I Thought It Was Menopause. Turns Out I Needed to MEN-O-Pause.
So, here’s a fun little plot twist from the MenoPause Diaries:
I feel fucking fantastic. Like… suspiciously fantastic.
And I didn’t realize exactly how bad I had felt until I stopped feeling bad.
For well over a year, my body had apparently decided to communicate exclusively through the medical equivalent of a toddler throwing everything in the house down the stairs.
Stomachaches.
Bloating.
Gurgling.
Random digestive bullshit.
Heart palpitations.
Tinnitus - ringing in my ears.
My neck was constantly stiff.
My shoulders hurt every damn day.
There was always something.
I’d wake up and basically wait to see which department of Stacey, Inc. was filing a grievance that morning.
Digestive system? Excellent. We’re bloated today.
Cardiovascular department? Cool. Random heart palpitations. Love that for us.
Musculoskeletal division? Neck has apparently been replaced with concrete.
Super fun.
And because I am a woman in my 50s who has been navigating menopause, hormones, aging, and the general indignity of possessing a human body after 40, there was always a perfectly reasonable explanation available. Throw in surgical menopause all over again 12 months ago. For sure it must of been that!
Menopause.
Hormones.
Food.
Allergies.
Getting older.
Surgery
Maybe I slept funny.
Maybe I ate something.
Maybe Mercury was in Retrograde.
Who the fuck knows.
Except now I’ve been out of that house and out of that relationship for a little while.
And…
It. Is. All. Gone.
Not improved.
Not “a little better.”
Gone.
I feel GREAT. And that realization hit me like a truck.
Wait. Was My Body Trying to Tell Me Something?
Looking back, I think I massively underestimated what living in a constant state of stress was doing to me physically.
The chaos.
The lack of communication.
The parenting issues.
The constant problems that somehow became my problems.
The mental load.
The unpredictability.
The physically and verbally abusive arguments.
The lack of basic consideration and decency.
The feeling that I constantly had to anticipate the next issue, solve the next problem, manage the next situation, or brace myself for the next completely avoidable clusterfuck.
Apparently my brain was saying:
“We can handle this.”
Meanwhile, my nervous system was in the basement frantically waving two red flags and screaming:
“THE FUCK WE CAN.”
And there is actual science behind that part. Chronic stress can show up physically as digestive problems, muscle tension and pain, racing heart or palpitations, breathing changes and a whole assortment of other delightful bodily bullshit. Stress can also make tinnitus worse. (Cleveland Clinic)
That doesn’t prove stress caused every symptom I had, of course.
But when you’ve felt sick nearly every day for more than a year and then the environment causing you enormous stress disappears…
…and suddenly so do the symptoms?
Well.
I’m not a doctor.
But I am capable of recognizing one hell of a correlation.
My Body Apparently Knew Before I Did
That’s the part I’m taking with me.
I spent so much time analyzing whether situations were really that bad.
Was I overreacting?
Was this worth getting upset about?
Should I just let it go?
Could I communicate differently?
Could I fix it?
Could I help?
Could I make things easier?
Could I carry just a little bit more?
Meanwhile, my body wasn’t conducting a fucking committee meeting.
It was reacting. Every. Single. Day.
And I think that’s something I’m going to pay much closer attention to from now on.
Because maybe peace isn’t just sitting in your cute little apartment drinking wine while nobody asks you to solve a problem they created six months ago and have actively avoided fixing ever since.
Although, for the record, that is fucking delightful.
Maybe peace is physical too.
Maybe it’s your shoulders finally dropping from somewhere around your ears.
Maybe it’s your stomach shutting the hell up.
Maybe it’s breathing normally.
Maybe it’s sleeping without your body remaining on high alert.
Maybe it’s waking up and realizing nothing hurts.
Maybe it’s noticing that the mysterious collection of symptoms you had normalized weren’t actually normal for you.
Consider This My New Early Warning System
So I’ve learned something.
Going forward, I’m paying attention.
If someone’s presence in my life consistently leaves me anxious, tense, exhausted, sick to my stomach, walking on eggshells, or physically bracing for whatever bullshit is coming next, I’m not spending another year trying to intellectualize it.
My body gets a vote now.
Actually, after the last year?
My body may have veto power.
I’m no longer interested in relationships where chaos is the admission price.
I’m not volunteering to carry another adult’s responsibilities because they refuse to carry them themselves.
I’m not repeatedly explaining basic communication, consideration, accountability or decency.
And I’m definitely not sacrificing my physical health trying to create peace inside somebody else’s chaos.
Stress happens. Life happens. Relationships aren’t perfect.
But constant stress is not the price of loving someone.
And if removing someone from my daily life results in my entire body seemingly announcing:
OH THANK FUCK.
I’m going to listen.
Because apparently my nervous system has excellent judgment.
It just took the rest of me a little longer to catch up.
Welcome to Men-Pause. Where the man paused…and, apparently, so did half my fucking symptoms.
