Thoughts from day 54
Cycle ghosting, false alarms and the long wait for clarity
I’m on day 54 of my cycle, and I am not a fan.
Whilst I would take longer cycles over the early perimenopause high oestrogen peaks and drops of the shorter ones, this particular 54 days is not doing it for me.
I feel what can only be described as completely discombobulated. An actual washing machine. My brain is a live wire one minute — innovating, creating, writing Instagram posts, poems, whole Substack letters formulating, swirling round in my head — and then poof, as if not by magic, they’re gone the next.
The empty, cavernous hole of brain fog hits, and I can’t think or actually see straight never mind remember what I was just thinking, no matter how good or important I thought it was.
I feel dizzy and need to lie down.
I have twinges and cramps so low down I can’t work out if they’re in my uterus, my lower intestine, or my thighs. Have I eaten the wrong thing? Swallowed a fork? Pulled a muscle? Something is happening, I’m just not sure what.
Waking up for a wee in the night is accompanied with more panic than has been for a while. It is the time my brain likes to weigh in all heavy (adopting a Phil Mitchell voice)..’Sophie, what are you up to? Thinking you know anything about anything? Why on earth do you think you can run your own business? You keep forgetting important things like you are, young (ok easy Phil) lady and you’ll get found out.’
You know, chimp on the shoulder and all that.
And the sudden drops of emotions that slip in under the crack in the door and slap you round the face with all the intensity of a angry man with a cricket bat, leaving you reeling from the internal pain, over, I am not sure what.
Then there’s the occasional slightest pale pink show, and I think, this is it! This is why I’ve been feeling out of sorts! And then, au revoir, it disappears from wherever it came, like some twisted game of hide and seek.
And my energy levels… well, they’ve taken an absolute beating. Between a mind that’s burning through fuel, either spinning too fast or too slow and a body that feels depleted, a family day out = two days of sleep.
Afternoon rests are not optional.
The most visual way I can describe it is like driving an old car uphill — not necessarily old, just not electric (before you tell me off for my negative self-talk 😉).
One that seems to have a blockage in the engine somewhere. You put your foot down and nothing happens. Then you do it again and it flies off, revving like a granny in a Fiat. Groaning noises accompany the ride but you’re not sure where the sound is coming from.
I imagine my ovaries and hormone levels trying to coordinate, trying to get in sync with each other. One puts their foot down — a surge, a splutter — but nope, it can’t quite manage it.
Hopefully, you get the gist?
Does it feel like that for you too, I wonder?
I feel completely unpredictable. I can’t plan anything extra beyond what I have to do. And by that, I mean work, feed my kids, and remember to feed myself. Even then, I can’t be bothered to cook or deal with the process of eating, if I’m honest.
It’s blurry, heavy, and sort of just feels like existence here.
I’m holding out for clearer, lighter times. I occasionally take a look back at my Flo app to see what progress my body is making through perimenopause — the longer cycles, the evidence of almost five years of changes in my reproductive system.
I wonder what it’ll be like on the other side. I know it won’t be all roses and bunnies, but still… I long for some kind of predictability.
Some rhythm to my brain, body, and life.
Because right now, I feel rather untethered and at sea.
Big love to my long cyclers, I am waving.
Sophie x