Showing all posts tagged perimenopause

In Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Travel

It’s Okay to Ask for Help

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

When we were in London this summer, I was crying uncontrollably in a tube station when a train across the platform pulled ahead and directly across from me was a sign that read in big block letters: It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

I remember staring at it, through my tears, and looking from side to side like this message might be only visible to me. I saw my husband and my kids, waiting for our train and filled to the brim with enthusiasm on this first day of our 25 day European holiday, and I realised with a sense of impending doom that I was falling apart.

Sometimes it takes awhile to understand that we are not okay. I had no idea what to do on that underground platform when I couldn’t stop sobbing. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed to the max, and full of fear. I felt alien to myself. I knew that my kids in particular were worried about me, and I couldn’t reassure them because I didn’t know what was happening myself.

But I clung to that tube station message, like a drowning person holds a life preserver, for the remainder of our trip. It helped me, when I felt utterly lost. I believed in a philosophical manner that it was okay to ask for help, but I had no real experience with this as a practical concept. I was accustomed to being the person who offered help to others. Receiving it for myself was a new experience.

When we got home in mid-August, I felt relieved. Once again, I was in familiar surroundings and felt slightly more capable. But slowly, I came to understand that I was not well and needed medical attention. Throughout the fall, I went to my doctor a lot. I cried in her office every single time. My blood pressure was too high. My sleeping was for shit, and for the first time I considered that I might be struggling with anxiety and depression.

She put me on an oestrogen gel for perimenopause symptoms, and within two weeks I felt significantly better. A month after that I went on the lowest possible dose of a blood pressure medicine, and my heart palpitations/generalized anxiety went away shortly after that. Two months on this medicine and my blood pressure is back to normal, where it always was before.

The long and the short of this post is that It’s Okay to Ask for Help. At any stage or age. Even when it’s inconvenient, like at the start of a big European holiday that we saved for and planned for nearly two years. It’s okay if you don’t even know what’s wrong. And it’s okay to fall apart if you are a wife and a mom and secure in your identity as the one who holds it all together for everyone else. Maybe it’s especially important to know it’s okay when it’s a foreign concept for you, like it was for me.

The second day of our trip, at a gorgeous old pub in Canary Wharf where we had lunch, I told my family that I was thinking about flying home. They were kind and gentle with me, assuring me that I should stay, and that I could take things at my own pace. It was strange and surreal to feel so sad and unmoored and not be able to articulate why I was feeling this way.

In the summer, I couldn’t find a reason, because I didn’t know the reason until the fall. But in ten different countries in Europe, I cried and felt overwhelmed and allowed myself to simply be a mess and not have it all figured out. Looking back on it now, I can see how freeing it was to let go. To ask for help and to try to figure out how to receive help from my loved ones. Jason, Ava, and William were their best selves on that trip. They all thrived, so they led the way and I followed.

As women, we need to learn to ask for help when we are struggling. The last half of 2023 has been a daily exercise in learning how to receive help from others: my family, my friends, my doctor, my counselor. It’s uncomfortable at first, but it’s so worth it, as now I feel stronger and better than I have in a long time. But it starts with asking for help.

As this year ends, and a new one begins, how are you doing? I’m here to remind you that It’s Okay to Ask for Help.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Speaking, University

Middle Age Stress

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Late this spring, my doctor took my blood pressure and expressed concern about how high it was. “What type of stress are you under right now?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing, really,” I replied. She prodded a little, and then I said, “I just finished grad school, and I suppose that was stressful, but it’s over now. My husband and I are going to marriage counselling for the first time, because we’re about to celebrate our 25th anniversary and we’ve been trying to make some significant changes in the way our relationship functions. And my daughter moved out last year for university and I miss her so much. My son is going into grade 12 and I’ve been seeing a counsellor to prepare for an empty nest. We’re going to Europe this July, visiting 10 countries in 3.5 weeks, and there’s been a lot of prep, but other than that, I can’t think of anything.”

My doctor stared at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, then she said in a gentle tone, “Julianne, any one of those things could cause a lot of stress. Add them all together and I can see why your blood pressure is so high.”

I burst into tears. I realised after that appointment how tempting it can be to minimise my experiences. I’ve spent a lifetime doing that, so that I’m not causing difficulties or discomfort to anyone else. I bear all of that shit myself, until it becomes so heavy that I can’t carry it any longer and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

That happened for me this past June. But I couldn’t begin to understand or even acknowledge it then. Even now, months later, it still feels strange to type it out here. I feel removed from the story. It’s like I’m watching it happen to someone else.

My wonderful doctor told me to look after myself more. To get more sleep, to try a variety of lifestyle changes in order to lower my blood pressure. I remember saying to her, quite indignantly, “My blood pressure has always been perfect.” She responded with, “We’re all healthy until we’re not.”

I felt mild shame about my increased blood pressure, even when my doctor assured me that it wasn’t a character flaw. But it felt like one. We went to Europe, and I struggled my way through the trip that was designed as a celebration of our quarter-century marriage, my fiftieth birthday, Ava’s belated high school graduation and my MFA grad. Each day in a new country felt overwhelming and frightening. I was lost, and couldn’t recognise myself, which frankly scared the shit out of me.

This fall, my doctor suggested hormone therapy as we began to realise that so many of my symptoms were tied to perimenopause. I started on estrogen, and after a few weeks I stopped crying all the time for no discernible reason and a host of other symptoms started to abate. But my blood pressure remained high, so I just started on a low dose of medicine to try to bring that down.

It’s lovely to feel supported and cared for in my doctor’s office. It’s one of the first times in my life I’ve had this level of kindness from a medical professional. I’m going to turn 51 in just over a month, and my 50th year has been incredibly challenging on a number of fronts. But progress is being made, and that’s worth celebrating. My new counsellor has me saying, “I’m learning how to do things differently” while writing down the words DO LESS and looking at them every day. She has me trying to care for myself the way I’ve long cared for others, and learning how to receive nurture and love which I’m not good at doing.

It’s a strange experience to speak and teach on topics of wellness and mental health, while struggling day by day on a practical level with it myself. I told the teachers I worked with at a conference in October that I’m working on allowing myself to be sad, and scared, and giving myself permission to not have all the answers. It was truly beautiful how many teachers told me after my sessions how much my vulnerability had meant to them. In theory, I knew that vulnerable sharing is the key to true connection with others, but to understand this by experiencing it was next-level stuff.

I know from talking to several friends that this perimenopause/menopause journey (that’s an overly generous word for it; the first one I typed was ‘nightmare’) can last five or more years. Some who are on the other side of it told me to use these uncomfortable symptoms as an invitation to slow down, and take better care of myself. My counsellor says this stage is about getting comfortable with grieving for the end of childbearing and bringing up children. It’s painful to finish one chapter and move into another one, but that process happens so many times in our lives. Grief feels like a spot-on word.

So we carry on. I’m trying to be gentler, and move a little slower, and stay present. It’s helpful to know that others have gone through this and survived (even eventually thrived). I’d love to hear from you if you have any words of wisdom or encouragement for me in these new and weird perimenopause days. It feels so big and scary in the middle of it, but I also know it’s natural and an important life transition. Most of all, it’s great to know we are not alone.