Perimenopause

[Bonie25]

last week perimenopause symptoms has hit me like a ton of bricks. Approaching 40. Was up in the night with mild cramping like a dull ache that woke me up, is this a usual symptom? I currently take the combined pill and have already had a breakthrough bleed this month.

I’m 46 and genuinely starting to wonder how much of what I’ve put down to “just getting older” is actually perimenopause.
Anyone else?
I expected hot flushes and periods going a bit haywire because those are the things everyone talks about.
I did NOT expect the brain fog, itchy ears, achy legs, forgetting ordinary words halfway through a sentence, walking upstairs and having absolutely no idea why I’m there, random anxiety, being exhausted but then apparently deciding 3am is a perfectly reasonable time to be wide awake…
And the irritability. Good grief. 😂
Some days I feel completely like myself and other days I wonder who on earth has taken over my body.
The weirdest part for me has been realising how many seemingly unrelated things might actually be connected. For ages I was treating everything as its own little problem rather than thinking, hang on… could this all be perimenopause?
I’ve actually ended up reading and writing loads about it because I became slightly obsessed with figuring out what was going on.
But I’m curious about other women’s experiences because I don’t think we talk enough about the less obvious side of it.
What was YOUR first symptom?
And was there anything you eventually discovered was connected to perimenopause that completely surprised you?
Because I’m beginning to think there should be a perimenopause version of:
“Is it plugged in?”
Except ours is:
“Is it because I’m perimenopausal?” 😂
The Cougar Puberty Phase nobody prepared us for 😳🤣