Fry's Electronics if anyone has pictures of the interior/exterior please post them here. Really anything at all is welcome. OLD pictures especially valued.

No shit. #comic #comics #pacman #retrogaming

She’s waiting on the ADHD diagnosis until after the sleep apnea is treated because she said they can show up with similar symptoms but that she’s sure I’m exhibiting all the signs of depression. I mean, I’m sure too at this point? Just not sure if the treatments will interfere with each other.

I’ll ask my PCP tomorrow.

18/18

#perimenopause #menopause

I will 100% go on antidepressants if the combination of HRT, CPAP, and treatment for anxiety don’t work out.

Or… should I even wait? The psychiatrist was ready to write a prescription for treating the depression at my last meeting, and I had wanted to wait until the HRT was more stable. But maybe that’s a dumb mistake????

17/

#perimenopause #menopause

They don’t know if they get depressed me who doesn’t get out of bed, or sad me who might burst into tears at any moment, or angry me that suddenly snaps, or mostly normal me. The not knowing is horrible, the outcomes are worse.

I just want to be better so I can love them properly again, and love myself properly again.

16/

#perimenopause #menopause

The only thing I want to be tired of are how hard it is to get in touch with the right medical help and the only thing I want to be mad about is how peri sucks. I don’t want to be tired of my life or mad at people I love.

I didn’t like and didn’t recognize the person who got so angry so quickly about nothing. I didn’t know why my heart was racing over… nothing. I felt so prickly and rage-filled yet dead inside.

I am a nightmare for my family to live with.

15/

#perimenopause #menopause

Because every time I tried to empty my mind, a negative memory would pop in and take root.

The only ones I could do were ones that asked me to focus on specific tasks, like focus on progressively relaxing muscles in my body, because I was keeping my brain busy with _something_ and not nothing.

Anyway, peri made this much fucking worse.

So I’m dealing with it with HRT and seeking both talk therapy & medicine-assisted help.

14/

#perimenopause #menopause

And I’m not doing this on purpose. I will intentionally not want to dwell on those negative things.

And I’ll be aware that every time a memory is brought back up, it warps and changes. But I am not able to control it.

I keep my brain filled with activity because I can’t keep the negative thoughts at bay, I can’t keep my brain from obsessing over the details.

I think that’s why I always hated meditation.

13/

#perimenopause #menopause

That memory will be brought out from storage and examined from all the different angles I can look at it. My brain will dredge up the emotions of that negative moment, will look at alternate endings, like a movie like Ground Hog Day where it’s trying to fix that moment in time by doing different things. What if I had done this, what if someone else had done that. What if, what if.

What lesson can I learn to avoid this in the future?

12/

#perimenopause #menopause

For me, when I’m not mentally busy with something, like solving puzzles, talking to a friend, watching tv, reading a book, listening to a podcast, basically anything, the default, consistent thing that happens in my brain is…

A random negative memory, sentence, feeling, whatever will pop into my head. It doesn’t matter if it was recent or a very, very long time ago.

11/

#perimenopause #menopause

The anxiety is something that I just need to work on, regardless of HRT. Perimenopause made it MUCH MUCH worse but it had always been there, but without a name I knew to put on it.

I only learned to associate the label “anxiety” with my experience a couple of years ago (or last year???) when my friend was talking about himself. I was like, “The fuck??? That’s anxiety???????” It was different from the depictions I had seen before and didn’t feel like me.

10/

#perimenopause #menopause

I’ve been tracking my symptoms closely in both a physical journal and in my apps. I’m optimistic that the combination of being on the right balance of hormones (most critical IMO) and continuing using the CPAP, I’ll be able to return to a semblance of my old self.

The hard thing is that as my hormone production changes, the HRT balance will need to catch up, so there are bound to be gaps & ditches.

9/

#perimenopause #menopause

While I’m feeling better, I have done the following:

- ordered daily hormone testing kits so I can track my lowest dip days. Blood testing is more accurate but hormones fluctuate constantly, especially during peri so I want to keep better tabs on where I am

- reached out to a therapist who works with anxiety and cPTSD (one of the grab bag of things the psychiatrist thinks I show indicators of)

- reached out to a physical therapist to work on some chronic issues

8/

#perimenopause #menopause

Reason 2: I was able to get diagnosed for sleep apnea. The sleep study took months to schedule. The CPAP arrived two nights ago and I slept a long time the last two nights. The “awake” periods are much, much fewer than they were before the CPAP.

Today, my thoughts feel calmer, I feel like I can look at the world with optimism, and I have been able to read a damned book the last couple of weeks (since the first increase in estrogen, even before the double patch).

7/

#perimenopause #menopause

The doctor put me on slightly higher estrogen, and the dip this past month was less intense, but I still struggled with a pervasive sense of despair for about a week.

This morning, I feel so close to my old self. Why?

Reason 1: I said “fuck it” to waiting the three months my doctor wants me to, and doubled up my estrogen patches two nights ago. I have a doc appointment tomorrow and I will insist she put me up to the higher dose.

6/

#perimenopause #menopause

HRT hasn’t been a magic bullet. On the lowest dose of estrogen, my hot flashes became tolerable, but the progesterone seemed to put me into a state of depression, worse than the lows I was having before. I also suffered from vertigo and nausea in that period.

Going off oral progesterone (and to an IUD with progesterone instead) helped a LOT, where the further it was from the last oral dose, the more I felt like I was shedding the gray, suffocating fog over me.

5/

#perimenopause #menopause

I had various genitourinary symptoms I don’t feel like discussing here. I had much, much less patience. I felt quicker to anger. I had accelerated weight gain and my body changed shape.

I’ve had insomnia for years, where I can’t fall asleep until I’m extremely fatigued. If I tried to sleep before then, I’d have racing, almost entirely negative thoughts that wouldn’t leave me alone. I had increasing snoring.

4/

#perimenopause #menopause

Going on hormone replacement therapy was originally brought on by obvious & recurring hot flashes and cold sweats.

Even though that was the first indicator to me that I was going through perimenopause, looking back, there were many lesser known (to me) symptoms, for years, to varying degrees.

I had cried at work a few times. I had itchy ears & recurring ear infections, which I had never had as a kid. I developed scaly, itchy areas of eczema on my scalp.

3/

#perimenopause #menopause

They say perimenopause makes any dormant/manageable anxiety, depression, and adhd spike and become unmanageable.

And all those had. I only had started to suspect ADHD in the last couple of years, but the scattered way I felt made me seek a psychiatrist to get a diagnosis.

She diagnosed (or is in the process of diagnosing) me with a charcuterie platter of things, which I was not prepared for! 😬😭

2/

#perimenopause #menopause

Perimenopause really does suck.

Today, I’m feeling like my old self: full of optimism, almost full of regular amounts of energy, feeling clear-headed, like I can think a thought without it scattering away.

In the worst days, I wake up sad & crying. I wake up wanting everything to go away and to be alone, mostly the bleak thoughts in my head. And those days kept lasting and persisting.

1/

#perimenopause
#menopause