Why You Keep Losing It in Midlife and What Your Body Is Actually Trying to Tell You

I’d just behaved like a lunatic. And I knew it. I closed the door to my San Francisco apartment and slid to the floor. It had been an innocent mishap, but I’d lost my mind over it. The gate code to my parking garage wasn’t working. It was rush hour, raining, and I was late for a meeting. I had to get out of my car and walk up a steep block, in heels, in the driving rain to reach the building attendant. When I entered, she was sitting behind her desk laughing and flirting with the security guard. I went complete psycho. Was I right to be irritated? Absolutely. Was the intensity of my reaction in proportion to the circumstances? Not even a little bit. I put my hands over my face in mortified shame. What was happening to me? If any part of this sounds familiar, keep reading. Because what I didn’t know that day was that my body was not overreacting. It was reporting something I’d been ignoring for a long time.

You Are Not Crazy. You Are in Perimenopause.

That same weekend I came across a survey. Are you in perimenopause? I took it. The list of symptoms included things I’d been quietly suffering through for months. Cannot sleep. Gaining weight around your middle even though nothing has changed. Extreme mood swings. One minute sentimental and tearing up over a commercial, the next thrashing your family for leaving dishes in the sink. The sound of chewing makes you homicidal. Hot, and not in a good way. I scored seven out of nine. I was only 40 years old. Here’s what most women don’t know. Menopause is just one day in your hormonal life cycle. Getting there can take ten years. That lead-up is perimenopause. The average age of menopause in the US is 47, which means symptoms can begin as early as 37. Estrogen is a biologically active hormone with receptors in every organ of a woman’s body. When estrogen drops, every system is impacted. Your brain. Your heart. Your skin. Your muscles. Your bones. Your hair. You aren’t imagining the itchy skin, the frozen shoulder, or the heart palpitations. Those symptoms are related to declining estrogen. You aren’t losing it, but you could be in perimenopause. And nobody gave you the manual.

Your emotions are not overreacting. They are reporting.

Your Hormonal Meltdowns Are Your Body Communicating

Here’s the thing I want you to hear most. Your hormones are not the problem. They’re making it harder for you to pretend there isn’t a problem. When you lose it, you aren’t usually creating an issue out of thin air. You’re reacting to something you’ve been pretending is okay with you when it isn’t okay at all. The relationship that has been draining you for years. The role you took on that stopped fitting a long time ago. The boundary you’ve been afraid to set. Think of it like a referee throwing a flag at a football game. Something is off. To figure out what it is, listen to yourself. Your emotions are messengers. They have information for you. Anger is pointing at what matters most to you. Anxiety is telling you something needs attention. Frustration is pointing directly at what you want. When you understand this you stop fighting your feelings and start listening to yourself. And that changes everything.

Put Some Things Down

There will come a point in perimenopause where the mental load you used to carry easily is not so easy to carry anymore. And I want to say something to you that nobody said to me. You are not supposed to manage the mental load of an entire household alone. That is an impossible responsibility that should never have been yours to carry. You are going to have to put some things down, lower some standards, and ask for help. Not as a sign of weakness. As an act of self preservation. As proof that you finally understand your own worth. You are not crazy. You are not weak. You are a woman in midlife navigating something enormous without a roadmap. And the fact that you are still standing, still showing up, still trying to figure it out is not evidence of your failure. It’s evidence of your strength.
Keep going. You’ve Got This.

You are not crazy. You are not broken. You are a woman in midlife and nobody gave you the manual. I’ve got you, Girl.