# Perimenopause Is Like Climate Change ##### Menstrual Cycle Awareness for Perimenopause --- ![[Pasted image 20261024192241.png]] --- ## TL;DR - Perimenopause can feel like climate change: all the inner seasons in one day. - I can go from gratitude and peace to rage, a black hole feeling, excitement and anxiety. It can feel like a hormonal shit show. - That doesn’t make menstrual cycle awareness pointless. Awareness can help me understand where I’m at and soften the blow. - On the days when I don’t know what the fuck is going on, I can acknowledge it and be kind to myself. --- ## Transcript Perimenopause is like climate change. Now, I used to be able to identify each of the four phases of my menstrual cycle. First, inner winter, around menstruation, when my hormones are low and I want to hide from the world, restore my energy and reflect on my past cycle. OK, so that would be my inner winter. Then comes inner spring, or the follicular phase, when my oestrogen rises along with my energy, motivation and excitement. I become a more playful, social, mischievous version of myself, somebody who doesn’t want to miss out on anything, you know, everything shiny and new and I’ve got ideas and I just want to go out and do everything. So I become a little bit more extroverted during this time. And then after spring comes summer, around ovulation, you know, where my oestrogen and testosterone are peaking and I’m an absolute boss at everything. You know, I am the most authoritative, eloquent and confident version of myself. Then it’s into inner autumn or the luteal phase where progesterone dominates and I’m getting things organised and focusing on the essentials and making decisions, you know, I’m a mellower, more mature, empathetic version of myself. Right. That was my cycle. I pretty much knew this. OK, this is what I’ve studied. I got to know this at a real profound level. I could literally predict my energy, my motivation, my moods up to the day. You know, each cycle would be the same as the last. And I could pinpoint when my vulnerabilities would show. I could pinpoint my strengths and what I would need each day to support myself. But as my cycle and hormones have changed over the last few years, and more so over the last 12 months, I have to admit, I’m struggling mentally, physically, emotionally. Some cycles are my usual four-phase, four-season cycle where I am ovulating and my body and brain know what’s going on and what to expect. But then there are more and more anovulatory cycles. I can’t even say it now. Anovulatory cycles: this is when an egg is not released. So again, no egg, no ovulation, no luteal phase, no progesterone. When that happens, I’m spending more time in this void, this in-between. I’m still trying to be superwoman, but I’m waiting for my inner autumn. I feel stuck in-between, and then my body starts producing more oestrogen and I get this surge, and then the oestrogen drops again. I think the key point is I am experiencing more hormonal shit shows. With this shit show, I can go from overwhelming gratitude and peace within my body one minute. Then, all of a sudden, I’m in an uncontrollable rage the next. And then this can move into this deep, end-of-the-world, black-hole sinking feeling. Then, all of a sudden, it changes again and I’m filled with excitement and energy and I’ve got all these possibilities ahead of me and I get this confident, change-the-world feeling. And then I get that feeling and then I drop into anxiety and overwhelming fear, which makes me want to run and hide from the world I was supposed to be changing just one minute ago. And honestly, it’s over and over, for days and days and it’s like constantly, oh my God, this hormonal shit show. I can cope with these feelings as they arrive through the different seasons of my cycle. But when they come at me all at once, I can feel lost, confused, crushed, raw and vulnerable. I tried to explain this to my husband. He already knows my inner seasons, but I wanted to explain what was going on. He usually gets the brunt of my meltdowns. And he said to me, it sounds like climate change. Like I was experiencing all the seasons in one day, as we do here in the UK. And he was pretty much spot on. You know, that’s exactly how it can feel. It’s just all these emotions all at once. And holy shit, it can be difficult. The reason I’m telling you this is that, when this hormonal shit show happens and we don’t know what’s going on, it can make us wonder whether menstrual cycle awareness is pointless. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it can feel that way. Honestly, I don’t think it’s pointless because it can help us still to understand where we’re at. You know, granted, sometimes we can’t do anything about it. You know, we’re going to get all the seasons in one day and that shit show is going to show at some point. But I do think awareness is gold and it can just soften the blow that little bit more. So I think the point of this slide really is that perimenopause can feel like climate change. So when you have a grip on your inner seasons, just know there are some days where you’re not going to know what the fuck is going on at all. Okay, you’re not going to have a fucking clue. And that’s okay. That is absolutely fine. This is where you just recognize what’s going on. You acknowledge it. You focus on being kind to yourself. You know, if you’re having a really bad day, write the day off. You know, stop trying to get everything done because things will settle in a few days. They will. So it’s just about being kind to yourself, but just know that this can happen. Okay, so that’s what this slide is all about.