I was as ready as anyone ever is for menopause. I considered myself an expert on the subject, having witnessed my mother’s difficult “change of life,” as she put it. As Nature’s little joke, it happened simultaneously with my difficult teen years. As I approached my forties, I also read many essays about menopause (some humorous, some horrifying). While I didn’t look forward to the hot flashes and moodiness, I accepted their inevitability. Besides, after five children, I knew our family was complete, and I would be greatly relieved to have the pregnancy possibility finally off the table. No more buying tampons? I was in!
Early Signs and Surprising Behaviors
The early signs were textbook: more irritability than usual. Insomnia. Memory lapses. Some weight gains. Nuisances all, but I could handle them. But soon, I noticed other, more puzzling behaviors and cursing a blue streak all the time. Reckless shopping sprees (my car could have driven itself to Bloomingdale). Stretches of euphoria, a top-of-the-world feeling accompanied by rapid and disjointed speech. The sleeplessness, which had initially been troubling, became a fabulous opportunity to stay up for many nights and write poetry, essays, and even a novel. I was suddenly dressing differently, trading my mom’s jeans in for a leather miniskirt and piling on the makeup.
A Sudden Realization: Confronting Bipolar Disorder
I still chalked all of this up to menopause until every impulse heightened and accelerated, and I realized something else had to be going on. I had heard of “manic depression” in the context of mental breakdowns involving certain celebrities, but I didn’t know anyone personally afflicted. One day, flipping through a fashion magazine (my attention span had deteriorated to the point that they were all I could read), I came upon a full-page ad for a medication used to treat bipolar disorder. You know, the ads with the troubled-looking woman staring out a window, with the copy of a laundry list of symptoms. I began reading and almost immediately realized that I was doing every single one of the things described. It was a moment of great sadness and relief: I now knew what was wrong with me.
The Journey to Diagnosis and Understanding
The next six months were spent searching for the right psychiatrist for the medications that would work. I am also searching for the words to try and apologize for my past behavior apologies to my husband, kids, friends, and co-workers. Even though I knew I had not been able to help saying and doing such disturbing things, I needed to try and make up for the damage I’d done. Eventually, I could start to see daylight. The combination of a gifted therapist and the right meds (I needed both an antipsychotic and an antidepressant) made an incredible difference.
Reflecting on the Past: Connecting Bipolar Disorder with Life Stages
How did my mental illness begin? Was it just a coincidence that it coincided with menopause? And was that the first time I’d ever felt those strange feelings? I assumed it was until my psychiatrist asked me to examine those “really difficult” teen years of mine. It’s more common, I learned, for bipolar to appear initially during late adolescence than during middle age. Similar to menopause, bipolar can be difficult to differentiate from typical signs of being a teenager. I was a moody kid, but looking back, my lows seemed lower, and my highs higher than many of my peers. I was also very impulsive (I got engaged the day I graduated from high school at age 17, for example), always overspending, and talked much too fast. I could pull all-nighters on consecutive nights with no apparent need for sleep. Science is still studying the triggers of bipolar disorder, but research points to fluctuations in estrogen levels as a very likely one for women. Hormones fluctuate dramatically during both adolescence and menopause. That might also explain the latency period of my 30s and the reappearance of symptoms later in my life.
Finding Stability and Gratitude Post-Diagnosis
Whenever my illness first began, menopause brought it roaring back. It took many months to feel better truly, but for years now, I’ve been stable and symptom-free. I’ll always be grateful for the love and support I received when I was so hard to love and when I could offer little support to anyone myself. I am thankful, too, for the miracle of modern medicine and the skill of doctors and therapists. I hope that in the future, bipolar disorder will be easier to diagnose with the development of accurate testing.
Menopause as a Turning Point: A New Perspective on Life
The old phrase “change of life” that my mother used very accurately describes my experience during menopause. My life changed completely, and now I am a different person than I was before. I’m more aware of other people’s struggles and have become active as a writer and speaker about mental illness.
I still worry when I get excited about something, teary-eyed, or angry—am I getting sick again? That anxiety will probably always be with me. But as the years pass and menopause recedes in the rear-view mirror, I feel more and more confident that I made it through and that the wild rollercoaster ride is over at last.
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