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Perimenopause doesn’t come with balloons or warning labels.
It comes like a thief in the night—one you don’t notice at first until the things it’s stolen become undeniable.
Sleep. Patience. The memory of who you used to be. You find yourself staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m., drenched in sweat, your heart racing as if the world’s ending—only to wake the next morning and put on a smile that says, I’m fine.
But you’re not. And no one’s listening.
The Visitor Arrives:
The first time I noticed something was wrong, it was 2:14 a.m. I remember because I checked the clock three times, convinced it was broken. My sheets were soaked. My skin burned as if someone had lit a match under it, heat racing up my chest, crawling into my face, until my scalp tingled.
My husband was asleep beside me, snoring softly, his body radiating a steady calm. I slipped out of bed, pressing my feet to the hardwood floor, grounding myself. The boards were cool against my toes, but it wasn’t enough. I padded into the bathroom, splashing water on my face, gripping the sink like it could anchor me back to myself.
What the hell was that?
The next day, I brushed it off. Stress, maybe. Hormones. Too much coffee. But when it happened again, and again—always at night—I couldn’t ignore it.
One morning, bleary-eyed from another restless night, I slid a mug of coffee across the table and said, “I think something’s happening to me.”
My husband looked up from the paper. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. My body feels… hijacked. I wake up drenched, like I’ve run a marathon in my sleep. My heart races. I can’t calm down.”
He frowned, sympathetic but detached. “Probably stress. You’ve had a lot on your plate.”
I wanted to scream. Stress. Always stress. The universal excuse. But this wasn’t stress. It was something that had moved in.
A week later, it hit in public. Dinner with friends, laughter spilling across the table, wine glasses clinking. Then, in the middle of telling a story, the heat surged. My face flushed, chest slick with sweat. I grabbed the nearest napkin and pressed it to my skin, laughing it off.
“Guess I brought summer with me,” I joked, waving my hand like a fan.
They laughed, and the moment passed. But inside, shame burned hotter than the flush itself. My body was betraying me, and no one seemed to notice—or care.
By the third month, I named it: the visitor.
The visitor didn’t knock. It arrived unannounced, pulled up a chair, and made itself at home. It stole my nights, fractured my patience, and left me staring at myself in the mirror, trying to remember who I was before it came.
And worst of all, whenever I reached for help, the world shrugged.
Doctors with clipped voices: “You’re too young.”
Friends with raised eyebrows: “Oh, honey, you’re overreacting.”
Family with half-smiles: “You’ll be fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I was unraveling.
The Body Becomes a Stranger:
It wasn’t just the nights anymore. The visitor followed me into the daylight.
One morning I stood in front of my closet, staring at clothes I’d worn for years, and nothing fit the same. My jeans pinched. My favorite blouse clung in places it never had. My reflection in the mirror looked familiar but…softer, swollen somehow. Like my body had been rearranged without my permission.
I tugged the blouse down, muttering, “This can’t be happening.”
Downstairs, the cats wove around my ankles, demanding breakfast. I fumbled with the scoop of kibble, spilling half on the floor. My hands were trembling again. I crouched to clean it up and felt the heat surge—the sudden blaze in my chest, the dampness at the nape of my neck. I sank against the cabinet for a moment, dizzy, fighting the urge to cry over a mess of cat food.
This isn’t me.
The fog came next.
At work, mid-sentence, I’d lose track of words I’d known my whole life. Once, during a meeting, I stared at a colleague, unable to remember her name. We’d worked together for years. Her name finally came to me hours later, in the shower, when it was too late.
I laughed it off when someone teased me about “early senior moments,” but inside, fear clawed at me. I had always been sharp, organized, capable. Now I kept sticky notes on the counter, alarms on my phone, reminders to remind myself.
And yet, still, I forgot.
The exhaustion was the worst.
By late afternoon, my body felt like sandbags were strapped to my limbs. I’d sit on the couch meaning to rest for five minutes and wake an hour later, disoriented, heart pounding.
When I mentioned it to my doctor, he flipped through my chart without looking up. “You’re fine. Blood work looks normal. It’s just part of being a woman your age.”
Just part of being a woman.
The words cut deeper than he knew.
I wanted to ask: Since when did being a woman mean losing yourself piece by piece? Since when did it mean screaming silently while no one hears you?
But I didn’t. I nodded, gathered my purse, and left.
That night, lying awake in the dark, I whispered to myself, “My body doesn’t feel like mine anymore.”
And for the first time, I realized how terrifying it was to live inside a stranger’s skin.
No one is listening; my journey continues.
~
Melissa A. Ellis | Contribution: 1,640
I write because sometimes the hardest things to say out loud are the ones we need most to hear. This page is for messy truths, small joys, and the kind of storytelling that ma… Read full bio
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