Category — Mental Menopause Symptoms

So many mental manifestations of menopause have plagued me and the goddesses at one time or another. Inability to concentrate, butterfly mind (winging from thing to thing without alighting long on any one), jellyfish brain, ADD (attention deficit disorder), forgetfulness, dyslexia, and more have at times dwarfed the physical and emotional symptoms. Yuck.

The weirdest is when you have several of these in the course of a single day. If my brain is not going to work, I at least would like it to malfunction in the same way for a time. So I can figure out how to deal with it.

And now, a new mental effect is afflicting me. I’m going to call it Menopause Demotivation Syndrome. After all, we seem to name everything these days to make it sound important at best and necessitating treatment at worst.

Living in two places requires that my husband and I essentially move twice a year. Which means making reservations, packing, organizing house sitters and repair personnel, etc. I’m not complaining – life is good, if slightly disorienting sometimes.

I’ve always been a self starter. I get stuff done. Or maybe I should say “I got things done.” These days? Not so much. Oh, I eventually get things done, but I feel my drive to do even those high priority items slipping into neutral.

Which is why, a week out from our departure from Hawaii to the mainland, I am still trying to get into gear. First gear would be okay, although with each day that passes, a higher gear will be needed.

Panic mode used to be a motivator. That helped. I can’t find that mode anymore.  Or the mode where I put my head down and just do one task after another, forcing the motivation. Nor can I access the mode where I delight in organizing, packing, and planning.

In fact, it is taking every last shred of discipline I have just to write my blog entry for this week. I fear that I will exhaust my infinitesimal supply of get-up-and-go just doing this. I’m not sure this is hormonal, although it could be (by the way, goddesses, the decrease HRT project is going swimmingly, although I’m not sorry to leave Hawaii for the summer as it is heating up a bit.)

Perhaps this demotivation is naturally occurring phenomenon due to aging? What do you think? Am I the only one? And do you have any tips for kicking into gear? Because I seriously need to get packing.

Right now though, I think I’ll have a cup of espresso……..Better make it a double!

One of my girlfriends is newly in the throes of perimenopause.  And she has just experienced her first full-on Menopause Moment.  Yep, one of those mental lapses that previously would have been simply unthinkable and would cause a woman to doubt her very sanity. I think that we can safely assure her that it won’t be her last.

Just a little background on my friend to put this all in context. A (for Anonymous which is how she wants to be known just now) is a CEO, multitasking go-getter who still finds time to play and hang out with friends in between running her business and her bicoastal life. I think of her as one of the most balanced and together people I know. Which is why her story of her Menopause Moment is all the more hilarious and revelatory.

Menopause doesn’t discriminate and it takes no prisoners.  It afflicts every woman in her own unique way while providing universal Menopause experiences; those Menopause Moments that remind us we are in the second half of our lives.

Okay, enough background info – back to the story.  Our heroine has just finished closing up her East Coast house for the winter and is embarking on a circuitous journey to her West Coast home via New York, Miami, Kansas, Atlanta, and Seattle. She’s all packed and is on a last minute business call as she climbs into the taxi for the airport.

A couple of minutes of driving and her phone loses service.  She’s puzzled.  Usually she has such great service with her network all the way from home to airport.  She starts to dial again, when she realizes that the phone in her hand is not her cell phone.  It is the cordless HOME phone and she has just taken it with her.  After a few minutes consternation, she begins to laugh out loud and calls to tell me all about it, proclaiming, “I know understand how women put the mail in the freezer.”

So hey, no harm, no foul.  She’s sending the phone back to a neighbor to put back in her house.  The best thing about all this?  She knew that it’s NORMAL and she LAUGHED at it.  Because, girlfriends, that is all we can do in the face of such disorienting change.  Like the calypso poet / singer Jimmy Buffett says “Breathe in. Breathe out.  Move on.”  Words to live by now and for the next 50.