#004: Ummm, WTF?! Is this normal? This can't be normal...

Ummm sorry, come again? What, THAT is a symptom!

And feeling like this is “normal”
Seriously, how did I miss this?

I know I wasn’t exactly the most attentive student in Biology class, but how did we jump from "you’ll get pregnant by dry humping" to "one day your periods will just stop like that, but by then you’ll have a grey perm, and a newfound love for lavender".

I spent the first 3 years of perimenopause, completely unaware that I was in the early stages of perimenopause.

My google search history reads…

“Are forgetting the names of key objects the first sign of dementia”

“How can I stop waking up at 3am with the sense of foreboding doom”

“Why is my skin worse than it was as a teenager”

“Why do I stink”

“Are divorce rates higher after a full moon”

I share these in jest, but frankly, it was terrifying. I lived in a perpetual state that something was seriously wrong with me. I was scared, anxious, confused and felt so, so alone.

Doctors dismissed it as stress. I was working too hard, I had a young family, so I probably wasn’t getting enough sleep. They’d say things like, “It’s just a phase,” or “Maybe you need to relax more.” Relax? That was the last thing my body seemed interested in doing. My heart would race for no reason, my emotions swung wildly like some unpredictable pendulum, and the exhaustion… the bone-deep, can’t-keep-my-eyes-open-at-2-pm exhaustion, was overwhelming.

I was constantly at war with myself. One moment, I’d feel fine, almost normal, and the next, I’d be drowning in a tidal wave of panic, convinced that I was unravelling. There was no explanation, no handbook for this kind of chaos happening inside my body.

The only time I had even heard the term “perimenopause” was in passing, some vague reference I barely remembered, but no one actually talked about it in real terms. No one told me that my brain would feel like it was short-circuiting.

And then, finally, after years of feeling like a malfunctioning robot, I stumbled upon a phrase in an article: “perimenopausal brain fog.” Brain fog. It was a real thing! I wasn’t losing my mind.

Suddenly, it all clicked. The forgetfulness, the sleepless nights, the irrational mood swings. It wasn’t just stress or overwork. My body was transitioning into this new phase, and no one had bothered to warn me about what that really meant. No one told me that perimenopause could start years before menopause, creeping up on you like a stealthy ninja, throwing your hormones into disarray.

I realised I wasn’t alone. That this experience was something countless women went through, but no one seemed to talk about. Where were the conversations? Where were the women sharing their stories, their struggles, their moments of fear and confusion?

It was like this massive secret, a rite of passage that there was no couch to 5k for. And I was left wondering, why? Why were we taught to hush these experiences, to downplay the very real, very disruptive things happening in our bodies?

So I started talking. To friends, to colleagues, to people in forums on the internet. And guess what? Everyone had their own version of my story. They too had searched frantically for answers in the middle of the night, convinced they were the only ones feeling this way.

We laughed, we commiserated and most importantly, we started to share. Because this, this, needs to be talked about. It’s not a dirty secret, it’s not just “hormonal craziness.” It’s life. And we deserve to understand it, to be supported through it, not dismissed or made to feel like we’re losing our grip on reality.

If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be this: You’re not broken. You’re just evolving.

And that’s okay.

This is why we started Valerie, so that we can have these conversations together, in confidence, in a community of like-minded women. You can message us at 3am when you've been lying awake role-playing every hard conversation that you’ve ever had, or you have a rage that a good rant will fix. Everyone that places their first order of Daily Essential will be invited to join the private WhatsApp group with our growing community of incredible wild women!