I am a Daughter, Sister, Physician, Wife, Friend, Mother and Author. I wear many hats.
As women, we wear MANY hats! How often do we take off those hats off and enjoy a moment being alone? A time that we are not taking care of everyone else and just do something that we enjoy doing.
As I entered my 40s, I had to reclaim some ME time and at the same time evaluate my wellness.
Wellness is a state beyond the absence of illness but rather aims to optimize well-being. So to me, that optimization requires me to make Me a top priority. It took me a while to figure this out as I experienced some uncomfortable changes.
I turned 39 and it was like a switch turned on to a “not my body” mode. Woke up one morning drenched, and in horror thought, “did I pee the bed?! Did one of my kids sneak in my bed and wet the bed?” Every morning thereafter, I was literally peeling myself off my sheets because I was so sweaty. So I started my morning feeling disgusting!
More irritable…my husband would ask if I was ok. I just grumbled and walked away.
ACNE! I felt like a teenager again. I had bad acne when I was 16 years old and it made me so self-conscious as a teenager. So it decided to come back with a vengeance!
NOT COOL! But I had an idea of what this was and what I had to do. This was the start of a new chapter in my life….Perimenopause. I started to wonder why my mother didn’t warn of me of this. As young girls, we get a forewarning about a period. As young ladies, we get the “sex talk.” And when we get pregnant, we get all types of opinions of what to expect. But after that, there are no more warnings or advice on what to expect as we age. I realized that there are so many women who have NO idea what to expect during the midlife years, during menopause.
In the office, I’m seeing countless women early 40s and early/mid 50s who are experiencing various symptoms that have caught them by surprise-hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, skin changes, different attitudes about sex. Distraught and confused, “what is this?! My mother didn’t warn me!” is what I hear on a regular basis.
Women experience different stages of womanhood and every stage is a new chapter. Perimenopause and Menopause are chapters that are often kept silent or ignored. So I felt compelled to write Loving Me, Myself and Her: Through Perimenopause & Beyond, a guide to serve as cliff notes for these midlife chapters and provide some pearls of wisdom to increase a woman’s knowledge of “the change” that’s coming…..
