrinologist who’s certified by NAMS (she took a fucking test!) and she tells you, “I’ve never heard of perimenopause causing insomnia.” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME????
You knew right then to ditch this bitch but at least she agreed to have your hormones tested.
And the results came back as…NORMAL! WTF??? How is that even possible?
Then the Screen Actors Guild went on strike and you could barely scrape together your rent much less pay for a medical bill. So you shelved that shit yet again.
Now, here we are…with mood swings, mysterious symptoms that impact your quality of life, embarrassing weight gain, and still no doctor!
So, this is what you’ve come up with. Writing this shit down so that a) you don’t feel like some new paranoid hypochondriac who is breaking with reality and b) you’re going to have to be the one to talk yourself off a ledge.
Let’s clear up a technicality for how this publication is going to go…right now you’re PMS (Perimenopausal Self) and later when the fucking inevitable finally drops you’ll be MS, (Menopausal Self). Why are these acronyms so pun-worthy for the gamut of menstruation??? This is fucked up!
Drop a comment of what were the first clues of your perimenopause journey was beginning: