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Menopause An-Noise Us

By on September 11, 2007 in Menopause & Emotion, Menopause Relief & Treatment, Physical Menopause Symptoms

Along with so many weird phenomenon attributed to the Change comes a newfound sensitivity to noise. The simple sound of breathing can be too much, too loud. The football game, the leaf blower, or the stereo are in danger of triggering a psychotic break. Even my favorite music or the mew of a beloved cat can tighten my neck muscles so taut that my shoulders rise up to my ears and my teeth clench tighter than a victim of lockjaw. Most of the menopausal women I know suffer from this malady. Sound is more than an irritant – it’s an invasion.

Perhaps our menopausal hypersensitivity to noise can be likened to that of people who overdevelop one sense when another sense is waning or diminished. We seem to be losing our visual acuity (along with our mind – but that’s another story), but we can hear every freaking sound for miles around. Clock tick, computer hum, bird chatter, cereal crunch, water drip, coffee slurp, page turn, leaf fall, breeze blow, tire whoosh, stomach gurgle, icemaker, fridge motor. It is sensory overload and threatens our sweet dispositions, not to mention our sanity.

I’ve managed this week to wend my way into the back canyons of Zion National Park in Utah, where I can soothe myself with the rhythms and ripples of rosy sandstone. Red rock simply sits there beaming beauty and it does it QUIETLY.

Although we can’t always travel to out of the way places to find quietude, we can find ways to garner solitude and silence in our daily lives: in our garden, taking a walk, or indulging in a warm (not hot) bath. Midlife women crave quiet.
(Adapted from our upcoming book "Venus Comes of Age: The Wit and Wisdom of Menopausal Goddesses".)

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Menopause Has Got Me Worried

By on September 7, 2007 in Menopause & Emotion, Menopause Relief & Treatment

Worry. Fretting. Nervousness. I rarely suffered from these conditions prior to beginning my menopausal journey. I remember thinking, "I don’t worry. This is just not me." Alas, it is me. And you. Now.

Heck, everyone’s been anxious off and on through their life prior to now. And as time has progressed, we’ve garnered enough lived experience to know that most things work themselves out, with or without our intervention. But our worrywart mechanism can significantly spike during menopause’s hormonal vortexes and we find ourselves just generally fretting. We used to worry about our kids’ safety and well being, whether the old car would make it another year, or whether we’d make the deadline at work. Now we add to normal worrying, a sort of jitteriness about nearly everything. Or nothing. Phantom what-if shadows seem to stalk us and we may experience an non-specific sense of doom.

The Venuses don’t really know of any specific remedies that decrease the anxiety of menopause per se. Sure there are some herbal anti-anxiety supplements but we felt we just didn’t know enough about them. Our fretting was never overwhelming, but it was annoying. If it had been worse, we likely would have seen a therapist.

We did practice giving ourselves little "reality checks" when our worrying was excessively annoying. We would ask ourselves, "What is happening right now, this moment?" (Usually the answer was "Nothing.") "Am I safe, alive, comfortable, etc?" Then we took deep breaths and decided not to panic until we had something to actually panic about, rather than a mental litany of "what ifs". This actually helped ease our jitters quite a bit, although some days our practice worked better than others.

What helped most is knowing that anxiety during menopause is NORMAL! And sharing it with our girlfriends, rather than worrying that we are worrying, alleviated our stress a great deal. Just another of the merry surprises of the menopausal journey.

The best news is this: THIS TOO SHALL PASS. It gets better with time. I’m actually back to my previous non-worry state, and so are many of my girlfriends. Hang in there, eat chocolate, and have a glass of wine now and again.

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The Sad Truth About Menopause or Only Moments to Go Before I Weep

By on August 15, 2007 in Menopause & Emotion

Susan writes that she doesn’t know which is worse: her constant feeling of sadness or her hot flashes. That’s easy – whichever one is occurring at the moment is worse!

Seriously, though, for many of us, depression is a disconcerting emotional change that deluges us in menopause. Certainly we have a fair amount to be depressed about (see "Menopause – Good Grief" blog entry – under Menopause & Emotion category.) And yet, our crying jags seem totally out of proportion to the events that precipitate them.

Okay, we’re women. We are sentimental and emotional by nature. We can be counted on to cry at poignant music, Hallmark card commercials, (yes we do – don’t lie), even a leaf falling from a tree in autumn. And naturally, the back-to-back chick flicks on the Lifetime movie channel. But now we also burst into tears at stoplights or sob over paper clips. Big O tire commercials can inadvertantly push the weepy button. This is just not right!

