Dear Perimenopause: F**k You

In this episode of Divergent Menopause, Sam Galloway reads her brutally honest “f**k you” letter to perimenopause. A decade of rage, grief, chronic pain, cognitive changes, suicidal ideation and medical uncertainty, ending with the decision that finally changed everything: surgical menopause.This is not a tidy menopause success story. It's a story about surviving a menopause transition that nearly broke her, and finding something unexpected on the other side.Why write a “f**k you” letter?It is so cathartic to rage onto the page all of that pent up anger, frustration and grief caused by a certain person or event. You can get all those things you wish you had said, the ones that are still keeping you up at night, out of your system which can feel like an enormous relief and release.I would not recommend sending it to the person though! You don’t want to invite more emotional harm or rekindle past conflict into your world. Some people like to ceremoniously burn their “f**k you” letters so that they are never discovered or read by anyone else.Take good care of yourself in the process, if it doesn’t feel like a helpful tool for you, or the right time to write a “f**k you” letter, it’s best avoided. This one flowed for me though!Let me know in the comments if you have ever written a “f**k you” letter. If so, did you found the process therapeutic, triggering or something else?Dear Perimenopause,I love to hate you. You were the bane of my assistance for too long, and still you are all I can talk about. Everyone is sick of hearing about you.When you first showed up, I knew it was inevitable. You arrived much sooner than I expected, and nobody believed me when I said you were here. Apparently I was too young for you or some b******t. You clearly didn’t give a f**k that I was in my mid 30s with two tiny kids, acclimatising to life in a new hemisphere. I thought I’d fallen on my feet arriving here in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2016, but out of nowhere you crept up on me, tripped me up, kicked me to the ground and shat all over me. Thanks for that, Perimenopause.I honestly thought I would eventually learn to live with you, but you wanted me dead. Now I see right through you. You are a dangerous and insidious silent killer. You choose the most vulnerable victims.Yes, Perimenopause, I know there are many people who love you, but they don’t know you like I do. They are the lucky ones. Why couldn’t I have had the version of you that other people revere? You’re supposed to be transformative, illuminating and empowering. What the f**k did I ever do to you to deserve this?The first sign of you was the burning inflicted upon my eyes. They were dry as f**k. The pain was so intense that I mistook you for sunburn, for hayfever, for eye cancer even. You frightened the life out of me. I had to pay to see an eye specialist. Do you know you’ve cost me a f*****g fortune in healthcare over the years, Perimenopause?Anyway, the eye specialist told me that my eyes were dry because of my age (whatever that means) at only aged 36 or so. My eyes are still dry nearly a decade later, and I apply lubricating eye drops all the time. All The Time. You cause me to cry tearlessly, you still put my family at risk when my eyes drive out and throb whilst driving, and you have stopped me from painlessly watching my children grow up.Perimenopause, you cost me their childhoods.My boys are now 14 and 11, and they still often ask me, “Why are you so grumpy, Mummy?” Every time, I blame you. Yes, you, Perimenopause. You have stolen years from me that I’ll never get back. You stopped me from being the calm mother I was born to be, and morphed me into this depleted, shambolic husk of my former self.Did you know I used to be a nursery/kindergarten teacher before I homeschooled my own kids? Together my students and I explored this magnificent world with curiosity and joy. But then you came along and turned me into hateful, shameful woman who frequently dissociates from those I hold most dear just to make it through each day.Until I met you for myself, I knew nothing about you, except that people avoided talking about you for some reason. When I was a child, you were only mentioned in hushed whispers and euphemisms like “women’s problems” and “the change”. I think it’s because they were scared of you, and too many people still are.Your medical demands have cost me the money I could have spent exploring this not-so-magnificent-anymore world with my own children: shaping their futures and building them up. Instead because of you, Perimenopause, I can’t even even sit on a f*****g bike saddle and explore our neighbourhood with them because you, you f*****g b***h, have lacerated my vulva and shrunken my labia, thus rendering me unable to rest for long, unless sat crosslegged on a soft sofa cushion, TV remote in hand, with Taskmaster playing on repeat.Perimenopause, you have shrunken my world (and my labia).And what the actual f**k have you done to my metabolism?! First you wrecked my sleep, spiked my