To think perimenopause is making me feel like I am vanishing from my own life

[Campingcarryon]

I am 48 and in perimenopause (hence the nearly 5am post as I can’t sleep )

I feel SO strange with it all. Like the person I used to be doesnt exist and like I could disappear. Really flat and sometimes like I don’t have the energy or interest in anything at all. Like even the simple things that used to bring me joy don’t anymore. A lot of people in my life really get on my nerves and I just can’t be arsed with anything.

Obviously my kids bring me meaning & I keep going because of them but without them I feel like I could become a hermit! I even found myself thinking that being a nun might be quite nice as I could retreat from life completely 🤣

I mean- what the fuck? I am normally a confident, life loving person who is sociable! Good at my job etc but even that I have totally lost interest in.
I do have HRT to try on my next cycle so I am hoping it will help with this a bit but I feel really strange. I have lots of physical symptoms too- can’t lose weight, itchy, some atrophy, a few mild hot flushes, horrible periods. But it’s the mood symptoms that are the strangest to be honest.

Aibu to find it all so odd? I feel like I have lost interest in everything and everyone.

A lot of the descriptions here mirror my experience. I feel like my emotional range has been dialled right down. It's not a terrible feeling, day to day, but it's disconcerting, like I actually love people a bit less or something?
I used to be quite weepy and emotional and now I never seem to cry, I miss having some sort of emotional catharsis from time to time.

I really struggle to get through to-do lists, everything feels overwhelming. Years ago I'd get all excited planning and cooking for parties, now some evenings I eat toast as I can't face cooking.

47 and periods are still regular, but my sex drive is dropping and there's parts of my cycle where I'm dead from the waist down. At the same time I've started to have weird crushes on much younger guys (not in real life I hasten to add! I mean actors and stuff).

DH works away a lot - he's away for weeks at a time generally then never back long - and tbh I can see that being something that works well for us over the coming few years even though when this pattern started a few years ago I'd cry every day from missing him. Now - nada. And he's as nice as ever, it's all me.
Also when he phones to chat I'm guilty of sometimes just zoning right out, completely uninterested.

Haven't decided what to do about HRT yet. I'm not full-on suffering, it's just all very odd. A bit apprehensive about what the next few years are going to bring.

OP you have described exactly how I feel a lot of the time. Particularly low mood and losing interest in things and people. Even though peri menopause is being highlighted in the media I still feel as though people who are not experiencing it (men and younger women in particular) don't really sympathise and eyeroll when I try to raise it. My DM seems to be in denial that I could be old enough for any symptoms which is probably why I have held off getting medical help. Waiting for a doctor's appointment on Friday so I can finally get HRT and hoping this will make me feel more like my old self.

Yeah I don't think avacados and turmeric are going to cut it somehow 🙄

OP that is exactly how I feel,
with added "don't give a shit" thrown in for good measure. I started taking HRT two months ago and don't feel any different yet, but am hoping for big things . I was also hoping my sleep would improve on the days I take progesterone, but sadly it hasn't I would just like ONE good nights sleep. Things can only get better

My sleep is weird and has been for the last 3 years. It’s a broken sleep that I know is going to occur worse on some nights than others because I have a kind of wired head-space (difficult to describe) and my body feels full of anxiety. I wake up on and off with butterflies, but there is nothing actually in my life that is giving me anxiety. It’s really weird.

Lol based on what? I'm living proof that there are exceptions 🥑🥑🥑