Perimenopause: The Unexpected Upside

I have a question for you. Are you in any

groups on Facebook that are specifically for

perimenopause or menopausal women? If you

are, maybe you're experiencing

something similar as to what I'm

experiencing. And it is this vibe

where I'm not gonna say every

post, but most posts are

pretty negative. And what happens when somebody

creates a negative post is 8, 000 people come.

Well, it's not 8, 000 people. I'm being dramatic, but a bunch of people come.

And in the comments section they are super

negative too. It's that whole misery loves company.

Now, I am not saying that we shouldn't be able to talk

about, you know, the negative things of this phase of life

that we're in, because Lord only knows

there are a lot of negative aspects

to, you know, these phases of life. And I get

that. And I am calling myself out here.

I personally feel like I have been caught up in this

trap of only talking about all the negative that

is going on in my body and just focusing a lot of

my time and attention and energy on all of the

negative things. And I don't want to just

focus on that. As a huge mindset junkie, I

know that focusing on negative things, speaking

out, you know, continually negative things about my body,

like, I know that that all affects my energy

and my mood and just how I'm feeling overall.

So today's episode, I want to talk about

something that I don't see a

lot of other, you know, middle aged women talking about. And

that's the positive things of this phase of life. I

am not menopausal, slash postmenopausal,

so I can't speak to, you know, that aspect

of life. But I am in perimenopause. So I'm going

to speak about seven different positive

things that I've experienced since

entering this phase of life. Okay, so the seven

positive things that I have personally experienced

since entering this magical phase of

life. These are in no particular order, but the

first one is I have way fewer fucks to give.

I used to be a massive people pleaser. Like

I would put my needs, my

wants, anything to do with me. I would push it

aside to make sure that everybody else around

me was, you know, being taken care of and

that I was just saying yes to things that I

didn't want to say yes to. All in the

hopes of making everybody else but me

happy. But the positive part of

being 50 is that I am no

longer that people pleaser. I don't

apologize as much as I used to. I am still a

work in progress. I'm working on this one. I don't explain

myself as much. Again, I am still a

work in progress. So while I have gotten way better

about this stuff, I still tend to, you

know, sometimes fall back into, I guess,

those old patterns. Okay, so the second thing

that is positive that I have experienced is

I stand up for myself. Now. I used to, again,

be that people pleaser. I was the person that I

wouldn't speak up if somebody picked on me,

if I didn't agree with a doctor. Like, if I didn't agree with

something that a friend said, I just would

not stand up for myself. And.

And now I just. I stand up for

myself. And I think one of the biggest

positives of this has come to my

health and my medical.

My medical doctor. So in the past, when

a doctor would say something, I would take it

like it was, you know, coming from God. Like there

was just no alternatives to what they told me.

And part of it was fear of standing up for myself.

Even if I didn't agree with something that they wanted me

to do, I would do it. And now

I have a really great relationship with my doctor, and

she knows that. That she can suggest

things and she knows that if I don't agree with it, I'm

going to let her know. And we will either put a pin in it to

discuss that at a later date or we will look at, you

know, different alternatives to that situation.

So that's the second thing. I want to move into the third

thing now, my periods.

So part of me still does complain about

this because I was almost seven

months without a period. And then Aunt Flo had to come

back and grace me with her presence. And of course, she came back

with a vengeance. But even though I

had went almost seven months without a period, that

was. Oh, my gosh, that was such a magical

time because, you know, up until

turning 50, I had dealt with periods

like clockwork. And

like. So, yes, Aunt Flow has come back.

So I had a period in November. No, I

had a period in October. I skipped November. And then

Aunt Flow came again this month in December. But

just the fact that my periods are split, spacing

out, I think that's such a positive.

Okay, Number four is I feel like I have

a stronger radar and

sharper. I don't know if you want to call it, intuition,

instinct, whatever. So I just.

And maybe this isn't a positive because I

feel like I just am very skeptical about

a whole lot of these days. And

I mean, I I guess that's a positive, and it can also be a negative,

but I'm keeping this positive. So I'm saying that having a

stronger radar is a positive.

And the reason that I feel like this is a positive

in my life is because I used to be so

gullible. So I'm gonna. Oh, my gosh. I can't believe

I'm gonna share this story, but I laugh about it now. And I want

to preface this by saying that when this happened,

I was also a very active alcoholic and very

into my drinking days. So I was under the influence

of lots and lots of alcohol when this happened. So

to tell you how gullible I was, I do not know

if you are familiar with something called snipe

hunting. If you are not, look it up. S N

I P E. Hunting. I don't know if maybe that was

just a Michigan thing or if it's like a worldwide thing, but.

Oh, good old gullible Tisha. But

anyways, the man that I was with at that time, we went camping

with a bunch of people, and everybody was, like, talking

about this mysterious snipe. And they were

telling me, you know how you hunt for this snipe? It has to be dark

out. You go up into the woods, you find a sp Spot. You

crouch down in this spot. You have a. Like a paper

bag. You have the paper bag open, and then you bang,

like, two pots and pans together so that you're making

this noise, and you say, here, snipey, snipe, snipe.

