As far as I can tell I've been in perimenopause for all of my 40s. (I honestly really can't believe i'm this age, I live too much like I did in my late 20s ..well actually better, there's less stress and chaos but other than it's still pretty much the same)...That's when my cycle got super regular (after a life time of highly irregular)

My reproductive system said, haha bitch, we are going to play all the tricks we used when we were getting started up! Wait until the mood swings and emotions really get going! You are going to love this!

I honestly have spent so much of my life in emotional upheaval, crisis, and mood swings that.. the last few years when I've had the most stability.. I've managed to figure out how to handle a lot of it hopefully that either the skills I've learned will help or it will be familiar enough that it will kind of feel boring.

oy ... there are times when boring is a good thing. When I went into menopause, I'd get the cramps (I was usually irritable at that time, so who know) and general discomfort but no menstruation. It was confusing - I'd put in a tampon and it'd come out clean. bah! By the way, I'd heard the story and recently saw a brief song about Sally Ride's first trip to space ... it was for six days and, seemingly, NASA never thought to ask her (1) IF she needed any "feminine hygiene" supplies and (2) IF she did, how many. So ... for a one-week trip, they gave her more than 300 tampons. The mind boggles.

Ha, the Sally Ride story is funny. My menopause was pretty uneventful. Done by 47. Mostly it was just random for a few years. Had hot flashes, but not as bad as some women.

God damn, I am 49 and so ready for this nonsense to be done. I don't need a period anymore, sheesh.

last month I got cramps and that heavy bloated feeling and I was like.. oh god this is goign to be bad.. and nothing. last week there was a tiny bit of spotting intermittent days but then that's it.

I did have hot flashes of some kind a year or two ago. I can't ask mom about what hers was like because she doesn't really know. she had a hysterectomy right after my brother was born.

Yeah, that was kind of like what mine was ... if I remember correctly. It will fade after a while ... I hope, for your sake. I do once in a while seem to have hot flashes (better to have in the winter). I DO remember feeling like I could heat an entire room when one hit.

OK, who would be first to sign up for this?

I am going to add horrid insomnia to the list of new issues... symptoms.. whatever. I have trazadone but I wake up as soon as it wears off and can't get back to sleep or it takes forever for me to feel sleepy.

And I'm caught in be cycle of not enough sleep so more caffeine to get through the day day but then I can't sleep because too much caffeine so it repeats. Tryin to break that today.

And my brain is going hat thing where I try to sleep, I start to fall asleep and then

BAM!! remember how you happy you were in Vermont you totally screwed that up..and then alternating with AND miserable. Why are you thinking about it like that ...oh wait we're tired ok go to sleeepp..

And 5 seconds later

So if you'd just made better decisions when you were 20 you wouldn't be in this place now...