One day you’re a successful business woman, wife, mother, friend… the next you’re in a fetal position on the kitchen floor wondering if it’s all going to end in a stagger into a deep lake with stones in your pocket. Although you’re not Virginia Woolfe so it’s more likely to be a desperately clutched wine bottle and a face wash to clean up the dodgy mascara streaks. Also you need to plaster a smile before the kids get back; you know somehow through the fog that it’s important to look less mad.
Honestly, I didn’t know what had hit me. And nor did my ever patient husband. Or my lovely sons. I know for most people things happen gradually, and I think it did for me too, but add all sorts of stress and it seemed in retrospect to just exacerbate everything in one foul swoop - and my body and nervous system felt like it went into freefall.
Fast forward four years and I know my name again. I know truly who I am. And although I know it’s me, I’m fundamentally changed. It’s as though I’ve been through the dark deep forest of old folk tales, that fire of struggle and emerged tempered like steel, and strong like that too. One day I opened the front door and found myself standing there and I welcomed myself in, and began learning to know myself all over again. And you know what? This new person? I like her.
So what the heck happened!? Looking back I feel like a freight train whooshed passed and I'm left with my head spinning. Apparently - that's menopause for you.
Key take away, there's hope and I'm going to discuss why over the coming weeks.