The little white pill....

I have mentioned several times that I take an antidepressant. I started taking it in my early 40’s and have continued to take it to date. I tried Lexapro after going off Prozac and then went off Lexapro with very strange side effects. Once I went off of Lexapro, I found that an undercurrent of frustration and anger existed that wasn’t resolved through exercise or any other activity. As a result, I went back on 10 mg. of Prozac. I know that some people may find that taking an antidepressant for perimenopause is a crutch. Others might say that they would never do it. But I take it and make no apologies for taking it. I have found that I like myself a whole lot better when I am not mad at the world or those around me. I can be, who I think, I really am. S0 I take it and am at peace with the decision.

In perimenopause or menopause your emotions are often a myriad of carnival rides. You are up and down. You are all over the board. And many times you have no particular reason why you feel the way that you do. You can talk yourself out of the mood if you feel strong enough. Or you can pamper yourself while in the mood. Lots of times, a person just doesn’t have that much flexibility. Someone needs you. You need to be somewhere. You have a life deadline. So you forge ahead despite how you feel. I hated being angry. I hated the stress that came with knowing I was angry and didn’t know why no matter how hard I tried to figure it out. So I saw my doctor. He made some recommendations and I took his advice. It worked for me where for others it doesn’t. That’s why menopause is so individual, so different for everyone and why how you deal with it depends only on you and no one else.

Forgetfulness......

Forgetfulness….The other day I was lucky to have a visit from my most favorite uncle from Seattle. He is originally from Indiana, but ten years ago moved to Seattle to run a hospital for abused children. Anyway, he came to visit and stayed one night then went over to visit my father, his brother, for the weekend. On his return, we had lunch together. Driving to the restaurant, we took his car, a rental. Out of pure habit, I brought my house and car keys with me and then left them on the floor of the car when we went into the restaurant, happily chatting with him all the way. After lunch, we returned to the house, talked some more then he left to visit another uncle and go to the airport. Needless to say, I didn’t remember until two hours later that I had left them on the floor of his car. I discovered that I had forgotten them when I wanted to go to the grocery store. Panic ensued! I yelled at my oldest son to watch the house and to babysit his younger brother. I jumped into my car thinking, I can catch him! I was convinced that I could really catch him! Of course, in a city of over one million people, I thought, foolishy, maybe I will see him on the way to the airport. I would wave him over to the edge of the road, laugh while I told him that I had left my keys in his car and then drive home on my merry way. Of course, I was not thinking that he was coming from the absolute opposite direction from which I was driving. Frantically, I called him on his cell phone, leaving a dozen messages-paging him multiple times.
Upon arriving at the airport, I followed the signs to rental car places thinking I can check each place-hey, there’s not that many! But in a panic, one is not organized nor thinking very straight. Have you ever driven into one of those places? They have these razor sharp teeth at the entrance with multiple messages-DON’T BACK UP-SEVERE DAMAGE TO TIRES! This only heighten my panic. Now I had to make sure that I drove correctly while in the damn rental car lot! I ran into all of those offices-panting and telling them-hey my uncle rented a car, but I don’t know where he rented it and yes, it has my keys! Of course, none of the rental car agencies had a reservation for my uncle. One agency even asked me for his rental contract number. Duh! I didn’t even know where he had rented the stupid car! My gas levels were dangerously low. I started calling rental car agencies only to call two of them twice-“Look lady, I already told you we don’t have anyone by that name!” I was starting to really sweat! Suddenly, a bright light came on in my head-page him at the airport. You would be surprised how incredibly easy it is to do that! So I paged him, talked to him. He told me where to go and even gave me their telephone number, saint uncle that he is! I pushed through the airport traffic which by 5:30 pm was a nightmare. The sweetest saint of a girl had my keys, put them gently into my sweaty hands and I almost prostrated at her feet! Needless to say, I now have my keys in a chain around my neck, a pack of post-it notes in my back pocket, and a trusty pen. I have resorted to what my mother always said to me in parking garages, crowded places and at home-Write it down so you don’t forget!

Those insecurity blues.....

I am afraid that I have turned into a sniveling desperate female-the kind that I abhor. No one tells you about the insecurity that you feel as a pre-menopausal woman. It creeps up on you when you least expect it like those awful weeds that invade your yard. Of course as a writer, I live with a certain amount of insecurity and rejection all the time. Rejections with no explanations. Editors who only half listen to you when you talk to them. Editors who pay you less than they told you that they’d pay. Believe me, my ego gets a regular workout on the insecurity machines at this gym. But with menopause, the insecurity is more invasive. That little voice in my head is on overdrive. You’re too fat. You’re stupid. You’re everything that is bad about this universe! Of course, ten milligrams of Prozac sometimes keeps it at bay, but on the touch and go days, that ten doesn’t make it. So I exercise more. I hide out a little. I avoid the sweets (well, sometimes!). I read a good book that helps me escape. I try to be good by reminding myself that it is just one day out of many. That I am not as bad as what my menopausal alter ego says that I am. Then I go on, trying to ignore those voices that sound so much like someone else’s mother.

