spare change

[rm]

When I was twelve and we had spent a good week of health class learning how to draw fallopian tubes, I remember being shocked to see another girl my age in the ladies room put a quarter in the machine to buy a maxi-pad. You see, they had told us how everything worked, but not that its working was, in fact, immanent. Twelve seemed very young to be a physical adult to me, and I assumed it was all a long way off. I got an unexceptional a year and a half of reprieve.

Similarly, I have to say, 36 seems pretty damn young to be going through another physical phase shift, but it's become apparent to me over the last several months that sometime in the last year I've entered perimenopause. Night sweats; freakish ill-logical changes in my cycle; and yes, even the occasional hot flash.

It turns out, of course, that 35, while outlying, is considered within the normal range for this nonsense to start. It is unexceptional, except for the part where no one told me that. Thank goodness for the Internet.

We don't talk about menstruation, about menopause. I see a "ladies only" cut on my friends-list at least once a day, and I wonder that we so have to shield men from the fact that we bleed. I don't get it, and I don't like it. Of course, I almost didn't have the nerve to post this. The taboo is huge.

Perhaps it's not about the blood, but about age and utility and sexual vitality, all of which makes the matter more egregious somehow. I was so negligible when I was eighteen; I am so substantive now.

When I was eighteen, I talked about everything, and I said it was important, critical even, that we talk about the ordinary things that most people do, but no one ever confesses too: I slept with a married man. I had an abortion. I grabbed my mother's arm hard enough to bruise.

If what I said back then is to be considered one of my essential beliefs as opposed to an excuse for the loud and perhaps inappropriate self-indulgence of my past, then I have to note this particular set of events as well.

Four days ago my period ended. Yesterday it decided to have another go for a day. Presumably this is the part where my progesterone levels are slightly off, and if it really bothered me, I could go to the doctor and go on birth control or find another medical solution to make this nonsense stop happening.

Except I can't. Because on the list of things I was never told along with the age menstruation begins and the age it takes on a mind of its own was that my grandmother and her sister both died of hormone sensitive breast cancer. My mother had a breast removed in 2007 for the same reason.

This is all unremarkable. Except for the part where my body is perhaps doing me a favor getting this whole thing under way sooner than later, except for the part where I'm telling you goodness this is strange.

I have other lives than this: somewhere I bore five children, always wear dresses and live on the beach; somewhere I've got an entirely different set of tackle. Those lives are no less real, and perhaps no less unexpected; I'm not sure, being unable to be in two places at once, all pretense aside. It doesn't matter anyway, they aren't this life. All times may be now, but all places -- not as much.

I can't imagine this will be something I talk about very much. Like celiac disease, it's one more piece of the background noise. But I've lived most of my life in New York City, and if there's one thing that teaches anyone: sometimes the background noise roars.

Comments

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sort of thing really squicks men out. You want to clear a room of men so we women can talk about them? First, start talking about your "lady problems".

But you are about the same age as my mom was when she started going through menopause and all that. I somehow managed to wait another 10 years for me.

I started back in 1997 by bleeding for a month solid. Then it stopped and returned to normal and slowly faded out over the course of a few years. Haven't had a period in so long I almost forget what they were like.

Fair warning, tho' that hot flashes and steam heat do NOT go together. Then there are the skin problems.....

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I just turned 40 and started dealing with perimenopausal stuff about 4 years ago. Nothing major, just an total inability to deal with body temperature at all. I'd be freezing one minute and tearing off all my clothes because I was about to boil the next, in rapid cycles. Doing this in full Norman with veils and circlets is about as fun as wrestling a porcupine in a sleeping bag. ;-p

After what had been pretty steady after having had a kid, my cycle started to change at about the same time and now, I expect things to stay the same for about a year-18 months and then things change again. The flow changes, the duration, something.

As all my closest, older than me female relatives are dead (I've my mom's sister, but we've never been close) I'm pretty much SOL for this sort of thing. I'm also loving the internet for this sort of thing because some of it, I'd feel dumb asking docs about (having had a bad experience with one laughing at my questions about 15 years ago; there's a way to instill your patients with confidence).

The guys around me have gotten used to my vague mentions of my cycle as my migraines are pretty much a by product of them. They come like clock work and when I get a headache, all I have to do is a quick calendar check to know if it's one I can ignore, or if it's time to break out the heavy duty meds for.

I hope things settle down, quickly. I like having things just go along.

Oh, and since I've got a daughter, she's learning all about her body and what it does and about when things things'll start happening. I so don't want her to be as clueless as I was. (Having a grandmother tell me about menstruation was painful; I stopped listening when she said that tampons would take my virginity.)

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Oh, my mom and I both got migraines. But I learned from Mom that they will fade away as you go through menopause. So you do have that to look forward to.

Granted, Mom and I were not tied to our cycles so much. Mom had food triggers. I had only one migraine that I know was a food trigger but the rest seem to be mostly exhaustion.

