Being a woman of a certain age (that age is late 40’s…), the internet algorithms target me with an insistent onslaught of perimenopause content. And I kept consuming, which teaches your algorithm to keep providing more. I was assuming it was the cause of everything about why I felt crummy.

Here’s the reality of what I have been feeling: Each month I started to feel like I wanted to stop existing, just be unalive. Not that I wanted to kill myself, I just hoped for a meteor to take me out. And after a while, I realized that feeling settled in just before my period started. So while it was a small relief to see that correlation, it’s still scary to feel that way.

Most of the time I truly feel like I’m not cutout to be a parent, I feel like I worry about my child more than the average parent does. My relatives and friends all seem to deal with parenting so well. Me, my mind goes into overdrive. My worries about my kiddo keep me awake at night, but sleep disturbances are evidently also part of this wonderful perimenopause journey for many women. So my anxiety just compounds something that naturally happens?

I was feeling on edge, exhausted and on the verge of losing my mind all the time. So I took the plunge and scheduled a call with Midi Health. I chose this because it seemed easier to just use telehealth because I wouldn’t have to take a few hours out of my day to drive to a doctor, visit a doctor, drive back home. And manage to not be negligent in my work and not miss school pickup. You know, things that would just give me more anxiety if they got screwed up.

I give Midi major props on being easy to schedule with, easy to talk to, and easy to get a prescription from. A regular doctor’s office is like, “Well, we can see you in 3-27 months from now, depending on how severe we feel your issues are.”

The practitioner listened compassionately, something I rarely feel at an in-person doctor visit as well. Usually I feel like they are rushed and just want me out of their way so they can proceed through the backlog of patients. And they always have a backlog of patients, even when I’m there for the 8am appointment. How are you behind already, you just opened?!

She nodded reassuringly and said kind things about how she understands that what I was feeling must be frightening. (Yes.) But some of those feelings are common in many women. (Sucks for us.) And I got a prescription for an estrogen patch and progesterone pills. Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), or Menopause Hormone Therapy (MHT), or just hormone therapy? And despite the swirling stories of patch shortages, my prescription got filled pretty quickly. Walgreens struggles sometimes to fill my thyroid meds to the point I worry that I’ll have to go without, but this was filled within the day.

So I slapped that patch on, took the pill, and within a day and a half… I was bleeding. And then I just kept bleeding for 3 months. Maybe I would have one day off, but then it would start up again for weeks. I had another appointment with Midi and the practitioner upped the dosage on the progesterone… which did nothing to stop the bleeding and didn’t help me sleep better.

And yet, I still felt terrible mentally/emotionally. Although that was even worse because I was pissed off that I was bleeding uncontrollably and going through so many supplies. So now I was paying extra for these worthless meds/appointments AND for tons of pads and tampons. If I ventured out of the house I had to carry a bigger purse to haul all the extra supplies with me.

Plus, I had an extra horrifying moment where I bled through my clothes when I was out of town for work for the day. Fortunately, it happened at the end of the work day. I had supplies, but not a change of clothes. I had to sit on a bunch of paper towels from a gas station to drive home nearly 3 hours. Glad I had dark colored pants on, I don’t think anyone at the gas station noticed.

Additionally, being on MHT made my thyroid levels swing out of wack. And when you are extremely hyperthyroid, that amps up your anxiety levels, which doesn’t help the feelings of hating life.

So I told my Midi health person I wanted to stop the meds. She agreed that it was worth a try because I was more miserable. And within two days of stopping their use, I stopped bleeding. They wanted me to have a follow-up visit 4 weeks after stopping to check in on how I was feeling. I think they’d “allow me” to buy supplements from them if I don’t want the prescription options. Beyond that I don’t know what they’d do beyond charging copays. I cancelled that appointment.

My endocrinologist re-tested my thyroid levels after I’d been off all HRT for a month and I was still hyperthyroid. He says that until I am post-menopause, my thyroid levels are going to be all over the place due to fluctuating hormones and he doesn’t think I should supplement any other hormones beyond the ones trying to keep my thyroid levels stable. The problem with that is he only sees me every 6 months these days and it’s for about 5 minutes at most. So if I start feeling terrible, I’m just supposed to keep feeling that way until I see him again? He’s got a waiting room full of diabetic patients to attend to!

So, for now I’ve come to the conclusion that menopause hormone therapy is not for me at this time in my life. And I guess that’s okay, I mean it saves me money so I don’t have to pay those additional prescriptions each month. But I also still feel overwhelmed and sad and concerned about my bone health and numerous other body systems that start to decline as women lose estrogen.

And anxiety? That’s just off the charts. Did you know that Apple Health has a mental health questionnaire sometimes? And I’ve taken it, it says I need to get help. Probably from a psychologist or psychiatrist. But I don’t want to get stuck on an anti-depressant, that will probably mess with my thyroid levels too. I’ve been on one of those before in the past, it didn’t help anyway. Just kind of numbed the world. Years ago I was prescribed clonazepam and that made me feel GOOD, which scared the hell out of me. The doctor warned me it was highly addictive, and I liked how calm I felt from the one time. So I avoided that.

I’ve also been muting and unfollowing all of the menopause people that are blanketing social media, because they preach about how taking hormones seems to solve every problem. Your skin glows, your hair is thicker, you have stronger bones, more confidence and joy, and you’ll live longer! And the comments section is full of women who proclaim that it gave them their life back.

So I unfollow and block and ignore. I don’t need all these people seemingly living their best lives flaunted in my face.

I also rarely get on social media these days… see my review on the BePresent app, that asks me if I want to open the app and that slows me down. Even when people have shared something with me via one of those apps, I’m so slow to open it and look they probably think I’m ignoring them.

If you landed here and are annoyed by so much “lady stuff” talk, grow up. And if you landed here because HRT/MHT/MT/whatever didn’t work for you, I hope you find ways to deal with your symptoms in other ways and make it through this time with some level of sanity in tact.

I hope the same for me.