When You Don’t Feel Like Yourself – Hello, Perimenopause
Last week, I absentmindedly walked out of a café without paying.
It was the second time in six months I’d done it.
Yesterday, I stood in front of a pet shop assistant for what felt like forever, unable to recall the simple words “cattle dog.”
At home, it’s not unusual to hear me calling out things like, “Don’t forget to pack your teeth and brush your school bag!”
Since entering my 40s, alcohol makes my face flush bright red and blocks my nose. Coffee makes me shake and feel anxious.
And last year? By April, I was genuinely worried about my mental health. I was despairing about all kinds of thing. I felt like I was living in an alternate universe where only I existed, and even then, it was a partial existence. Some days I’d suddenly snap out of it as if a bubble had burst, only to sink back into confusion days later. On the clear days, the foggy ones felt like a dream.
It was those sudden shifts that made me look more deeply at what was happening in my physical, emotional, and spiritual life as a woman. I was 47.
We hear so many names for this phase: The Change. Second Puberty. Perimenopause. Menopause. They’re meant to describe the complex transition women in their 40s and 50s — and sometimes as early as their 30s — move through as their reproductive years wind down. Or, more accurately, rollercoaster.
Yet these terms barely scratch the surface of what’s happening, or why so many women suddenly feel lost, altered, or disconnected from themselves. It can be deeply unsettling, especially if we start to believe we’re becoming less capable or losing capacity.
The phrase I hear most from women is: “I just don’t feel like myself.”
As science finally begins to take women’s health seriously — and we still have a long way to go — a clearer picture is emerging. Perimenopause is a period of recalibration, driven by the relationship between estrogen, progesterone, and the rest of your body.
Your hormones shift in a nonlinear pattern, think peaks, troughs, fluctuations. And because nothing in the body works in isolation, these changes ripple through your nervous system, brain, immune system, and your mental and emotional energies.
So, let’s dive into what’s happening beneath the surface.
We often hear that perimenopause is all about losing estrogen. But in reality, the process begins with changes in progesterone, your calming hormone. Even with regular periods, lowering progesterone can bring headaches, night sweats, anxiety, and heart palpitations. Your nervous system and brain feel this too, often showing up as disrupted sleep, memory lapses, and mood changes.
Because progesterone and estrogen work in partnership, shifting progesterone can cause estrogen to spike — sometimes up to three times higher than usual. That’s significant! These estrogen peaks can bring irritability, heavy periods, and breast tenderness. If you’re feeling more reactive, irritable or even angry at times, that’s your fluctuating estrogen talking.
And estrogen doesn’t just rise — it drops too. Up, down, up, down. Around and around.
No wonder you don’t feel like yourself.
After your final period, your body transitions into a phase of lower estrogen. But get this, your body still produces estrogen through every cell in every tissue — a process called intracrinology. It’s the same way men and children make estrogen.
This recalibration, like most transitions is a tricky one to exist in. You may feel discomfort not only from losing your “old normal,” but also from the uncertainty of who you’ll become on the other side. Try to remember, you’re not broken, and this isn’t forever.
Women are constantly told our hormones are “deficient”, our ovaries are “drying up”, and menopause is “the beginning of the end”. In Western culture, it’s no wonder aging can feel like an inadequacy or a fear we won’t be as strong as we used to be before the Change.
Yet look around.
Women in their 40s and 50s are doing extraordinary things.
Christina Koch, American astronaut and engineer, was 47 when she became one of the first four astronauts to travel around the moon. Julia Gillard was 48 when she became Prime Minister and went on to pass over 570 bills — more than any PM before her.
This doesn’t match the image we are sold of a “drying up” woman. Even while recalibrating, we are powerful, capable, and evolving. The narrative needs to change. Perimenopause is a time of profound transition.
Dr Mindy Pelz writes in Age Like a Girl,
“When we put these pieces together, we can see that menopause isn’t an evolutionary mistake. The shedding of our neurochemical armour and that reconnection with our inner voices, none of that is an accident. The brain changes that happen in menopause are crucial to our well-being and that of society’s. It’s as if we enter a major construction project. Our brains are undergoing a massive transformation, and so are our lives. When looked at wholistically, we start to see that the purpose of menopause is to transform us into the stronger, more powerful, more authentic, and more intelligent versions of ourselves”.
When I walked out of those cafés, I wasn’t absentminded — I was multitasking. I had my children with me, I was planning our next steps, gathering our things, remembering the shopping list.
I called both cafés afterwards and paid. Of course.
At the pet shop, the assistant chuckled kindly when I explained I couldn’t remember my dog’s breed. My cortisol tried to surge with embarrassment, but I reminded myself: this is temporary. My brain is adjusting its relationship with three key molecules supported by estrogen — acetylcholine, glutamate, and BDNF. I wasn’t losing my mind.
My family and I have learned to make light of my jumbled sentences. Most of the time (!), they know what I mean. My brain is doing complex work to adapt to shifting estrogen and progesterone. And I still experience clarity and creativity — like writing this article.
Alcohol currently triggers my mast cells, releasing histamine, which explains my flushing and congestion. Remember the peaks of estrogen we experience as our progesterone is lowering, I mentioned earlier? High estrogen has an indirect effect on histamine. Research suggests this may settle after menopause as my body adjusts. For now, I choose to drink infrequently.
And last year, when my mental health was at its lowest? I got still and listened to what I needed: connection and nourishment. I sat with some of the most treasured women in my life. I talked, cried, researched, and reached out. I stayed with a dear friend in the Blue Mountains and returned home feeling nourished and lifted out of the fog.
Women evolve — we do not contract. Let’s reshape the narrative into one that honours every woman’s experience and acknowledges her truth, whether she’s moving through pain or discovering herself in a new way.
Perimenopause is very real, and it can be deeply challenging. But it is also a profound recalibration — one that can ultimately strengthen and clarify who you are.
If this topic speaks to you, I’d love to support you as you navigate your own recalibration of mind, body, and spirit. Through kinesiology, we can communicate with your body physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically to help smooth the ride that is perimenopause.
Learn more about Kate’s kinesiology treatments and book online
Further Reading
Fiction:
The Change by Kirsten Miller (https://www.kirstenmillerbooks.com/books/the-change)
— What if menopause gave women magic powers?
Nonfiction:
Hormone Repair Manual (https://www.larabriden.com/hormone-repair-manual/ (GreenPeak Publishing, 2021) by naturopathic doctor, researcher and evolutionary biologist, Lara Briden
Age Like a Girl: How Menopause Rewires Your Brain for Mental Clarity, Increased Confidence and Renewed Energy (https://www.drmindypelz.com/books) (Penguin Books, 2025) by Dr. Mindy Pelz
