This page is different from the others. It’s not about mechanisms or treatments. It’s about the experience of moving through a passage that changes you—sometimes in ways you didn’t expect and didn’t choose.
Come sit with me. I want to talk about what this feels like.
Grief Without Death
You may be grieving, and you may not have words for it. There’s no funeral, no condolence cards. But losses are happening:
The loss of fertility. Even if you don’t want more children—even if you never wanted children—the closing of this door can carry unexpected weight. It’s the end of a possibility, a biological capacity that defined part of your adult life.
The loss of a familiar body. The body you knew, the one you’d finally made peace with (or were still fighting with), is changing. You look in the mirror and see someone slightly different. Your joints ache, your skin has changed, your shape has shifted. The body that felt like home doesn’t feel quite like home anymore.
The loss of predictability. You used to know what to expect from yourself—your energy, your cycles, your moods, your sleep. Now you can’t predict what any given day will bring. Living in uncertainty is exhausting.
The loss of spontaneous desire. For some women, the disappearance of libido feels like losing a part of themselves—a vitality, a source of connection and pleasure that used to arise unbidden.
The loss of cognitive sharpness. When words won’t come and thoughts scatter, it can feel like losing yourself. Your mind has been your tool, your identity. Watching it struggle is frightening.
The loss of invisibility. Or maybe visibility. Society treats menopausal women differently. You may feel you’ve crossed into a category that gets dismissed, ignored, or pitied. The culture has feelings about women who are “past” their reproductive years, and those feelings aren’t kind.
These are real losses. Grief is the appropriate response to loss. Give yourself permission to grieve.
The Stranger in the Mirror
“I don’t recognize myself.”
This phrase comes up again and again. Sometimes it’s physical—the reflection doesn’t match the internal sense of self. Sometimes it’s emotional—reactions and moods that feel foreign, not you.
There’s a disorientation to this transition that goes beyond any single symptom. The ground is shifting under your feet. The self you knew is being remodeled without your consent.
This is terrifying. It’s also, eventually, temporary.
You will find yourself again—or find a new self. But in the middle of the passage, it can feel like disappearing.
The Anger No One Talks About
Beneath the sadness, there may be rage.
Rage at a body that’s betraying you. Rage at a medical system that doesn’t take you seriously. Rage at a culture that dismisses midlife women. Rage at partners who don’t understand. Rage at having to navigate this with so little support, so little information, so little acknowledgment.
This anger is valid. You have been failed—by inadequate medical training, by cultural silence, by systems that should have prepared and supported you.
You don’t have to be graceful about this. You don’t have to be a good sport. You’re allowed to be angry at something that’s genuinely hard.
The Isolation
You may feel profoundly alone, even surrounded by people.
Perhaps you haven’t told anyone what you’re going through. Perhaps you’ve tried and been dismissed. Perhaps the people in your life don’t understand, can’t understand, aren’t trying to understand.
Or perhaps you’re comparing yourself to other women who seem to be sailing through—and feeling like you’re failing at something everyone else handles fine. (They’re not all sailing through. Many are struggling in silence, just like you.)
Connection helps. Finding even one person who gets it—a friend, a support group, an online community—can make the difference between drowning and keeping your head above water.
You’re not the only one struggling. I promise you that.
The Fear
I want to name some fears that may be lurking:
Am I losing my mind? Probably not. Cognitive changes during perimenopause are real but usually temporary. But the fear of dementia, of mental decline, of becoming someone who can’t think clearly—that fear is real too.
Is my relationship going to survive this? It might change. Some relationships strengthen through this passage; some don’t survive it. If you’re struggling with a partner, resources exist. But the fear of losing connection, of pushing someone away, of being too much—that’s a real fear.
Will I ever feel like myself again? This is maybe the deepest fear. And the answer is: probably yes, but you might also become someone slightly different. The “yourself” on the other side of menopause may not be identical to the self you knew. That can be a loss, and it can also be a freedom.
What if this is just… it? The fear that the symptoms, the struggle, the feeling of being diminished—what if it never gets better? For most women, the most intense symptoms improve in postmenopause. But the fear of being stuck here is real.
What Helps
Let yourself feel it. Stuffing down grief and anger takes energy and doesn’t make them go away. The feelings need to move through you.
Find your people. Support groups, online communities, friends who are going through it. The shared experience of “me too” is medicine.
Therapy can help. A good therapist can help you process grief, navigate relationship changes, and find your footing. Look for someone who understands hormonal transitions—not everyone does.
Movement. Not for weight loss or obligation. Movement for the way it moves emotion through the body, changes your chemistry, gives you something that still works.
Small pleasures. When everything feels hard, tiny sources of joy matter more. What brings you pleasure now, even briefly?
Meaning-making. Some women find it helpful to frame this transition as an initiation, a threshold, a becoming. In many cultures, postmenopausal women held special status—wise women, elders, keepers of knowledge. You’re not ending; you’re becoming something else.
Lower the bar. This is not the time for ambitious self-improvement projects. This is the time for survival and self-compassion. If you got through the day, that’s enough.
For Those Supporting Someone
If you’re reading this to understand someone you love:
Believe her. Whatever she’s experiencing, it’s real. Don’t minimize, compare, or offer solutions she didn’t ask for.
Witness without fixing. Sometimes she needs to be seen in her struggle, not rescued from it.
Learn. Read the rest of this guide. Understand what’s happening biologically. Your understanding is a gift.
Stay. Even when it’s hard. Even when she’s not herself. She needs you to stay.
The Other Side
I want to tell you something true: most women come out the other side.
Not unchanged—transformed. But often transformed into something they eventually appreciate. Many postmenopausal women report greater freedom, clearer priorities, less tolerance for bullshit, deeper self-knowledge.
The passage is hard. The destination can be good.
Not for everyone—I won’t promise you’ll love postmenopause. But there is an other side. The intensity of perimenopause, the chaos, the loss of self—that’s the transition, not the destination.
You’re not dying. You’re being remade.
I wish I could sit with you, hold your hand, tell you you’re going to be okay. Through whatever distance separates us, know that I see you. Know that what you’re experiencing is real and hard and significant.
Know that women have been crossing this threshold since there have been women. You are part of something ancient, even when it feels lonely.
You will make it through. I’m sitting with you until you do.