Stuck in the middle with me (reflections on a year of HRT)

It’s International Women’s Day so I thought I’d write about the perimenopause. Firstly because it now occupies a large part of my life but also because these things should be celebrated along with our hard fought political and work-based successes.

So I’ve been on HRT for a year now. I didn’t get an anniversary card in the post but an email reminder of my Direct Debit arrangement with the NHS to help me access it all year round (£11.45/mo). I now wear two patches of oestrogen (75mg) continuously and take progesterone pills (100mg) every night during the second half of my cycle.

HRT has been a process of trial and error but it’s really helped me sleep better and got rid of some really painful joint pain. It’s not a cure-all though and my body is changing whether I like it or not. I am trying to adapt to it instead of fighting it. I bought new bras and have used my sewing machine to enlarge a couple of outfits I’d still like to wear. I’ve also donated clothes which I was wearing in my early 30s and won’t ever fit into again. I wear a night guard to help with my teeth grinding. I don’t have coffee after 11am and avoid alcohol and eating after 7:30pm. All of it is really regimental which I hate, but one bad night of sleep can throw off my whole week.

In the last two weeks, I’ve been losing my words mid-sentence. I’ve also left the gas on and forgot my Oyster card on a train. This might be the start of the famous ‘brain fog‘ I have been hearing about. All these changes are really destabilising and really challenge your sense of self. But what choice do I have? The only way out is through. It does mean that I don’t show up to work in the same way as I used to. It means I am more careful with my energy, a little more selfish. I am also more risk averse and refuse to over-work. None of this is bad, it’s just different to what I was used to.

I also try to remind myself all of these changes are preparation for my later years, whatever they might bring. Those years of good health and fitness in my 20s and 30s were a blip, not a template. As Adam Phillips puts it in ‘On Giving Up‘: ‘All states of conviction and certainty are all forms of disguise, all decoys’. So I’ll keep looking out for signs of bodily and cognitive change and welcome them with open arms. They are the seeds of some distant wisdom that in time, will surely be mine.