How menopause bitch-slapped me and I became a superhero

I am not your average menopausal woman. I am the “type” who, mid-40s, flew London-Las Vegas-London one weekend for a Motley Crue gig. I am to this day still a well-known fixture in Nam Long, that fine late-night Vietnamese-Mexican London drinking establishment (home to Oscar, bartender extraordinaire and his notorious Flaming Ferrari). I have had a tumultuous life juggling a fast-paced career in a male-dominated industry against a backdrop of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll (OK nothing compared to the Crue). I was a career party girl who somehow managed to keep it all knit together pretty tightly.

I had been married, divorced, no kids and occasionally in stable relationships of varying durations. Racing against the clock of my rapidly waning conception window, my choice of partners in latter years definitely nailed that coffin shut. But, I’d made my choices and was happy to look forward to another 20-odd years of shenanigans, expected career and income growth and general misbehaviour.

Then I turned 45.

It all started with my spine. Over the course of my 45th year I was plagued with new unexplained pain throughout my body. The first culprit turned out to be my lower back – a herniated disc that resulted in an emergency operation, which failed. I was lectured by the handsome anesthesiologist on the perils of my lifestyle (boozy dinners, stress and sedentary job) and on the reality of wearing high heels not just to work but to the office chair (who knew – sitting in heels permanently shortens the calf muscles). I re-herniated a few months post-op not just in the same location but also in my neck. For those of you so inclined, that’s L5/S1 and C5/C6, a rare but debilitating combination at the bottom and top of the spine. The nature of my emergency operation also left me with permanent nerve damage in one leg. Later I would understand that disc weakness marked the beginning of my drop in estrogen.

My life unravelled from there. Already pretty humbled by my new mild physical disability, I unexpectedly lost my partner to a stroke. He died after 3 days in a coma during the pandemic – and we were in the middle of a house purchase overseas that collapsed. My first encounter with true, intimate, deep grief was brutal, made so much worse by social isolation. There was no ceremony, no support, none of the usual rites of passage that can help the grieving piece themselves back together. His family was on the other side of the planet, my friends in a different country.

My grief was raw and unhinged. I cried every day, several times a day for several months. Depression was constant, and anxiety reared its ugly head on occasion in weird places like behind the wheel of a car, something I had never experienced before.

I had moved back in with my parents during COVID and started noticing my mother’s behaviour changes. At 77, my fearless, independent, beautiful and creative mother was battling dementia and we were slowly, painfully losing her to this cruel disease. My rock-solid father soon after was diagnosed with cancer and I watched him bravely battle the side effects of aggressive chemotherapy. In a house filled with love arrived the unwelcome guest of heavy, terminal, helpless energy, strapped to the back of my grief.

Then, each month, a few days before my newly erratic period, I would become suicidal. Not hysterically so, just a baseline matter-of-fact unemotional review of the alternative to just end it all. It would last a day or two then disappear.

I didn’t take any time off work to grieve, which was probably a mistake, but I also found it to be a needed distraction. After a year of despair my critical brain needed to understand if it was still grief, which I had now identified as potentially complicated grief, or situational depression, or perimenopause which was gaining media attention.. or my bespoke perfect storm of all three, created just especially for me during my 47th year. 47, incidentally, reported to be the unhappiest age in life globally. Snap.

And as if the absolute mess that had become my life wasn’t enough, I was in a lawsuit over the next house I had tried to buy in an effort to downsize. Meanwhile, although I had managed to work throughout this tumultuous period as an independent consultant, market dynamics changed and I opted to resign from my last paying client.. willingly making myself technically unemployed in one of the worst recessions in history.

I knew that the work stuff would sort itself out as it always does. But unless I could get a grip on my health, optimism and general sense of identity, I wasn’t going to be of much use to anyone.

I researched and intuitively started trying several things.

I microdosed psylocibin and lion’s mane for a few weeks and I cut out all forms of sugar. My back rendered me unable to work out in a gym but I started going on long walks. Neuroscientist Dr. Alex Korb explains that subtle shifts are needed to reverse the spiral of depression. These three things caused a minute shift and the veil lifted enough for me to understand that my hormones were definitely out of whack.

I went to see a doctor who refused to give me HRT, claiming I was too young. I turned down the anti-depressant de rigueur then asked him for a strong birth control pill, made up of the two hormones that I knew from my research were rapidly falling: estrogen and progesterone. He agreed.

When I started the birth control pill that I had hated so much in my earlier years (it kills your libido – its true power as birth control is probably the disinterest in sex that ensues), ALL of my symptoms disappeared. The veil of depression dropped permanently and anxiety receded (it’s still right there under the surface though, I can feel its lingering presence, which is so odd for someone who has never been anxious in their life). My rage is gone as are any kind of suicidal thoughts at any time of the month.

The respite of the pill will give me enough time to put a longer term plan in place. I spoke to older friends who sailed through menopause with no adverse effects – but in my case, it’s a war that needs to be waged. The pill is not a long term solution; adequate HRT, anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle is.

If grief and COVID sparked my depression, perimenopause doused gasoline on it. I wasn’t a sad retreating spinster. I was an angry, isolated, devastated, abandoned quasi-orphan looking to self harm with no one to turn to who might understand what I was going through. I had no idea who I had become, or how I was going to crawl out of that hole.

Sometimes I wonder if the COVID vaccine and my subsequent COVID infection added cytokines to this perfect storm, but that’s another debate.

My story is unusual – it’s rare to encounter such a set of coinciding human circumstances. But it’s also not unique at all and human suffering cannot be judged. How many other women are struck down, baffled and devastated by how vulnerable they have become. Single-handedly clinging on to jobs and relationships whilst helplessly watching their health and sanity dissolve. And how many men and children are the unsuspecting collateral damage.

I felt like a slayed gladiator trying to get up again, humbled by the formidable power of my enemy. In her ground-breaking book «The XX Brain», neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi describes the complex impact of hormonal changes not just on female metabolism and reproductive organs but on the female brain itself and everything it governs (including my new histaminic reaction to alcohol). This complete redefinition of a human body introduces new elements to contend with. Elements that could be viewed as weaknesses if they are not turned into weapons. My allergy to alcohol may hurt my social life but makes for easy mornings and clearer thinking every single day which has improved my productivity. My insomnia has revealed that I need far less sleep these days. I am also more sensitive to many things – medication, intentions, energy. I can read people the minute they walk into a room. I need homeopathic amounts of anything to get the full effect, and then some – after many years I’ve ditched sleeping pills and successfully replaced them with valerian root.

I have decided that I am morphing into a superhero, joining a new tribe of other warrior women and men as we become more aware of the true impact and implications of longevity. Harnessing how to optimise our new talents in the workplace is the next collective challenge. It’s no surprise that women’s earnings on average peak at 44, in the throes of perimenopause and some 11 years earlier than men. Yet women over 50 have secret powers. It’s up to us to harness them and step into our magnificent omniscience. In many ways, after 50, a woman can think more «like a man», no longer clouded by surges of female hormones, but, unlike men, with the benefit of half a century of understanding how to think like a woman. If that’s not a superpower…

If women were meant to live beyond our birth vessel capabilities then we were invariably meant to become stronger from the experience.

I’ve been to war and back. I very much choose to live and celebrate my version 2.0 as this rebirth unfolds, but most of all I hope future generations of women and men will better understand what lies ahead. Change, like pain, is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

“Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens. – Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.” Frederick Nietzsche, 1888