I love a good coaching guide,  particularly one that starts with ‘Ten steps to transform…’, ‘Change your life…’ or has a picture of some green veggie juice that promises to detoxify me or enhance my brain power. I’m a sucker for that shit, I lap it up. Love me a quiz that promises to diagnose my weaknesses and then spit out a checklist of dos and don’ts so I can move forward. But right now, I’m feeling a little bit broken and not sure if the handbook I need exists for what I would call ‘The Neurodivergent guide to surviving menopause without HRT while battling chronic illness and the loss of your Mum’. I imagine it would be quite a thick book. But I wonder if it would be in demand? I mean, I can’t be the only 50 something woman who is struggling with grief, insomnia, night sweats, hair and memory loss, anxiety, joint pain, caring responsibilities, self-medicating, dissociating and obsessing over ethical collagen products? 

I’m making it sound terrible. Scratch that. It is terrible. My Mum’s generation whispered about ‘the change’ but they never really told us what it looked like. I’d seen my Mum fan herself frantically in mid-winter but never connected with the extent of her discomfort, her pain, until I found myself having to carry a fan everywhere, irrespective of the temperature outside. Most people who know me well understand my aversion to hot weather. I love the sun but menopause has made me afraid of overheating. On an average day, I could fry eggs on my arms. I wish my Mum and her peers had felt more able to share their challenges with their daughters. It might have helped me brace. 

But how exactly do you brace for the inevitable? Not just the loss of fertility (though I’m not sure I’ve really thought of it in these terms) but just the sudden (which is how it feels) awareness of physical change and ability. My face hasn’t aged that much but the rest of me, flippin’ eck, it feels battered! And I don’t know if I’m imagining it but since my Mum died in May, I feel like I’m walking through quicksand. My steps literally feel slower, heavier. I’ve got award-winning cellulite. Bits of me are turning into jelly. I’m too tired to cry. 

In my imaginary handbook/toolkit, it would contain practical guidance on how to survive the worst of days…in the same way that disaster zones prepare for hurricanes. I wish I had the energy/clarity to actually create this book, but alas, I’m having to ration my brain cells to make it through my son’s teenage years. But I offer you a partial contents page:

1. Are you sitting comfortably? A guide to rubber rings and cold compresses 
2. To itch or not to itch? When the creams don’t work
3. Where did I put my keys? and other daily frustrations
4. Styling it out…how to weight-proof your wardrobe 
5. Swinging: moods, urges and cognitive dissonance
6. “Wah di bumba!” Practical phrases to express anger and sadness on low filter days
7. No shade: a guide to emergency hair removal tactics
8. “Did you wet the bed?” – one liners for denial and decorum in the bedroom

It would also come with a set of role play cards to aid in talking with male relatives and GPs about menopause. 

Without such a book at hand, how am I making it through this season? Well, I eat my favourite foods as often as I can – tuna sandwiches, halloumi, ackee, salmon, cheesecake – and I pray and listen to gospel music. I have cold showers on hot days and saunas with friends when I can handle it. I moisturise. I watch Jason Statham films and Columbo and fantasise about being a hero. I play Anita Baker songs and remind myself that this time will pass. And I imagine my Mum laughing while making me a pint of tea and telling me to keep taking the meds.