Oh, God. I can't believe, as I'm telling this story, that I actually

fell for this. But I did. I just wanted to share that,

to tell you that's how gullible I used to. To be.

Now, the other part of this, I said, was like a sharper

intuition, sharper instinct, whatever you want to call it.

This has been really positive in my life

because it has allowed me to

listen to my body. I believe our

bodies are constantly giving us signals.

And there have been times where I felt like my doctor,

she didn't, quote, unquote, push me off, but basically

didn't really think that there was something wrong. And I

pushed back because I just had this instinct that

there was something wrong. Something really. And

not like, really wrong in, like a quote, unquote, really

bad sense. But an example of this is

foot pain. We had thought that it was plantar

fasciitis, and maybe it was, but that pain,

it went away. Then all of a sudden, again this year,

2025, it was towards the beginning of the year

that the foot pain came back and it was different

than it was last year. So when I brought it up to my

doctor again, we chatted about, you know, plantar

fasciitis and, and things that I could do, but all

of the things that we were trying was not working.

So I finally pushed back again last month

and she ordered an X ray for

me. I went and had my X ray a couple weeks ago and they

found that I have bone spurs. And then there's a.

I'm not even going to try to say it because I will mutilate

the name, but there's something else going on with like another

bone like area in my foot

for me, like just listening and

knowing that there was something more going on than just

planar fasciitis. Like I listened to that

instinct, to that intuition and pushed back and

lo and behold, there is something going on.

Okay, so number five that I have

found to be a positive thing

in this stage of life is my boundaries

get a whole hell of a lot less negotiable.

Again, this goes back to being that people pleaser.

I did not have boundaries. And

nowadays I know my boundaries and I

do not have a problem letting my boundaries be

known. And this has just been such a

positive thing since turning middle aged.

And just being able to not only know those boundaries, but to

speak up and set those boundaries and

not let those boundaries get crossed has been

so freaking amazing and positive. And

I'm a work in progress. So I'm not saying that a hundred

percent of the time I stick to these boundaries.

Yes, there have been times that I've let a

boundary go and it's gotten crossed and then, you

know, I'm feeling resentful and pissed and angry

and it just reminds me why it's such a

positive thing to be able to stick set those

boundaries and then stick to them. Number six,

the positive thing that I have experienced

in perimenopause is rest is no

longer optional. So in my younger

days I would be burning the candle

at both ends of the stick. I was go, go, go, go, go

all the time, no matter how exhausted I was. And

I just would not allow myself to rest.

And I'm not even talking like if I'm tired, I

wouldn't let myself, you know, sleep. It was if

I, I wouldn't allow myself to rest. Like I used to be an

excessive exerciser when I was caught up in

diet culture. And even if I had an

injury I wouldn't let my body rest. Nowadays

as a 50 year old middle aged woman, rest is no

longer optional. I listen to my

body and if my body is telling me again, our

bodies are constantly telling us things and giving us signals.

If my body is telling me that I need to rest, I need to back

off from activity or something. Like with the

foot incident, I have not been able to be very active

lately because of the pain in my foot. And

I don't just push through it, I do do the bare minimum

which is I have to walk my dog at least twice a day.

So even though I'm in pain for that, that is something that is a non

negotiable. It has to be done. Unless I want to clean up shit and piss

in the house. And yeah, that's a no. But

I allow myself to rest. When I need

to rest, I will take naps.

If I need to take a nap, I. And if I just don't feel like

doing something on like a Saturday or Sunday with my

fiance and I just want to rest, I let him know because

rest is no longer optional. Number

seven that has been a positive for me

since entering this middle aged perimenopause

phase of life is I have a clearer

sense of self. And I actually feel a

little like contradictory saying this because

there's also a part of me that still sometimes find

myself like kind of questioning a

little bit like who I am, what do I want for the rest of my

life. But overall I just

have this sense of self that I

never had when I was younger. I will

no longer shrink like I used to. I

would not again stand up for myself. I wouldn't set boundaries, I

wouldn't use my voice. And nowadays

I, I just don't shrink.

Like I don't back down from using my voice.

Even if it is, you know, I get

pushback from people about things. I am not afraid

to share my opinions or my beliefs. Even if I get

pushback and hate and nasty, you know, comments and stuff from

people because I'm just so fully

aware of my sense of self and my

beliefs and my values and the things that I stand for

that I, I'm not willing to

shrink myself. Okay, that's it. That

was my seventh one and I just really wanted to

do this episode because I guess really for

me personally, because I have been so

caught up in that trap of focusing

and talking only about the negative of being

a 50 year old middle aged woman in perimenopause

and I just really wanted to put something positive out there.

So I really hope that, you know, maybe this

sparked something in you and you're like, oh yeah, you know,

Tish, I too have only been focusing on the negative. But you

know, now that you say it, wow, there really are these,

you know, positive things that are also going on at this time of

my life. I just feel like we need to put some more time

and energy into talking about the positive things.

All right, so that's it for today's episode. If you liked it, please

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gal. I would be so grateful if you did. It's just a way

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you will find a link to be a guest.

All right, that's it. Have a great day.