How to survive menopause with-out becoming a felon: Mental/Emotional November 29, 2011

Menopause can cloud your judgment. Estrogen deprived brains, anecdotally speaking, can cause you to make some rash choices or to become incapable to make any choices. Often that sweet nurturing side of your personality is suddenly gone. You may find yourself crying often and frequently. Once you had a steel trap for a memory and now you wander into rooms wondering why. Many of your friends or family members or co-workers may notice these changes in your mental or emotional state. Some may even be brave enough to engage you in a conversation about the ‘new’ you.

Here are the signs that menopause has a firm grip of your brain and how to cope:

CRS, Can’t Remember Shit    

Write everything down. Do not say to yourself that you will remember, you will not! Write everything down on a note pad that you keep in the same spot in your purse or on your desk so you can check it often and frequently.

 Do not leave it to your phone because you will forget to charge your phone.

DGS, Don’t Give a Shit

You think you look better, younger, and sexier, than anyone else you know even when others may comment lovingly, critically or snidely to you about your dress, hair or overall appearance and you don’t care.

You think you used to be the smartest person in the room. You know that may not be the case because you can not remember some words or have become dependent on spell check but who cares?

You can not watch a beauty pageant, the Olympics, a Lifetime/Hallmark movie with-out sobbing. You hate criers at work and now there you are blubbering about someone’s story and you don’t care.

Mood Swings

Remember when you were a teenager and your own Mother was frustrated with your snotty attitude? No? Well she was and you didn’t know what set you off? Your hormones are fluctuating like that again. One day you are happy and satisfied and the next you are selling the house, leaving the family and job to eat chocolate in Paris!

Are people saying things like “You just need your morning coffee”? Do you have co-workers who only email you? Does your family ask “Why are you so sensitive?” Do you have some road rage? Have you gone Ape Shit in a public setting? Have you been arrested?

What can help? Try to get a good night sleep. Ask your Doctor for sleep medication. Not even when you were at the top of your game did you function well while sleep deprived! Try exercise of some kind. Whacking a ball in some sport or joining an exercise/dance class can help with the mood swings. Don’t self medicate with wine or drugs. Talk with friends your same age. Just know it is normal, you are not going crazy or becoming emotionally unbalanced; you are menopausal.

I am sure I forgot an important tip or sage advice but you can comment here.

 

 

How to Survive menopause with-out becoming a Felon: Fashion November 15, 2011

Here are some tips that I want to pass along about fashion since I am still living free and still going through menopause. It has been touch and go at times. My inner voice says the most bizarre things but I know it is the menopausal estrogen deprived voice and I do not listen to it. I won’t even say that I would kill for a little estrogen. I know it is only the menopause talking.

1. Wear layers that you can peel off. This means a tank top or T-shirt, preferably wicking as your first layer. Second layer is a sweater or blazer or blouse. Do not peel off past the first layer!
2. Do not wear a crop top, belly shirt, tube top, a sheer blouse, or a sheer blouse over a tube top, or just your bra no matter how hot you are and think you can pull it off. You can not. Are you listening Trudie Styler?
3. Wear slacks with-out stockings. Loose fitting slacks or skirts that are not lined. Wear a skirt with-out stockings, tights or leggings unless it is winter and you are outside.
4. Do not wear a mini skirt (with-out tights or leggings) a kilt, a short dress or short shorts. Even if you think you have Rockette legs it is the menopause evil inner voice talking, do not listen. Remember do not forgo the panties.
5. Wear open toe shoes or peek-a-boo toes with-out stockings or socks for extra ventilation, year round. It may get chilly and damp but it will keep you cool so who cares.
6. Don’t wear hats. Hats keep in the heat, great in the winter but not for those having personal summers.
7. Wear your hair pulled up at the neckline. If you wear a short hairstyle keep it light at the nape of neck. If you wear a bob keep it over the nape of the neck. These precautions are for the sweaty neck and look of wet hair. No one wants to hear the question, “Did you just come from the showers?”
8. Do not wear Spanx or any other control foundation unless you are going to a party. Be sure to put on your make-up after you put on the Spanx. Plan on not going to the bathroom during the party because then you will have to yank them up and it will put you into a flash and there goes the make-up and hairdo!
9. Wear bright polish on your fingers and toes. They are the only things that won’t sweat off during a flash. All make-up must be water resistant and extra long lasting. This doesn’t mean that you won’t have to re-apply foundation, eye liner, eye-shadow, mascara, blush, and lipstick, only that it may not end up running all the way down your face after a few flashes.
10. Clean and put away your turtle necks, mock turtle necks and long woolen sleeved sweaters for a few years as you experience the long hot summers of year round menopause. Keep an extra top, bra, panties and slacks in your car, office, or briefcase, just in case these tips do not work-out.

