Why Doesn't Anyone Ever Warn You About Perimenopause?

I turned 41 last week, and though my sweet mother was in town to bless me, it wasn’t the best birthday of my life. I spent the majority of it doubled over in paralyzing fear, coaching myself through square breathing techniques so I wouldn’t hyperventilate, and holding back tears as the ultrasonographer moved a slimy transducer back and forth across my abdomen, taking all kinds of measurements of things that I could only assume were massive tumors that were going to kill me and leave my children without a mother.

No one really warns you that perimenopausal hormone fluctuations can turn you into a raving lunatic, a reality for which I was NOT prepared when it happened to me.

I am not a naturally anxious person at all. I often struggle to empathize with those who are. The “Suck it up, Buttercup” inclination in me is pretty strong. I’ve seen fear completely dominate too many people I love, and I want nothing to do with it. And for the most part, that’s been my reality. I don’t sit around worrying about death or letting anxiety call the shots in my daily life.

But here I was curled up in a ball on my 41st birthday completely consumed with the unshakable belief that my abdominal bloating and flank pain were, in fact, ovarian cancer and that my kids were going to have to soldier on without me. This intrusive thought was like a scratched CD that got stuck on an endless loop of the same note: “You’re dying, Kaeley,” it insisted. Over and over and over again. I could think of nothing else. What would happen to my kids?

This is what’s known as “catastrophizing,” and it’s common in people with complex PTSD diagnoses. It’s basically a desperate, clawing attempt to control pain before it can have the chance to devastate us by taking us by surprise. And when I stress out about things, my go-to comfort (besides prayer and worship music) is research. Let’s just say researching my symptoms on the internet did NOT improve my headspace.

Neither did overspiritualizing the ordeal. Here are a couple of the other intrusive thoughts I had to ward off in the process: “See, Kaeley. The theobros were right. You have actually embraced a spirit of bitterness, and now your body is suffering because of it.” And “Your prayer life has been too anemic. You’re too double-minded, so now God is going to test you.”

Logically I knew this was poor theology, that the devil was capitalizing off my imbalance and doing his best to leverage it to stop me in my tracks, but logic wasn’t exactly in the driver’s seat, so that was tough to manage. It’s the weirdest, most disorienting thing to be a logical thinker caught in a deeply illogical frame of mind, to be able to recognize it, but to feel powerless to snap out of it. It gave me so much more compassion for people who live this way all the time.

A C.S. Lewis quote came to mind. (I’m paraphrasing.) “It’s not necessarily that we doubt God’s best for us; it’s that we worry how painful God’s best will turn out to be.” As a rather bullheaded woman, I’m used to some painful lessons. I was really dreading another one.

As you probably guessed, it turns out I don’t actually have ovarian cancer. I have a gallstone and wonky thyroid levels. I’m not dying; I’m just getting older, and I’m riding the rollercoaster of emotions that accompany perimenopausal hormone imbalances. But as I process all of this, it occurs to me that I really had no idea any of this would or could happen to otherwise logical people. It took me by complete surprise.

So I decided to blog about it because I have to believe there are other silent victims of mutant hormones, and they should know they’re not alone. And now that we’ve all safely survived the apocalyptic eclipse, I figure there’s a lot more life to be lived without the burden of perimenopausal psychosis dragging us down.

During this whole fiasco, my loyal best friend sent me a worship playlist that I played on repeat to counter the lies my fear was telling me. One song in particular calmed my spirit, specifically the much needed reminder that “I’m no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God.” As I listened to it, I looked over at my toddler’s sweet face and realized there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do to protect him, and I chose to believe in that moment that I have a heavenly Father who looks at me the same way and with the same love. I chose to believe that, no matter what, His plans are good, and my children’s lives are safe in His hands because He loves them even more than I do.

It took some prayerful friends to help walk me out of my funk. If you’re in a funk of your own, don’t be embarrassed, and don’t isolate. Get your hormone levels checked. Call a friend. Go for a walk. Blast some worship music. Interrupt the intrusive thought cycle. Ask for help.

You aren’t alone. God sees you, and people care.