Inherently, we feel that something is deeply wrong. We’ve been saddened or heart-touched before. We’ve been melancholy and lamenting. But this is different. It’s a matter of degree. Too much, too often. And unpredictable. We don’t know anymore what will set our lacrimal ducts off. Or where, except that it will likely be some inappropriate venue with maximum embarrassment value. Our emotions are out of control – and they have a direct link to our tear ducts. And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it, except carry lots of Kleenex and pray for rain. And eat chocolate – chocolate helps.
(excerpted from Lynette’s upcoming book: Venus Comes Of Age)

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Menopause: What A Ride!

By on August 7, 2007 in Men and Menopause, Menopause & Emotion

Menopausal women are scary. No doubt about it. Just look at the abject fear on the faces around you when you start the descent on the emotional roller coaster ride.

Case in point. I’m cleaning up the kitchen after a quiet, lovely dinner. The pint of salad dressing that my husband has just made is sitting on the counter. When I try to put the lid on it, it jumps up into the air and spills. All over me, all over the floor, all over the rug in front of the sink and halfway up the wall.

I don’t know whether to curse, cry, or curl up into the fetal position. Or all three. My husband comes in, drawn by the clatter. He takes one look at me and says hurriedly, "Just wipe yourself off; I’ll clean this up." He circles me warily like a geologist trying to ascertain if a volcano is on the verge of eruption.

"I need a bath," I mutter and toddle off to bubbles and hot, rose scented water. I hear classical music as I drift off, Calgon taking me away. (My husband subscribes to the theory that music soothes the savage beast. Hey, it works.) 20 minutes later he calls in to me, "It’s all cleaned up. Are you okay now?"

Oh yeah, I am okay. More than okay. Because thankfully, I don’t have to do this alone. My partner is in the seat next to me on that roller coaster, lifting his arms high in the air and yelling, "Woo hoo, what a ride!"

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I Just Don?t Feel Like Me Anymore

By on June 1, 2007 in Life Changes & Stages, Menopause & Emotion, Physical Menopause Symptoms, Positive Changes

Will I ever feel like myself again? That is the second most frequently asked question I hear from midlife goddesses.

"I just don’t feel like me anymore," could well be the universal mantra for the menopausal woman. I’ve yet to meet any post-menopausal goddess who claims to feel like she used to. It seems that we have actually morphed into someone new. This could be good. It might be bad. But one certainty exists: we have no choice. Kicking, screaming, bitching, whining or resigned, we are traveling the paths of menopause and midlife. While there are assuredly losses, as we continue on this forced journey we find that we may actually like some of the changes.

Positive changes include speaking our minds, giving up pleasing as a lifestyle, accepting the perfection of non-perfection, feeling tolerance and forgiveness, and becoming comfortable in our own skins, no matter how baggy or saggy.

We’re changelings. We can’t go back to the women we once were, but we might learn to embrace the scary, exciting process of becoming a new "Me".

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Menopause – Dear Goddess, When Will It End?

By on May 27, 2007 in Hot Flashes, Menopause & Emotion, Physical Menopause Symptoms

The question I hear most often from menopausal goddesses are these. Will my symptoms ever get better? Will this ever end?

The answers are Yes and No, respectively.

Every woman’s menopause is different. Still, the worst of the symptoms seems to last about two years. The mental fog banks dissipate into light, patchy fog. The ass-dragging fatigue makes way for more energy and vitality. Memory and sharpness return, though rarely to pre-menopausal levels.

Hot flashes lessen in frequency and severity, libido actually returns (though again rarely reaching pre-menopausal lust levels), and emotional highs and lows change from tsunami proportions to small wavelets.

However, there doesn’t seem to be an actual destination on this journey. New changes unfold each and every day, whether due actually to the Big M or growing older. Rae-Venus is fond of saying that menopause is a process and it helps to approach it as such. We need to continue to ask questions and to look actively for answers. Embracing the process, even when it sucks.

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A Pregnant Pause

By on May 17, 2007 in Menopause & Emotion

Whew! The first draft of Venus Comes of Age, The Wit and Wisdom of Menopausal Goddesses is finally complete. I’ve been feeling like a pregnant woman whose delivery is a month overdue. Finally, the labor is over and the Venuses are the proud moms of a bouncing baby manuscript. 4 lb – 11 in long.

