PERIMENOPAUSAL JOURNAL emptiness is real

It's a few months since I've made a entry to my perimenopausal journal as the missing months have been like life before menopause.

No hot sweats, full nights sleep, waking up every morning looking forward to the day a head; anxiety levels controlled, even my sex drive was back to full peak.

My confidence has been so high that I've been looking into changing my career and doing some collage courses; when you have been doing the same career you've been doing since leaving school 30 years ago, it's really hard to try something new, but feeling like a new me has made me want to give it a go. This is another reason I haven't posted in a while as the collage courses needs a level 4 GCSE pass in English lit, so I've been spending my free time revising.

I have spoke about this before about being dyslexic so this has made English a difficult subject for me, (so you may see an improvement in my spelling and punctuation in my blogs.)

Having a few months symptom free made me realise how perimenopause has taken over my life and how I miss the woman I was before perimenopause.

Now your going to ask, "What have you done to feel this way?"

Answer to that is. I really don't know.

I thought it was to do with the vitamin D supplement my doctor prescribed back in march, after all it's called the sunshine vitamin; or it could be the caffeine free, herbal tea life I've adopted. I have also started running 3 times a week with my husband; I'm getting exercise, fresh- air and quality time with my man.

Then a few weeks ago all those symptoms reappeared with a added new one; it's took me a while to really describe how I feel but here goes.

IT' EMPTY!

I have an inner emptiness, I have no drive, passion or enthusiasm for anything, I don't feel anything not sad, angry or mad just empty; It's as if someone has taken all my emotions away .

lately I've been reading a lot of books to help me discover new things about myself and how to see the world differently; A lot of these books say to break down your emotions and feelings. Once I had a name for what I've been feeling I decided to look it up to see if this could be a menopausal symptom.

Empty nest was one of the first things I found, this is not what this is as I live with two teenage daughters, anyone living with teenagers knows having an empty nest sounds so good, (I don't mean it or maybe I do, at least till they grow into their hormones.)I have to admit this summer has been very different to other summers; my eldest daughter has got a summer job which means she's been working 5 days a week and I've been the taxi service, they also don't want to do the usual summer holiday activity's. Maybe I'm feeling like this because the girls are growing up, sometimes I think I'm morphing into a teenager myself as all I seem to want to do is stay indoors and veg on the sofa. I start the day with good intentions then find myself sat on the sofa with my youngest watching Netflix, waiting for when its time to start up the mum taxi.

On one of the rear days I managed to tear myself away from the tv and between my many pick ups and drop off's I found that what I've been feeling is real and made more sense when seeing it written down.

Apparently this empty feeling is very common and everyone experiences it some time in their life. It can be a mixed feelings of anger you don't even know you have, which when not released can made us feel empty inside, a wounded ego which makes you feel unimportant, not good enough and inadequate. The lose of someone or change in circumstances is one of the main causes, this makes you feel life lacks purpose and helpless, like nothing you do can get rid of how you are feeling. Emotional numbness is another way to describe the feeling. Despondent, isolated and anxious some even describe it as a empty feeling in their chest.

These are some of the ways people have described the way inner emptiness makes them feel; reading this really helped me to realise I wasn't imaging it and stopped me feeling guilty for having these feelings.

"Often I feel invisible I'm a ghost watching my family engaging with each other, I feel like there's an invisible barrier that keeps me from joining them."

" If you asked me what I am feeling I wouldn't be able to tell you."

"I'm going though the motions of live but not connected to it, I wonder how the world keeps moving"

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend who said he'd been having a bad time and described a lot of the feelings I've just listed, when I said the word EMPTY! he smiled and said yes its exactly that, he told me he'd been to speak to someone about it as he didn't like the person he'd become; this is something he never thought he would ever do, he said he knew he was depressed but (not end this life depressed); this is the big problem with mental health and the big scary labels attached to it, there are some many different levels; just because your not suicidal doesn't mean there is nothing wrong. After a few sessions talking to someone he realised that the feelings he had were to do with the heart attack he'd had a few years ago, he had dealt with it the way most men do and shrugged it off as one of those things that happen in life. Once he realised this is were it all stemmed from, he started to make life changes by looking after himself better; he even started biking every morning with his wife which has help them as couple and is now feeling like his old self.

Menopause is such a big part of a woman's life and like my friend with his heart attack we often shrug off a lot of the symptoms as part of life, but acknowledging our emotions and what we are feeling really helps to understand what we need to do to help ourselves before things get out of control. You also get the times when you don't know how to describe what your feeling and that's when talking to someone really helps, like I said earlier this feeling is so common and talking to someone like my friend and saying that one word EMPTY! can help you understand what your feeling and knowing other people feel it to makes you feel less alone.

A Buddhist concept of emptiness doesn't mean that every single thing we encounter-including ourselves-goes beyond our ability to conceive it, we call it emptiness because nothing can explain it. Reality it's self is emptiness because we can't possibly fit it in to our minds.

After finding this Buddhist explanation it made me look at my empty feeling differently.

They are right we can't really explain it and does this mean our minds have finally got so full of thoughts that its switched its self of from emotions for a while. Maybe its time to embraces this no emotional feeling and let our minds have a break from our emotions for a bit .

It all sounds good in theory but the real world doesn't stop, we all still have jobs; family, responsibilities.Getting off life's Ferris wheel isn't really an option.

One of the things I have stopped doing is having me time; when I started blogging a year ago one of the first blogs I posted was about me time .

I started to give myself half an hour a day just for me; no one was aloud to talk to me, need me, just half an hour to reconnect with myself, everyone needa time to themselves.

Menopause has made me appreciate the days I feel like me because just as I start to feel like I have all the energy and lust for life back, The woman with low self esteem , lack of energy; anxious,forgetful woman returns.

I've decided to embrace the good days, if I feel like a teenager I'm going to act like one, watch out hubby if my sex drives back you better have the stamina to keep up; except the bad days are the days nothing will go to plan. Fighting against this menopause thing isn't working, here's to going with the menopause flow, to bring back zen in my house of hormones .