Teenager Girl vs Menopausal Woman (It is not a fight)

Damn not entirely sure which is worse:

Being a teenager with PMS or a woman with Menopausal Emotion Wave.

At least with PMS there was a designated time.

You could count on a calendar and have an aha moment.

Not with MEW.

As I write this it is 6:37 a.m.

I have been up for an hour and a half.

In this time period:

-felt happy

-felt pain (shoulder)

-felt energetic striped bed and did laundry.

-cried

-went in and woke T up for a hug.

Just so one knows he has been awake his dad picks him up at 7.

-cried some more

-admitted to being lonely to a friend

-feeling sexual

-feeling pretty

-felt old

-feeling stupid for feeling lonely

-decided to write about it because it may seem embarrassing but hey it is also funny.

I am teenager again in reverse.

Which might explain the few zits that have cropped up of late.

With the chocolate I eat well…..

Weight gain.

I lost weight as a teen.

Now I am putting it on.

Calmer. More accepting.

I was volatile and angry as a teenager.

I know the reason now but still…..

Man Crazy.

LMAO

Boy Crazy.

Not so much so I spent my high school years in a relationship.

Volatile.

PMS has morphed into MEW.

Also the pain in my shoulder is better and not better at same time.

I have so much better movement and most of the knots have been loosened .

But for the one that was really deep on the right side.

It is moving now.

And while I have a really high threshold for pain this pain has made me cry more than once.

I know what it is.

I know how to deal with it.

This is my fault.

What I cannot do is take anything stronger than Motrin.

I have waivered a couple of times.

When the pain is overwhelming.

And each time I have shot it down with a hard no.

But that is to give you an idea of the pain level I have reached.

Here comes another wave of tears.

Forgetting is wonderful.

Not.

I lose my train of thought in the middle of conversations.

All of a sudden I stop talking or something interrupts me and gone.

I am no longer embarrassed to say to whomever I am speaking with I’m sorry I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? or What were we talking about again?

My girl squad is awesome.

As a teen and now as an adult.

It dawns on (like right now) that marriage and babies start between 25-40.

Friends become partners and then parents.

Time dwindles as school/activities and appointments take over.

Now though most of us our kids are either graduating/teenagers or leading up to tweendom.

Save for one who is pregnant again. And excited.

This is her second marriage. Her husband and children from previous marriage are beyond the moon.

But I digress.

Now we have more time .

Now we are able to relax more.

Now we are able to just be.

No kids to yell at.

No kids yelling at you.

No kids period lol.

Without this girl crew I would be lost.

They are my touchstones.

And last but not least as a certain aged woman I can be friends with a man.

No one is looking at us weirdly.

No one expects anything.

We are friends.

He is my support.

He is my cheerleader.

He is the one who knows what I am like and makes sure I do things like eat.

Take rests.

Not overwork the shoulder.

We have been friends for nigh on a year and I do not know what I would do without him in my life.

I call him Papa Bear.

LOL T thinks that is weird but that is ok it is not his nickname.

One vast difference between teenage hormones and menopausal hormones:

as a teenager they are in excess

as a menopausal woman they are lacking.

And with that lack come the flashes of heat.

And the sweats of the night.

Night Sweats vs Hot Flashes:

Night sweats are horrific.

I wake up soaked and clammy cold.

I got up this morning and my hair was a rat’s nest.

It tried to eat my brush.

I stripped the bed and am washing the sheets.

It is gross.

Disgusting.

There is no way to get comfortable and for some bizarre reason despite my body having so much heat I am now swimming in my bed and yet at the same time I am frozen.

I woke up this morning in a tight fetal ball trying to get warm while everything else was wet.

Hot Flashes:

These I can feel coming on.

There is a general sudden warming of my body.

If I am quick and get the sweater of at work it will not be horrendous.

If I am unable to get the sweater of within two minutes I am flushed pink and sweating like crazy.

Wipe my forehead comes away wet.

I can feel it creeping down my body.

Lasts between two to five minutes maybe.

Not long.

And when over damn if I am not freezing again.

There is one aspect of menopause not shared with being a teenager.

Sudden growth of hair.

Below the chin.

Black.

Thank goodness for masks.

I will leave you with a dream I had not that long ago.

I really did not realize the import of that at the time but I remembered it.

Most likely because of how horrified I was in the dream.

In the dream I removed my mask and looked into the mirror.

And gasping in disgust.

I had grown multiple long black witch type hairs growing from my chin.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Needless to say when I got up in the morning I was chin first into the mirror making sure that in fact it had only been a dream.

©Jan. 13/21

Picture via Pinterest

Squashed

**Picture is one of mine. Although it does not really fit my post I wanted to use it because it fills me with peace.**

I am on day 113 of not taking pills. And (gentlemen you may want to turn away here) I am pms’ing. Previously when I pms’d I would go out to get pills to silence the ever critical voice that I heard. That voice has become really silent. It made a brief appearance on Wednesday, a skittering across my brain and than gone.

Right before I woke up this morning I was dreaming. It has been a long while since I have had dreams that I remember and in the last several weeks they have returned. With a vengence and I am loving it. Some are goofy and make no sense. Like the man running around with no pants on. Or The Kardashians making an appearance when I do not even watch their show. (I do not have real tv) But this morning’s dream was a little more realistic. More in line with things I am going through.

It took place at the house I grew up in. My ex was in it and I was furious with him because he left wet laundry in the washing machine. (Dreaming about laundry when I have to do laundry)  And suddenly I was taking a handful of pills. In the dream it turned out that this was the second handful I was taking. I broke down. Sobbing and unable to believe that I had taken the pills.

So when I woke up I was a bit perturbed.  The only pills in my house are my medication for my depression and my vitamins. I live in a city that does not have Sunday shopping and truthfully it was not even an urge. But it did make me weepy.

I was talking with friends about this. And grousing because damn it this is not me. I do not want to take any pills. I do not want to go and get a bottle of wine and drink it all in one sitting. Things are going really well. Even at work. So why on earth did this pop up?

Part of it I believe is due to the fact that I am pms’ing. And I know that I am going to have a customer complaint against me. The woman asked me if my name was Jay-lyn as she was staring at my name tag and than entering into her phone. I admit she got under my skin. And I was not as mindful as I should have been. As I was cleaning the shower I gave myself a stern talking to as well, reminding myself that it happened yesterday and there was no way of going back and changing it. I will accept responsibility although truthfully I don’t think that I could have done anything to make this woman happy.

When I take these two things and combine them, they were two triggers for using the pills to numb myself. To make it easier to handle.

I made a comment to DD that I had 7 days to go and I had better not be a whiny bitch for the whole 7 days or I was going to be sick of myself. And as for the customer, well I know what I did wrong and I know what I have to do to correct it.

In the dream as I was crying and throwing out the rest of the pills, a character from the show I am watching (Rescue Me) appeared. And he reminded me that I had done these 113 days without any problem. This was a small slip and I could recover from it.

As I write this now, I know that I am not going to have any small slips in real life because I do not want to. I am done with hiding from my feelings and emotions. I accept that I am imperfect and occasionally a little whiny. I am stronger now than before and with each day that I step further and further away, I become even stronger. The voices are like mosquitos buzzing around my ear. A nuisance for but a moment until I squash them.