If you follow my tips and do not listen to the evil menopause inner voice regarding fashion you will be safe from jail and life as a felon. No one will arrest you for indecent exposure. You won’t humiliate your children or spouse or co-workers with a fashion faux pas. More importantly you will not humiliate yourself!

How to Survive Menopause with-out becoming a Felon: Intro November 7, 2011

My initial title was How to survive menopause with-out going to jail, but that seemed short sighted. A snarky remark to a policeman pulling you over for no apparent reason may result in a visit to jail. A shove back to an aggressive shopper may bring store or mall security and it is only protocol that everyone gets hauled into jail to sort things out. A shove forward to get your comments heard by your political favorite might be misunderstood and it is a ride to jail.

Becoming a felon means you have really stepped over the line. You have acted out regrettably in a way that can not be sorted out easily. You have become irrational. You have listened to your inner estrogen deprived voice and snapped. You may be reading this too late. For those of us clinging to our rational though estrogen deprived sanity, I write these words of advice. Full disclosure, my advice is from the point of view of someone who can not offset her menopause symptoms by hormones natural or otherwise.

Most women over the course of several years go through a phase called ‘peri-menopause’. This means little side effects are happening. Most women think something critical is wrong with them or it is stress. In reality more often than not, it is the start of menopause. Denial is one of the first side effects of menopause or peri-menopause. I liken the denial phase to the river The Nile. The banks are very lush, the water is very cool the area is very beautiful and if you could just live there in la-la land of denial, everyone and everything would be great!

Sooner or later, the denial phase does not make sense anymore. Maybe a friend, a spouse or co-worker mentions more than once that you are not quite yourself. Maybe you even have a self reflective non-denial thought and think that you are not yourself either. You start to wonder where the hell did you go and who has taken over your body and mind?

There are many wonderful web sites, books and resources available to find out everything about menopause. From the medical to the spiritual to the alternative to the myths, there is information out there. I am going to share in the following weekly posts the most important information and that is how to survive menopause with-out becoming a felon.  The biggest tip I can give overall is that your inner voice, that voice of rational reason may be compromised because of lack of estrogen, and you need to really truly absolutely positively think and think again before you act, lest you become a felon!

Next Week; How to Survive Menopause with-out becoming a Felon: Fashion

 

Not all Americans are Stupid you Idiot! November 1, 2011

Not all Americans are Stupid You Idiot!

 

I was in a US airport recently. It was the Boston airport and my flight home to the West coast had been delayed. I took the opportunity to eat one more lobster roll and relax before the 6 hour flight home. If you are not familiar with a lobster roll it is lobster meat with maybe some mayonnaise on a hot dog bun. It is fantastic. I grew up in the Boston area and eat lobster as much as possible when I am back visiting. During the summer in Maine and Massachusetts, McDonalds will even have lobster rolls on their menus.

I was in one last lobster bliss stupor, watching baseball on the bar TV, enjoying myself completely when a woman next to me interrupted my reverie. She did not have an American accent and was holding out American coins wanting to know their values. Being a polite person, I engaged her in conversation about where she was from. She told me but with an attitude that I should know just from her accent. She then proceeded to go into a tirade about how stupid American coins are in relation to their size and denominations.

Again, let me state, I was having a pleasant time. How often does that happen when you are delayed in an airport? So I listened to her and told her she was over-thinking the whole money thing. I took her bill and looked at the money she had laid out and told her it was not enough. She was leaving all her change for a tip, amounting to about 5%. She went on about how Americans are so stupid because a nickel is bigger than a dime but is worth less and all the bills are the same size. Yeah, I had enough of her and wanted to get back to the baseball game and savor my lobster roll, but she wouldn’t stop harping.

I sized her up as not a fan of Americans. She was haughty, belligerent and from her tab, cheap. So what could I do? I told her to put down all her change and take another bill that had a big ‘5’ on it and put it on the counter. She asked if wasn’t that too much? I assured her it wasn’t and she did what I asked. I waited for the waitress to come over and collect the bill. She was still talking and going on and on so I had to tell her to take her skinny boney ass back to her country and get the hell away from me. I am patriotic after all. Rude is rude, what else could I do?? What would you do?