I have been through sheer hell. My hormones are going crazy. My body is trying to kick off another period, but can’t quite pull it off. From what I’ve read and been told I should be pretty much done with the period part of things by age 52 or sooner in my case. It’s the anxiety that’s killing me. The hot flashes suck too, but those are more annoying and uncomfortable. The anxiety can get to be both scary and depressing. Even when my heart isn’t racing I can still feel anxious. It’s horrible. I don’t understand why I did so well for so long and now it’s returned, but I am told that’s normal. I wonder if the dizziness and fatigue are going to return as well. Anything’s better than anxiety, but if I’m tired again lately it’s because I have been sleeping poorly or I sometimes have to take lorazepam.

The night before last I slept okay, but last night was horrible. I woke up on fire, heart-pounding fiercely. With the covers, I was too warm and without them, I was too cold, and back and forth and back and forth. It’s a never-ending cycle of hell all over again with no possible end in sight.

My first guess is the perimenopause, my second guess is my medication, and my last guess would be something wrong with my heart. Assuming isn’t the same as knowing, and it gets so fucking frustrating because I don’t understand why they don’t have tests that can identify this for sure is being perimenopause, as obvious as my symptoms are. I will know all I need to know about my heart on the 22nd, so that leaves the medication. The numbers say no way, but some of the symptoms are the same as when I went thyrotoxic. That’s what sucks about some things when the timing is shitty and things are occurring at the same time that can mimic similar symptoms. HR isn’t elevated enough and consistently enough for the meds to be at play, so Tom and I both suspect the peri.

I had slight heartburn and queasiness for reasons I don’t know before I fell asleep. When I woke up overheated and with a racing heart, I had the runs and felt short of breath.

Although I wasn’t panicking, I called Tom at work because I knew it would help to hear his voice. Once again I’m alone so much of the time and that doesn’t help. One can still suffer no matter who is or isn’t around, but it’s always a little more comforting to do it with your loved ones around. I’m not like I was 20 years ago. I can’t be left alone for such long periods of time anymore.

I try to focus on doing things and keeping busy to distract my mind from my worries, but that’s pretty hard to do when you feel so shitty that that in itself is distracting you from concentrating on anything. Sometimes all I want to do is lie in bed; another thing I read is common and that can sometimes be mistaken for depression. I’m in a depressing situation, all right, but I’m not “depressed.” Just going through the worst perimenopause ever and hoping my meds and heart aren’t also a factor.

I want to sleep until it’s over but there’s no escape in sleep when all I do is keep waking up feeling like I’m on fire and my heart’s about to jump out of my chest.

When I got up at one point to use the bathroom, I was surprised that there was no callback from Stacey… and then I remembered… duh! She’s at her private practice on Fridays, so she won’t pick up my message until Monday morning.

Sometimes I miss some aspects of my old life, but not the old life itself. When I was younger I tended to live more in the moment, and when I did worry about the future it was more about what I would do while I still had plenty of time left to live. Not that I don’t still have plenty of time left to live (unless this shit finally kills me), but I worry more about the end… growing old, suffering, death and dying, etc.

I would like to publish this now along with finishing the laundry, and doing the things I usually do during my day that I’ve either neglected or not done enough of but because the lorazepam has left me drowsy I’ll publish it later.

I told Tom about Stacey and he didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t seem worried or surprised. Stacey’s harmless, so I suppose that telling him that she’s attracted to me isn’t much different than telling him I’d like a drink of orange juice. He trusts me and he knows that he’s my number one no matter what. Not that I expect to do so, but I could hug her, I could hold her hand, I could kiss her, I could snuggle up with her and chat… but nothing she could ever say or do would get me to leave Tom, not that I could imagine her ever trying to.