She feels herself changing in ways that are hard to name. Some days, she becomes almost unrecognisable – not only to those around her, but to herself. The woman she once knew slips through her fingers, leaving her searching for a new anchor. Silent tears accompany her, hidden well, because letting them fall only invites responses that deepen the ache.
Her patience shortens; she snaps easily. Irritation flares where calm once lived. Motivation drains, interest fades, and her focus drifts far away—into thoughts, into worries, into a fog that clouds her mind.
Sleepless nights stack upon each other, and when sleep finally comes, it is fractured. Fatigue weighs on her body like nothing she’s felt before. Words stumble on her tongue, her memory blurs, and even her own scent feels different. These are only fragments of the countless symptoms that whisper, roar, and linger through the years of perimenopause, carrying her – whether she is ready or not – into the land of menopause.
It begins quietly, almost invisibly, before the wider mess reveals itself. A shift here, a change there, so small at first, one might dismiss it as nothing. But it gathers. It builds. It spreads into the corners of daily life until even the simplest things feel altered.
And the truth is, one could go on and on. The list of symptoms is long, the emotions tangled, the experiences varied. Each woman walks her own path through it, yet there is a shared thread of bewilderment, of silent endurance, of searching for words to describe what often feels indescribable.
This is not a chapter easily closed, nor a phase neatly packaged. It is a landscape to be navigated—at times harsh, at times strangely illuminating.