Published on 12, July, 2020
I am at the end of the menopase journet for quite some time but I wonder what it was like for other people.
For me I was fascinated by it and it became my Special interest for a number of years.
One thing it did was make it harder to mask, which was liberating for me and baffling to some who did not really know me well.
Hi Uhane. I chose to go down the HRT route, so that has therefore limited my experience of affecting my autism and other things. I am 1 year into menopause and for me before HRT it was all about hot flushes at night keeping me awake.
What's it like at the end of the journey?
I found perimenopause harder than the actual menopause itself. I didn't want to go down the HRT route and chose a medical herbalist to make me a tailor made brew to help, after a while I dropped that and just took sage tablets for the hot flushes. There are options that aren't hormonal, when I was in hospital the consultant was happy for me to keep taking the herbs and told one of his junior collegues off for challenging me about them. He said he wished he could prescribe them as he saw to many patients with hormone sensitive cancers that would benefit from them.
On the whole I love being post menopausal, I feel liberated from the monthly round of mood swings, pain and mess, I feel like myself every day of the month, I have no libido at all and I never realised how much brain space that took up, now I feel like I've got an extension in my head, more room for the things I want to do rather than the things my meat suit needs me to do.
"meat suit" I love it.
Your story is very similar to mine. Very liberating. During menopause i had a book "Wise woman ways, the menopausal years" that was very helpful. I changed my diet and underwent a major intestinal cleanse. I had been looking forward to menopause to be free of the roller coaster ride that was menses. For about a year I lived on pop corn and watermelon, the only 2 foods that did not give me hot flashes.
I did not use hormone therapies. They felt wrong to me. I felt that because this was a natural phenomenon it was counter to that nature to try and mediate it with meds. I used herbs like Don quai, wild yam, black cohosh and the like.
I wanted to see what nature had in store for me. Also, I felt, the meds were to make men feel more comfortable with us as we aged into a stage in life they could not understand. This was the biggest reason other women gave me for taking them. It postponed the change with hormonal mimicry. It just felt wrong. I used foods and herbs and "forest" bathing instead.
I also started to feel more comfortable expressing myself more authentically, without feeling apologetic about it in front of others.
To myself: "OK, young crone, let's have at it!" (rubs palms together and claps).
thanks for sharing your story.