This beginning of menopause stuff is really not fun.... 

 

#1 – The warm flashes are no big deal. The mega freaky super HOT flashes are flippin' scary as all get out.  I mean, really…. let's think about this.   I'm just sitting around doing nothing more or less than anyone else, and all of a sudden I'm so hot I start sweating.  Everyone else, of course, is still chilled and wearing hoodies while I'm literally dying and desperate to remove at least one layer of whatever I'm wearing.   A few minutes later, and I'm freezing again.   It's terribly unnerving.

 

#2 – The messed up stomach "stuff" is almost equally as freaky.  I'm kind of hungry, but I can't eat more than a few bites without feeling full, and moments later suffering from absurdly bad heartburn. --  what a wonder of nature!  Like this morning…  After a rocky evening of heartburn and feeling inexplicably bloated, I hadn't eaten anything for about 15 hours.  I was a little bit hungry, but at the same time, I still felt a little bit full.  So I had an apple, or at least part of one – I couldn't finish the whole thing.  Granted, a lot of people can NEVER finish a decent-sized apple.  I'm not one of those people.  I can almost always eat "the whole thing".  Until now.  Now I eat a container of yogurt and I'm stuffed beyond stuffed….  But only for about an hour and then I'm hungry again, most certainly because I'm not really getting much at one time. 

 

#3 – The mood swings are ridiculous.  I can be in a GREAT mood, and suddenly, something will set me off, and I'll be so upset about something that it's almost unbelievable.  And the weird things is that half way into being upset,  I realize I'm being unreasonable, but I can't stop it.   And the crying is annoying.  I've always been "a cryer", but now it's just silly.  Sometimes, I cry at the drop of a hat, and I don't just mean that I tear up…. Nope.  I sob.  It's making me want to sob right now over the silliness of it.

 

#4 – The irritability is irritating!  Not to be confused with the mood swings that hit without warning.  The irritability is a nagging feeling that I'm about to explode because everything is just, well, irritating.  My hair feels like it's tangling around my neck, my shirt is just plain itchy, my bracelets are squeezing my wrist such that my hand will fall off, the sound of the air is like fingernails on a chalkboard, and the little voice in my head is screaming for everyone else to just "shut up".   The irritability can herein be differentiated from the mood swings – with the mood swings, I actually DO scream for everyone to "shut up".  With the irritability, my mental edits remain in place (mostly). 

 

#5 – The sleeplessness.  Oh, the sleeplessness!  If I wasn't already moody, with a messed up tummy, I would be just from the lack of sleep!  Every couple of weeks, I have about 6 days of virtually no sleep.   And it's never the same sleeplessness.  Some nights, I can't fall asleep.  Other nights, I fall asleep quickly, but then wake up again after a short time.  Still other nights, I just sleep restlessly – never really soundly asleep, but never really awake, either.

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that…. THIS STINKS.  I'm going to start praying that it doesn't last long.