What I wish I knew about perimenopause before I turned 35.

The important clues I missed at the time, and why ignorance of perimenopause (in our late 30's) is definitely not bliss.

I’m a 44 year old woman, and I believe I am perimenopausal.

I say ‘I believe I am’, rather than simply ‘I am’, because the term ‘perimenopause’ refers to a fairly nebulous, transitional expanse of time, with no neat & tidy announcement of its arrival, and with very blurry edges between what can be attributed to it, and what can instead be attributed to, well, the everyday stresses of modern life. Of course, it is also incredibly difficult, especially through the NHS, to have any meaningful physiological or hormonal testing done, to confirm exactly where we are in our perimenopause journey.

So - I believe I am perimenopausal. That will have to do for now.

But at least I have this belief now. And having this belief truly matters - to my health, my sanity and to my relationships.

Looking back now, no longer from a place of ignorance, but from of a place of being informed and empowered with knowledge about perimenopause (a place I have unbelievably only just entered in the last year) - I now believe that my story of my perimenopause started when I was 37 years old.

At this age, after a truly WONDERFUL few years in my mid-30’s (of footloose and fancy free single-girl living, flat-sharing in a gorgeous flat, with a new best friend, Saturday nights spent drinking & dancing, becoming a triathlete with such a fun group of new friends, skiing for the first time, and doing really well at work) … everything suddenly began to feel harder and harder for me, and I started to struggle in a hundred ways I hadn’t struggled in before. And for every year that past after my 37th birthday - my coping skills for life seemed to become less and less effective, no matter what I tried.

Looking back, my first clue was feeling more easily overwhelmed, & more stressed. I also became far less likely to tolerate & smile politely in the face of hearing utter bullshit (both personally, and at work), and I was more quick to anger and rage than ever before. I also had a sense of feeling incredibly unsettled in my life and wanting something different … I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I wanted to change or achieve, but I had a feeling of very itchy feet at that time in my life, and a strange sense that I was somewhat lost to myself.

This cluster of emotional experiences, beginning at age 37, led to a very eventful few years for me between 2017 & 2019 …

In 2017, feeling fed up with my friends and my romantic prospects in Kent, where I was living at the time, and feeling way more exhausted than ever from my 1 hour 45 minute (each way, on a good day) commute from Kent to Kensington, I made a fairly snap decision one weekend to move from Kent to London. A chance conversation had alerted me to a room becoming available, through a friend-of-a-friend, in a lovely multi-level flat in South Kensington - it was a stone’s throw from both Hyde Park, and the V&A, and I could afford it, so I was EXCITED. I jumped at the chance … and I left somewhat of a trail of destruction with my then best friend & flatmate (who was the same person), with the swiftness of my decision.

From 2017-2018, I then went on to experience several significant & painful friendship breakdowns (including with that friend/flatmate, who’d been so integral to my wonderful mid-30’s).

I also promptly moved back to Kent within just seven months of landing in London - My excitement for London life had panned out to … well … a continuation of that same feeling, which I still couldn’t put my finger on, except to say that I felt in my bones and in my heart that I just wasn’t mean to be there - that it simply wasn’t a right fit for me. I had to admit, that if I was honest with myself, I was still feeling very lost, despite the excitement of the move.

So back to Kent I went in 2018 - The commute didn’t get any easier, and my patience for all the work-related stressors was diminishing by the week - I loved my actual psychology work with the clients, but I was VERY cranky with everything else I had to manage at work - the poor administrative support, the endless unproductive meetings, the less-than-constructive team dynamics, the red tape, the bureaucracy - and I was feeling hopeless that anything could ever made any better.

I remember one moment in particular when a new member of staff, younger and in a more junior role than me, was excitedly talking about her ideas for how we could make our service more efficient and effective for our clients … and I snapped back with a deadpan tone: “It’s pointless, I’ve been here more than 3 years, nothing really ever changes here”. The hurt look on her face will forever be burnt on my minds-eye.