cortisol, and turned my appetite up to 11. Now I can only stay awake when aided by sugar by day, yet I can’t sleep at night. That doesn’t even make sense. Why don’t you make any f*****g sense?!All this sugar you’re making me eat has fucked me sideways. Whilst I am consuming it I can feel my vagina turning thrushy, and my boobs get itchy. You really are getting on my tits.I feel like I’m a size of a house. One of those red brick suburban outer London houses that my husband and I were lucky enough to buy when we were newlyweds. The type of house you can extend out the back and up into the loft space to make extra room. Rather than expand the house, we left London, before moving back to his home of Aotearoa New Zealand.Regarding my metaphorical house of a body (please forgive me, Peri, if I am none too articulate, only you have completely fucked over my cognition, my working memory and my vocabulary, you beastly b***h) and my actual house: I am now residing inside a house I cannot manage to upkeep without a dedicated team of support workers, because you’ve brought so many compounding and devastating regressions to my ability to function as a parent.And just when I was getting used to my cognitively reduced, yet physically expansive self, and feeling like I could accept myself under the Health at Every Size paradigm, the zeitgeist turned on me. Now, thanks to advances in weight loss medications and their widespread popularity, we are back in the heroin chic years that I thought were behind me.Every time I even look at a chocolate biscuit now, I can hear the tiny top model Kate Moss telling me that “nothing taste as good as skinny feels” and hey presto, Perimenopause, you push me off the disordered eating cliff with both hands, laughing at me as I crash up on the rocks. Just like your little sister Puberty did back in the 1990s, when Kate Moss was huge (culturally, not in size nor stature).Do you know what was the worst thing was about you? You gave me chronic uncertainty. I had no idea how long I would be suffering from you. How bad things might get. No idea how much more I could take.My mood was in constant flux. Chronic pain, energy depletion, rage. You frightened the life out of me and I see you are still busy doing it to others. What about everyone else who is suffering like I did? Why do you show us some of us no mercy? How do you decide who will be your next victim and whose life you will give meaning to?How are you still so unknown to people, Perimenopause? Why don’t doctors see you for what you really are? Healthcare professionals should be warning us about you. We should all see you coming. You should be declaring your arrival, red flags in hand.Yes, Perimenopause, I do know that many other people see your advent as a sacred rite of passage. And I agree that you are an inevitable life stage for those of us who are fortunate enough to survive beyond our youth. But my experience also tells me that you are far from benign. You can be lethal. The mood crashes and suicidal ideation you brought pushed me to my limits, yet I refused to become a statistic.I would not let you win.Because of you, I have had my entire reproductive system removed. I elected to undergo major surgery, consenting to the risk of medical complications or possible death, to end your hold over me.One of us had to go.I fought so hard for what was my only chance left at life. Drastic measures were crucial, and I was running out of time and options. The suicidal ideation you gifted me showed no reprieve so, Perimenopause, your termination was necessary. You had to be stopped!So to get rid of you once and for all, almost one year ago to this day, both my ovaries, my one remaining fallopian tube, my cervix and my uterus were surgically excised. And do you know what? It’s the best thing I’ve ever done!Now that I’m rid of you though, I’m stuck with your big sister for life. Menopause, dear Menopause. Early, surgical Menopause, to be precise. Compared to you, I love and adore her!Yes, you gave me my neurodivergent understanding of myself, Perimenopause. And for that I am grateful. But for everything else you burdened me with, you can go f**k yourself.You shall never darken my door again.Stay away from my friends.Perimenopause is dead! Long live Menopause!Cheers,If this letter spoke to you…You don’t have to agree with every word I’ve written here. You don’t even have to like perimenopause as much as some people seem to.But if you’ve ever needed somewhere to put the rage, grief, confusion or sheer f*****g exhaustion of navigating menopause in a neurodivergent body, I hope Divergent Menopause can be that place.Everything here remains free to read and listen to.If you’d like to help me keep making it, you can become a paid patron or founding patron. You’re not paying to unlock the work but you’re helping me continue to make it. 💐And if you can’t pay, that’s absolutely okay.Read. Listen. Share. Comment.Tell someone who needs it. That all helps too. Thanks! 💕 Get full access to Divergent Menopause at samgallowayaudhd.substack.com/subscribe