Perimenopause Comes for an HSP

Transitions are hard. Some are excruciating, such as grieving for a lost loved one, while others are transitions into joyous chapters of life, such as becoming a new parent. Both happy and sad changes carry an aspect of pain with them. Some of the biggest transitions in our lives are the ones where we move into a new phase of life. For women who menstruate moving into a new phase of life often means that our bodies transform before our very eyes in ways that leave us in shock and awe. These transformations occur in puberty (beginning) as well as during the successes and challenges of our fertile years (middle) and into perimenopause, which leads us to menopause and then to post-menopause (the end).

While I have heard of people who have “sailed through” perimenopause without a great deal of upheaval, I more often hear about people who consider this time of life to be a huge struggle. Once again, the body morphs, sometimes seemingly overnight into an unfamiliar foe. Many will feel a myriad of discomforts including aches and pains, stiffness and soreness, heart palpitations, hot flashes that cause perspiration even when sedentary, and many, many hits to the ego with each look in the mirror. I would argue that a highly sensitive person going through perimenopause will feel each twitch, pain, sensation, and mutation on a profoundly deep level, more so than a neurotypical person. For many HSP’s the depth of this uncomfortable transition can feel like the earth has shifted on its axis and our lives have been thrown into absolute chaos.

Perimenopause Lacks Support

In my own experience as an HSP in perimenopause, there is a mountainous lack of support for those enduring all that perimenopause brings with it. I hear it so often about women who struggle to find help with their perimenopause symptoms that it has almost become cliche at this point. My personal story begins in about the year 2021 when I turned 47. It felt as though my HSP brain and body began to decline, manifesting as a wide range of awful symptoms. It began with intense and debilitating anxiety, simultaneously with an onset of heart palpitations, asthma (which I had not experienced prior to this,) and extreme body and joint pain. The pain rendered me unable to walk without a limp despite trying several interventions. At the same time I experienced terrible Temporomandibular Joint Pain (TMJ) that led to me needing two teeth extractions and major oral surgery, as well as staggering weight gain that increased despite calorie restriction and enhanced exercise efforts. The weight gain gave rise to body dysmorphia that sometimes kept me from leaving the house, along with daily fatigue similar to what often accompanies influenza, and premenstrual dysphoria that brought on a sense of sadness and hopelessness equivalent to times when I was in the throes of intense grief. In addition, I experienced brain fog that convinced me that I would be diagnosed with early dementia similar to the illness that took the life of my beloved Aunt in her early 50’s. This list of symptoms is incomplete and to some extent minimized so I wouldn’t shock you too much.

HSP Intuition is a Strength

Some might question how I know all of these feelings and experiences result from perimenopause? Some of my knowledge is coming from intuition which is a very important thing for HSP’s to tap into when something is so personal and confusing at the same time. (There will be a future blog post on HSP intuition coming soon.) However, I began to know the cause to be perimenopause because I never felt all of these sensations and symptoms in my entire life in this particular way. Also I had turned 47 and the timing made sense to me. So I first sought help from my gynecologist who stated that I was too young for perimenopause. I believed her and began to visit doctors and specialists for each individual symptom and body part that was ailing. This led me on a long, dark, directionless, circuitous, sorrowful, expensive, and confounding 2-year search for answers.

The answer never came from these specialists. Not one doctor said that the cause of all of these maladies were due to me being in the thick of perimenopause. A blood test did show conclusive proof that my body is in perimenopause, but the doctor did not tell me that every symptom I had was a direct result of the hormonal imbalance that accompanies perimenopause. I had to reckon with this myself. The true answer finally came from inside of me. Through my sensitivity and intuition I was able to tune into my inner guide and recognize that this was happening to me, not because of any flaws or weaknesses in myself. I had to accept that unless I treated the perimenopause itself, which is essentially treating my estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, that I would not be able to gain control of my life.

I am relieved and fortunate to say that now I have found trusted and reputable sources of information and support for the treatment of perimenopause. I am now on a new journey of re-discovering myself. I learned that if I tune-in and trust my instincts and cater to my unique needs, I can forge a new path ahead that leads me to minister to my body in a way that heals and strengthens me.

Support for Women in Perimenopause

My goal and my hope is that I can help you do this as well. I would like to help you not have to struggle as intensely and for as long as I did. I believe at that time I needed to remind myself that I am an HSP and to have asked myself the questions, “What is it I know about myself, about my body?”, “What have I learned about myself in the past that can help me to understand how I am reacting to this up-rooting of the self?”, “What do I truly need to feel better?” Doing this would have helped me drown out the unnecessary messaging that there was nothing wrong with me and that I just needed to try harder.

I would like to help you explore this so you can respond in a way that is truly helpful and in honor of yourself. I would like to help you skip unnecessary falls on the rocky path ahead and to hone in on solid resources that will support you. You, my dear HSP, need not endure more than you already do on a daily basis with your enhanced senses and pain receptors. This transition in life is hard, as they all are. It might be one of the hardest you have to face. Let’s not experience this pain and difficulty alone and instead lean on one another to guide us back to a familiar self. Let’s grab each other's hands and walk on a magnificent path towards our new best selves.