It’s telling that this moment sticks out in my memory, because this sort of retort was really unlike me - Not only was I generally a really great team-player in my NHS career, but I have worked harder & longer than most to try to improve NHS services for the better, for clients & staff. My palpable hopelessness, at this time in my life, was a real deviation for me - I think I shocked even myself with this comment, and tone with which it was delivered.

I was doing everything I knew how to do to increase my self-care in the face of these increases stresses and growing hopelessness and anger - I was prioritising more sleep, meditating, and keeping a gratitude journal. I was eating what I considered to be a fairly healthy diet. I was going to the gym, I was swimming, and I even took up yoga for the first time.

In an attempt to bring more fresh air and exercise to my commute, I also started renting a ‘Boris bike’ from Charing Cross, where my train came in from Kent, and cycling to Kensington for work - rather than sitting underground on the dreary District Line for 20 minutes. At first I loved it, and I felt virtuous. London is far more gorgeous above ground than below, and I felt lucky to take it in everyday while doing something GREAT for my wellbeing!

But the appeal soon wore off … It was a hassle carrying a helmet and a bright yellow reflective jacket every day, and it became even more tedious in the rain, or when the Boris bikes were (frequently) broken, or when there was an empty station where I needed one (or a full station where I needed to drop one off). And I had to admit, as much as it was a thrill to cycle through London - past Buckingham Palace each day, and between all the gorgeous Chelsea homes & shops - I was also experiencing several spikes in fear and anxiety on each ride, when taxis or trucks came way to close for comfort, particularly at traffic lights, or whenever I needed to make a dreaded right-hand turn.

Then one fateful morning, which I will never forget, I was cycling to work when a man (a very ‘business-looking’ man, with a suit and briefcase) walked out in front of me to cross the road - There was a zebra crossing between me and him, but he was nowhere near it. To this day, I do not believe I was cycling dangerously at all, and I wholeheartedly believe that I was never in any danger of hitting him. But I’ll also concede that I didn’t slow down and smile at him, and apologise for me being there, while he exercised his apparent sense of undeniable right to walk wherever he pleased, without concern for anyone else’s movements (can you sense the ever so slightly feminist eye-roll I’m doing right now?) … He made glaring eye contact with me, and yelled something like ‘fucking hell, watch out!’, and I (quite overtaken by a sudden feminist rage that felt very new for me) held his gaze, while continuing to cycle, and yelled back: ‘Oh, fuck off! Use the zebra crossing next time!’

What came next, as I cycled on, was a cascade of complex and mixed feelings. On the one hand, I felt incredibly liberated in that moment - I wholehearted believed that I had just as much right to use the road as him, and that if he was going to ignore the road rules then that was on him, not on me. And yet, at the exact same time, I also felt incredibly scared - mostly that he would chase me down and say and do goodness knows what, but also as well a a bit scared of my own anger - I was honestly thinking to myself: ‘Where on earth did that come from?!’ I noticed immediately that I hadn’t even felt particularly wound up for any other reason prior to this altercation, but the rage that came from me was lighting fast, and furious. Thankfully he didn’t chase after me (phew), and the rest of my cycle to work was uneventful, aside from my fast-beating heart from the excitement of it all.

Nonetheless, this interaction was a wake up call of sorts for me. This sort of quick-fire rage at random strangers was new for me. Standing up for myself so forcefully in the face of an angry man was also new for me. ‘Old me’ would have smiled and would have probably chirped a cheery ‘sorry!’, before I’d even thought about it.

Before I go on, let’s recap on the kaleidoscope of experiences I’d been having over these few short years: The feeling unsettled & the somewhat drifting or ‘lost’ feeling; the friendship changes; the increased anxiety, stress, overwhelm & hopelessness; the lowered tolerance for bullshit; the increased self-care, and (at the same time) burgeoning feminist rage … I know now, looking back with my current knowledge, that all of these are common experiences for women in the early years of perimenopause. But on that morning, I didn’t know any of this.

