[Panty] Liner Notes

What I knew about menopause two years ago was basically what everyone – what the average dude – knows about menopause: you get hot flashes, you grow extra whiskers, and you stop getting your periods. (And then, probably you shrivel up and die because if you aren’t attached to your biology, you probably can’t be a woman and go on living?)

Turns out, it’s a little more than that, and all of it – All. Of. It. – caught me by surprise, because no one ever talks about it. At least not that I’m aware of.

This was not the kind of surprise I appreciate, even as a person who appreciates a surprise. Wouldn’t it be nice to go into the phase of life in which the high point is NOT getting your period with at least as much information as we had going into the part of our lives where we started getting them? I’m making an assumption here that the majority of women, Sissy Spacek in Carrie excluded, aren’t unaware of the simple facts of menstruation, though the timing may get them.

I want us to talk about perimenopause. I want us to share our ridiculous, frustrating, totally natural experiences so that we can support one another, and so the silence that was worse for our mothers than for us will be non-existent for our daughters (or in my case, nieces, both by blood and friendship). Let’s shout the shame into silence. And let’s laugh while we’re doing it.

That is my goal. To share the information, with humor, that I’m getting through experience, through reading, and through talking, so that others may know what’s coming, and so that none of us feels alone, sad or ashamed.

I am not a doctor. I’m just a girl (woman), standing in front of the internet, asking you to…read 600 sometimes uncomfortable words full of my experiences and emotions about my earthly body changing.

For the record, I am an independent, cis-gender, hetero, child-free woman, and I am Caucasian. I never gave birth to a child, nor have I raised any, which I mention because the process of birthing and/or raising children has a whole host of symptoms, which may overlap those in perimenopause, and effectively mask them. I won’t speak to those, though I invite you to. As one sister recently replied, when I asked her if she had brain fog, “Jenna, I have pre-teen twins. I’ve had brain fog for 12 years.” Totally fair.

I mention my race and orientation because the medical world short-changes women, and it short-changes women of color, lesbians, and non-binary or transitioning women more so. I will rant about medical care more than once, and I am aware I may be complaining about something that could be much worse, and I do not what to short-change anyone, which brings me to my ask.

Please share your experience! We all have different symptoms, different coping mechanisms, and different ridiculous stories to share, and you definitely know things I don’t. You don’t need to go public if you don’t want to be named – shoot me an email, or post an anonymous comment. I bought this domain name, but I don’t own the life condition. I’m just unwillingly renting space here for a while. The more, the merrier, so please stop by.