The things I do for menopause mental health

(with a new entry, #8, which like everything else I discovered the hard way)

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

How do I know these things work?

Because when I don’t do them, things start to fall apart. Sometimes they fall apart fast. It’s very unpleasant when they do. I can’t sleep. I’m anxious, I’m lonely; I can’t cope or think. I think the worst thing is what I call Henny Penny-head: the certainty that my life is on the precipice of imminent and utter collapse, and the sky is falling, even though previously I had been fine, things were manageable and it had been sailing along pretty nicely.

Then I do the things, and in very short order, the situation reverses. And I realize: none of it was ever real.

Reminder: I didn’t actually know I was in perimenopause for at least seven years, probably longer. This was, looking back, very hard. By the time I realized at the age of 47 or so what was going on, I had amassed an arsenal of tools to manage my considerable mental health challenges – tools I share here in my weekly newsletter, and sometimes in these roundups…