So, not knowing about perimenopause, when I got that wake up call of rage that morning, I interpreted it to mean something different - I concluded that it meant I was burning out, due entirely to my work. And since I felt so hopeless about my workplace ever changing, and because I was receiving very little meaningful support within my job - I quit.

By this time, it was the end of 2018 - I would then take 5 months off work (yes, I was very privileged to be able to do so, and I was consciously grateful every day for that privilege) - to rest, do more yoga, travel to Australia for my Dad’s wedding, and then straight onto the USA to study & gain a certified qualification with Brené Brown’s company. When I returned, I felt so much better again, and I set up my own private psychology practice - determined to offer great psychology services with integrity, and without endlessly stressful red tape & bureaucracy.

And it would work for me, for a little while - before a redundancy, a pregnancy, becoming a parent, and a global pandemic would make me realise it hadn’t just been my previous job that has caused all my stress, anxiety and rage.

And sadly, in 2019, at age 39, I was still 4 years off learning about perimenopause, so those next four years got way harder again, so it was back to self-blame and self-doubt for me, for a long while yet …

( … psst - can you glimpse here just how much inspiration I’ve got, for MANY more Substack posts on this topic ?!)

When I finally realised that the term ‘perimenopause’ applied to me, years later, it made everything make sense. It meant that I felt less alone in my struggles. It meant that I no longer believed that there must be something wrong with me. It meant that I felt far less shame, and loads more self compassion, and it meant that I finally had a clue as to how to help myself with all of these struggles, and through them to better times - it meant I could finally see a light at the end of a years-long, very dark & scary tunnel indeed.

I often wonder how I would have navigated those tricky years, if it had not crept up on me like this, with a string of seemingly random experiences, which all lead me to self-blame, or ‘work-blame’, instead of what was really going on. What if instead of self-blame, I had thought - ‘oh, yes, right, this constellation of experiences might be that perimenopause I’ve read so much about - its about the right time for me to entering it’. And what if I’d seen these newly developing skills - in bullshit detection, increased self-care, and defending myself more - as the absolute GOLD that is buried in amongst all the hard symptoms of perimenopause, from the start, rather than interpreting them for YEARS as me simply ‘fraying at the edges’ and ‘failing to manage life’?

I can’t know for sure of course, but I’m almost certain that I’d have suffered far less, been far more prepared, and made my potentially life-changing decisions in that time more from my heart & soul, rather than from a place reactivity, from my stress, overwhelm & burnout.

I guess I’ve written this post because it’s exactly the sort of thing that I needed to read when I was 35. To learn not just about the dry, bare-bones of what perimenopause is, but to hear a personal story of how it impacted so many areas of a real woman’s life, in small and big ways. I hope this post brings to life in some way what early perimenopause can actually feel like.

I have a hope that some menstruating people, younger than me, might read it, and might gain some clues about what to look out for, in their own life, to strengthen their own awareness, and research, into their own perimenopause. I also wonder whether some older, perhaps even post-menopausal women, might also read it, and may then have an opportunity to feel that their own previously unexplained experiences of stress, anxiety, and burnout in their 30’s can also be made sense of through a perimenopause lens, in retrospect?

And I wonder, if so, whether that might relieve some of their own self-blame, and instead bring self-forgiveness and self compassion to their hearts - I sincerely hope so.

Jenny x

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My awareness of perimenopause has come from a lot of research and resources, but the two that came most to mind as I typed this post are:

1. The Menopause Reset - A book about the holistic care we need through perimenopause and menopause, by Dr. Mindy Pelz, and

2. The teaching of Red School regarding the psycho-spiritual processes of the menopause transition, taught to me so far largely through their Menstruality Podcast & book Wise Power

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I am Dr. Jenny Turner, a Clinical Psychologist and founder of Mind Body Soul Psychology - a private psychology practice that offers UK-wide online therapy and consultation. I specialise in working to support women emotionally and psychologically, through a societal & systemic lens - If you are wondering whether I might also be able to support you, to navigate your own menopause journey, or indeed to navigate through any other challenging time of your life, please do contact me.