My husband is delighted to see the first draft finally finished. He hopes that the worst of menopause will be over now that I am not immersed in all things hormonal. I sincerely hope that he is right. For now, I’m going to do what all women do after giving birth: SLEEP! Expect the blog entries to be more frequent now that the ‘baby’ no longer requires my undivided attention.

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Mentalpause

By on May 1, 2007 in Hot Flashes, Menopause & Emotion

My hard drive crashed this week. Kaput. DOA. Am I angry? Not at all. I have a great deal of empathy for my poor computer. My own brain augered in months ago with the advent of Mentalpause. And unlike my Mac, I am definitely past warranty.

Some days I can barely remember anything. I lay my car keys down in the store and walk out with out them. I forget what I went in the room for. I forget the thought that just popped into my head. And I forget words!!! Words that I know!! In my native tongue!! That I’ve been speaking profusely if not well since about 1 year of age. I’m reduced to drawing diagrams in the air to describe the word that stubbornly resists my best efforts at archival retrieval. "I need the…" (squeezing motion with hand)" "Scissors?" asks my husband. "Yes, of course," I snap. "I knew it all the time."

And then there’s "menopausal dyslexia". Prior to the Change, I NEVER transposed numbers nor did I forget how to spell words. And I could read a map – in fact, I was a darn good navigator. Now sadly, I feel like a poster child (okay poster crone) for dyslexia. I flip numerals, maps look like incomprehensible squiggles to my tired eyes, and thank the computer gods for spellchecker or you might not be able to make heads nor tails out of this blog.

My sister goddesses are going through the same distressing mind changes in Mentalpause. We are talking, laughing, and weeping about them. Some days, that’s my only comfort.

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Time Out for Menopausal Goddesses and Midlife Women

By on March 23, 2007 in After the Pause, Emotional Menopause Symptoms, Menopause & Emotion

What do midlife, menopausal women want most? Not jewelry, not flowers, not fame, not even a romantic dinner. We want TIME!

For the majority of goddesses, our fondest wish is for "time to ourselves". Having spent so many years being nurturing, attentive and productive, we now wish to spend time with ourselves. Alone. We want to revel in time, to bathe in it, to pour it over ourselves like honey. Unstructured time. Quiet, contemplative time. Time to read, sew, paint, daydream, listen to music. Time to listen to our own inner voices.

I’ve just returned from a mini-vacation on my own island. I don’t know why I never did this before! I left phone and computer behind for a couple of nights at a resort, where people took care of my every need. Days stretching lazily before me, luxurious with hours uncommitted, were treasures without equal in my experience. I may still be "hot" (as in flash, not as in sexy), but I now feel like a new woman. I urge every menopausal goddess to go away for a tiny retreat. It will truly result in re-creation.

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Menopause – Good Grief!

By on February 21, 2007 in Life Changes & Stages, Menopause & Emotion

Nora Ephron’s new book of essays entitled "I Feel Bad About My Neck And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman" underscores the need for real wisdom from real women when going through the the transitions of menopause, midlife, and aging. "There are all sorts of books written for older women," she writes. "They are, as far as I can tell, uniformly upbeat and full of bromides and homilies about how pleasant life can be once one is free from all the nagging obligations of children, monthly periods, and in some cases, full-time jobs. I find these books utterly useless, just as I found all the books I once read about menopause utterly useless."

The goddesses would have loved her and welcomed her into our group like a sister. Because that is how we feel about the changes thrust upon us. Perky and upbeat doesn’t work unless and until we can go through the appropriate stages of grieving. Losses are occurring each and every day for us. We’d be crazy to be happy and excited by them in the beginning, maybe ever.

The stages of grief that we goddesses have gone through in the time we have been meeting are pretty much the same as the stages of any loss. Denial was broken through as soon as we found ourselves sweating like pigs, crying for no reason, and unable to sleep through the night. Depression, anger, and bargaining are continual themes in our lives just now as we help one another move toward some semblance of acceptance. Small wonder we can’t face either optimistic, cheerful tomes or dry medical renderings of physiology, symptoms, and treatment.

While these may have value, they do not speak to our experience. The upbeat, "menopause is such a great opportunity" books may be useful once we are accepting what is happening to us, but initially, we feel like we are ‘doing’ menopause wrong, because we don’t feel like it is a great opportunity. Yet. We just want to be understood and to understand, first. And honestly exploring these changes in a community of supportive women is the first step.

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