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

Twelve seemed very young to be a physical adult to me, and I assumed it was all a long way off.

I got mine before we learned how to draw fallopian tubes and such. My mother hadn't even talked to me yet. I was one confused and scared little 9 year old, let me tell you.

Elementary school bathrooms are not equipped for such eventualities. :/

There is a culture of not talking about it. Or worse, shame around it. I'll never forget Dylan in my fifth grade class grabbing my purse and showing the class I had a Stayfree in it. I was so embarrassed and horrified. I got mocked and bullied and even GRABBED because of it.

except for the part where I'm telling you goodness this is strange.

I'll bet it is. I'm just a couple of years younger than you, and the idea it could be so soon is a bit mindboggling to me. I, too, was never told such things.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

I'm totally hoping they'll go away with menopause.

Thanks for the added info!

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get period-related migraines too, and they're a recent development which is pointing to perimenopause for me as well. A friend who has suffered PMDD for years is disappointed each time she gets her period again after going months without it. Another aspect we don't talk about is the effect of hormones on our mental states. The worst times of my mother's mental illness seemed to have arrived with menopause, and so as I head towards menopause I find myself worried about maintaining my sanity.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

i will state that you need to discuss the whole "early menopause+ family history" thing with your ob gyn.

this is why i started the group Moonlodge over on yahoogroups. because people DONT talk about it. and my husband? when i first went to buy pads? he asked if they dont hurt???
wtf?
well it says adhesive? no belts?
yea
doesnt it hurt?
wtf?
repeat until he found out that the adhesive went on the panty......

I don't get it, and I don't like it

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

I don't get it, and I don't like it either.
I've bought tampons for someone simply because I wanted her to represent me in the provincial parliament, and I had to go get some things for the campaign anywhere.
The strength of the taboo seems to be crucial to keeping women out of power, the most bizarrely misogynist man I've ever know was berserk on the topic-simply tampon machines-not being discussed, because it was somehow offensive to him. Unfortunately, the place he violently objected to it being discussed was during a meeting of the University GFC, and there *were* no tampon dispensers in the women's bathrooms.

migraines

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

if you rmigraines are not entirely hormone induced, try mega doses of B vitamins.. they work on mine

Re: migraines

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Been doing that for over a year, as per doc recommendation. They keep the headaches manageable, meaning, when one hits I'm still functional. I went off them because I'd forgotten how bad they could be without them and got a reminder that pretty much put me out of commission for three days. :-P

[these-3-remain.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed this vignette.

[askeladden.livejournal.com]

My mom went through menopause at exactly the same time I went through puberty.

That was fun.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Taboos that keep women uninformed about their health are only there to be broken. I salute you for breaking this one.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

The worst times of my mother's mental illness seemed to have arrived with menopause,

...and suddenly, I don't feel so alone.

[dine.livejournal.com]

one place to talk about this (and related topics) is fenopause, a newish community for fans dealing with menopause and similar aging-related issues. folks range from early 30s to their 50s+, and it's low-traffic, but informative

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup. I posted a freak out there yesterday, because I was like IS THIS NORMAL?

[angstzeit.livejournal.com]

I've never quite understood why people get so freaked (beyond the few with a real phobia). But then I'm one of those people who really likes to know things and finds ignorance, especially willed, a bit revolting.

I wish I'd been told about many normal body strangenesses so I wouldn't have had to endure confusion and embarrassment. So more power to communication.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

It's terrifying, and we can't talk about it. We can't acknowledge it at all because that would seem to give ammunition to misogynists.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

*facepalm*

Every time someone claims feminism has done its job, I will probably think of this.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

mostly because they get told its "yicky" or they dont cope with blood anyway.

also? there are SO many hang ups that go with the female "equipment" (and i include breasts) that its hard to know where to start.

why men find it so incredibly appalling? i can only guess, since my husband was more confused than anything else. i know most men find "blood coming out of something"to equal "wounded" and the idea that women just bleed... regularly..... for "no reason" sort of freaks a few of them...
other than that i have no clue.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

What do you mean?

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

The fact that we can't talk about our mothers having mental issues because we're fueling misogynist fires.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

My best friend longs for menopause because she sees it as the end of her PMDD, and I find myself dreading it because I don't want to be my mother. And neither of us feels the glorification of women's phases that some varieties of feminism claim.

How do we begin to talk about these things in ways so that they don't backfire on us, don't promote the accusation of hysteria all over again?

[kessie.livejournal.com]

and I wonder that we so have to shield men from the fact that we bleed

Huh, at work it doesn't seem that big a deal. I think we assume they've all had to endure a cranky rant about the bleeding from at least one girlfriend at some point or another. Anything it's randomly come up, none of the guys seem very uncomfortable or run from the room.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't actually think men are particularly uptight about it, but I do think women have been trained to assume they will be.