The Absent Period

After not having my period for one month and then going almost an entire month without another one, I was perplexed. These last couple of weeks I had become a swollen mass of human flesh. I gained four pounds and just couldn’t figure out where the hell all that extra weight had come from. Of course, it couldn’t have come from eating too much—I got that denial down pat! But being paranoid, I started to worry. What if I am pregnant? I was thinking, “Should I get a pregnancy test?” Now keep in mind that I am 49 years old. In less than 6 months I will be 50. Keep also in mind that I haven’t used birth control in more than 12 years and have never gotten pregnant. Nope, I need medical intervention for that! But still I was worry and a little embarrassed at the possibility.

The idea of stepping into the drugstore, picking up that white and purple box and then walking up to a clerk ten years younger than me was daunting. I could imagine what she would think…”That is one old broad and she is doing a pregnancy test”. Honestly, that was the least of my worries. Imagine being 50 and having a baby. All I could think of was where and the Hell would I put this baby once it was born. Every room in my house is occupied by a person or things. I thought that, if forced to, I could put the baby in my office, but then as the baby got older, where would I work or keep my books. Needless to say, I was more interested in keeping my space than having a baby which tells you something. Anyway, my period miraculously arrived a week later. Unfortunately I still have those four extra pounds despite whatever working out and watching my food intake efforts I have undertaken. Oh, did I mention that losing weight is a tough road to haul in menopause. More on that later, I gotta go have an afternoon snack.

I'm sooooooo tired....

One of the symptoms of peri-menopause and menopause is fatigue. Not the kind of fatigue that you have when you stay out late and just need a couple of extra hours of sleep. Fatigue during PM or M is like having concrete boots on. It is the Mafioso of symptoms. You slog through the day, just waiting to go back to your down comforter and soft, soft pillows. Your body begs you to sit down, in a soft subtle way. “See that chair…doesn’t it look soft?” “Come on, just watch a little TV” “It’s alright to just lay your head down for a little while.” After a few minutes, you realize that you have been dozing off or asleep and have drooled on your desk, your elbow or the front of your shirt. Now you are tired and sad. Luckily, it lasts only a week or so for some of us. Others, I know, endure it throughout. My sympathies to those of you. Now can you move over so I can get a little shut-eye.

Those Tiny Unsightly Hairs.....

I recently read Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad about my Neck, and if you are in your forties, you have to read it. I felt immediately normal upon reading that book. I love her biting humor and the concise way that she can make a point. At one point she talks about her excess facial hair, the “mustache” that appears after menopause. As she says, “along came menopause. And with it, my mustache changed: It was no longer dormant, incipient, and threatening; it was now just plain there.” Every woman that I know who hits her late 30’s and then 40’s develops this thing we call “unwanted hair”. It’s on our upper lip. It’s on our chin. It’s on our nipples. It seems to be just everywhere! We tweeze it. We laser it. We bleach it. We do the threading thing. Then it turns into tiny little bristly white hair called whiskers. Nothing short of nuclear explosion can make those bad boys go away. They have moved in and are comfortable and warm. When I get too old to know better, I am going to hire a person, probably a really cute gay guy who dresses well and calls me “Honey”, who will come into the nursing home and tweeze my whiskers so I won’t look like the Cheshire Cat!

Those Womanly Functions....

So it’s a beautiful day outside after a couple of weeks of schizophrenic weather. Thank God for the Vitamin D infusion! At least the weather mirrored my overall mental health—cold, warm, up, down. In perimenopause or menopause, you got to expect that it is going to be that way. A screaming banshee at one moment and tea drinker with her pinky out the next. In a bizarre sort of way, I like how it keeps the men in my family jumping. They never really know what to expect. Of course it doesn’t always have to be out loud, in public, these rages. Most of them are inside and just sound loud inside my own head.

Recently I read an article titled Not Your Mother’s Menopause, in More magazine-March 2008 issue. Two doctors, Dr. Hilda Hutcherson and Dr. Donnica Moore, were interviewed in this article. Both were associated with women’s health organizations. One doctor was in a perimenopause. The other was in the middle of menopause. I liked when they talked about postmenopausal zest, a term coined by anthropologist Margaret Mead. Apparently, some women experience a sense of sadness at the finality of it. They quoted one woman as saying, “The blood is no longer going down, so it’s going to your brain.” Something they say is not biologically correct (You think!), but metaphorically correct.

But for me, it has been over for a long time. I am infertile. I couldn’t have a baby without significant intervention from a fertility specialist. I had unexplained infertility. Thankfully, we were able to have a son via GIFT surgery. But I have not used any kind of birth control since my son was born—over twelve years. So I had to rethink, a long time ago, what these types of womanly functions were to me. Believe me for a long time, I felt broken. A woman is supposed to be able to have a baby. Right? But now it is maddening to have a period, as sporadic as it is, because it seems so utterly useless. A waste of time. Why have menstruations when you cannot conceive? So basically I feel like I have been in menopause for a long time even though I still have gotten a period. So postmenopausal zest will be just that for me. A blast. A party. A complete and utter savings in the cost of mini, maxi, midi pads and tampons! I can throw them all away or turn them into confetti for the party that is bound to come.