Menopause Messed with My Sobriety

GROWING AWARENESS –

July 5, 2023 – And this is what caused Melissa, my doctor, to wonder out loud: “Hey. Maybe it’s perimenopause?” Hot flashes, the often laughed-at harbinger of menopause, saved me. Sort of.

In 2021 I was still having full periods. Robust ones, if you would excuse the descriptor. To me, menopause seemed impossible. But, I was 52 and as I described the weird sweating events that were happening now, Melissa’s face all but lit up. “Yes! It’s probably just menopause!” She said this, triumphant that we finally had landed on something.

I shrugged wordlessly, relieved to be diagnosed. She seemed so blasé about it with this pronouncement. All women who are still lugging around their uteruses get it, so it must not be a big deal.

The thing is, I had a diagnosis, but I still felt like I was dying.

I had never experienced anything like this. It was a new frontier. And yet, most of my medical team acted like it was a simple fix: get on estrogen and get on with it.

Estrogen was supposed to be the cure, but it didn’t work for me. Two days into taking it I had a sickening dip in my depression that was so bad I considered hospitalization. But finally, with a whole slew of appointments and help from my psychologist, I started on a different anti-depressant and some supplements and slowly started to get better. Slowly.