“Now in my perimenopause, I kept forcing myself to wade through treacle, striving to get to a better place. Because of this, I didn’t have the opportunity to show my abilities in school. There’s been a lot of lost potential. Thankfully I found my niche and motivator in Social Work and have since gained 2 Master’s degrees.
“Since childhood I have had on loop in my head the question, “what is wrong with me?”, as I found it hard to retain and recall factual information making learning and exams very challenging. I attributed a lot of the fatigue to my endometriosis which ekes life out of you through pain and other symptoms. Periods of fatigue and mini burnouts where low mood would occur was a repeating cycle in my teens. But life felt like a gargantuan juggling act. “Looking back at myself and my experiences – and for any hints of what had been hiding in plain sight – I had always felt tired but had curious bursts of energy and extroverted enthusiasm, lots of ideas and was very sociable. It is now clear to me she is also neurodivergent, but this has not been recognised either and this period was devastating – for her, for my father and my 13-year-old self. My mum had a breakdown with her perimenopause though, and at the time this was not recognised as the cause. I was aware you sometimes follow your mother in terms of the age of onset for perimenopause and I realised that this was what was probably happening to me. “I’ve always been informed about my health since my life was impacted by endometriosis and adenomyosis at age 13. To add insult to injury, then the devastating migraines began. I used mindfulness, CBT approaches, essential oils and supplements. Increasingly, I felt trapped in a complex web of symptoms, I struggled to regulate my attention and my emotions and I felt stuck in something that I couldn’t find my way out of. I tried red clover, phytoestrogens and sage leaf tablets, with varying degrees of success. Then came hot flushes that engulfed me with nausea and dizziness. “Everything hurt including my sense of self. I was also having to cope with a challenging home environment due to my children’s needs and struggles (due to diagnosed and undiagnosed neurodivergence). I was drained, irritable and frequently low despite being on an antidepressant for 3 years. Most days I felt unwell, and fatigue became more apparent. Sore breasts began making sleep uncomfortable.
“When I was 47, something started to change. Margaret was one of these women and she tells her story here. For many women with ADHD, entering the perimenopause can cause a worsening of their ADHD and many others do not realise they are neurodivergent until hormone changes at perimenopause bring many issues to the fore that they may have struggled with for years.
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