You’re Not Disappearing, You’re Shedding

You don’t feel like yourself anymore. You feel like you’re disappearing before your own eyes. These are things I hear from women in perimenopause and menopause all the time. I certainly felt this way when I was going through perimenopause. It was an incredibly disorienting time in my life. If you’re reading this, you might be feeling pretty disoriented yourself. I want to talk with you about what you’re feeling, because it might mean something different than what you’re imagining.

Your feelings are real, valid, and biological

When you’re in perimenopause, the estrogen in your body is declining. Estrogen is a hormone with receptors in every single organ of your body, including your brain. Biologically as this hormone starts to wane, you experience very real symptoms. Brain fog. Fatigue. Aches and pains. Emotional volatility. Forgetfulness. What you’re going through is very real. You’re changing, so it’s completely valid for you to feel differently about who you are.

You’re responding to something real. You’re not imagining any of it.

What you’re actually shedding

As your biology changes, the way you perceive your life starts to shift as well. It’s like a hormonal veil lifts, and the things you used to make okay, even when you knew they weren’t, stop feeling okay anymore. You begin to shed the pieces of yourself you adapted to make it through the day. The ones that pleased, pretended, and performed to keep everyone around you happy.

And as you shake the disease to please, that can create a bit of a lifequake. The people in your life who have gotten used to you taking care of everything for them might get a little frustrated when you stop wanting to be the person who takes care of everything. But that urge you have to put things down is completely normal. Because at this stage of life, it’s typical to look around and realize there are a lot of things you’ve been carrying that were never yours to carry.

When you’re in a tunnel, the only way out is through

Imagine perimenopause is a tunnel you must walk through. You’ll be different when you exit than you were when you entered. Still you, but stronger. Braver, and more sure of yourself. Clear that you can trust yourself to handle hard things. The journey won’t be comfortable, and you’ll need to shed a few layers while you travel. The non-essentials will simply have to go. In the middle it will get dark, but you can trust yourself to navigate.

Listen to your own voice and take one step at a time. You will get to the other side. When you do, you’re going to be more authentically you than you’ve ever been before. Comfortable in your own skin. Not just empowered. Powerful. You’re not disappearing. You’re coming back to yourself. You’ve got this!

You’re not disappearing. You’re becoming more authentically you than you’ve ever been.