Emotional Menopause Symptoms, Your Emotional Hot Flashes
Going through menopause is like falling in love. Others don’t understand the full impact until they experience it. Anyone who hasn’t done it wonders why these people get so worked up about it.
How could anything be so exasperating and emotionally intense, enough to cause a person to be unable to sleep, have sweaty palms, become forgetful and distracted and impatient?
Get a grip, these life-experience neophytes might think.
Lovers nod and smile dreamily, as if to say, "I know, I know, I never understood it either.
But now I know what all the fuss was about. Words can't explain what it feels like. It is amazing."
Menopausers also nod and smile, but through gritted teeth, eyes blazing, as if to say, "How do you feel about sleeping in the garage, chump?"
To some, menopause is no big deal. But to women, it's the final proof that God must be a man.
Women view menopause in many ways throughout history. A few hundred years ago, it gave women relief and joy, because it signaled the end of their baby-producing mission.
Years later, it was a malady that needed treatment because of the horrendous suffering it caused. More recently, women consider menopause an unpleasant nuisance that they can, or even should, control pharmaceutically.
Regardless of society's view, the symptoms haven't changed. Estrogen production starts slowing down an average of four years before full-blown menopause settles in.
This stage we call "perimenopause," special in its own right because this is when women begin the phenomenon lovingly and warmly referred to as the "hot flash" ("power surge" to nonconformists).
Just as there are hot flashes in the physical symptoms of menopause, you can also experience emotional hot flashes.
Their periods may gradually become irregular, they may occasionally have uncharacteristic trouble sleeping; and their breasts may be more tender than usual. Part Two of this guide to menopause covers in detail, the physical symptoms of menopause.
They will have occasional mood swings that may catch them by surprise and leave them wondering if they have finally lost it.
Legions of women can testify: Perimenopause exists for no other reason than to taunt women with a sneak preview of the real fate toward which they are heading at the speed of rock formation.
Gradually its victims will find new outlets for sarcasm and kvetching (and, by golly, sometimes it feels darn good).
Declining estrogen levels enable them be more resourceful when it comes to discovering the faults of those around them, at home and at work, and to have fewer reticence about pointing out said faults to the offenders. Unconditional love is good for menopausers to be beneficiaries of now.
While not as dangerous to one's health as osteoporosis and heart disease, the following can deal painful blows one's self-image:
. Short-term memory loss and distraction, which can lead to near-panic in mall parking lots when one's car is not where one is sure it was left
. Or when one finds a room-temperature quart of milk on the pantry shelf next to the cereal.
No reason to fret, however-feeling pushed off one's pedestal of sought-after sex goddess can be liberating. It's also a good opportunity to create a new pedestal for one's self: worldly-wise woman of mystery who knows secrets men can't even dream of.
While they wait for their new pedestals to rise from the ashes of those flaming hot flashes, menopausers should talk to their doctors about how best to deal with the most annoying emotional menopause symptoms by:
. Yoga, swimming or other kinds of exercise
. Supplements such as Remifemen, known generically as black cohosh, and Promencil
. Antidepressants and anxiety-reducers
. Something as simple as green tea, scented candles, new makeup, new hairstyles or other forms of self-pampering
. Sleep aids such as melatonin or prescription drugs
. Soy products, such as tofu and soy milk, thought to relieve some symptoms
If you are a menopauser and your doctor is dismissive and implies your symptoms are all in your head, simply find another doctor who will treat them for what they are: real complaints about real problems that are emotional menopause symptoms.
It's possible our grandmothers may not have realized how dead-on they were when they used another descriptive term because "menopause" sounded too clinical-the "Change of Life." Amen, sisters.
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