'I was totally blindsided by perimenopause anxiety'
When Saska Graville was blindsided by anxiety and lost her confidence at work, she blamed the hustle of life – and herself. Who knew her hormones were responsible? Here Saska shares her story of perimenopause anxiety and how she worked through it.
'The storm before the calm' is how a doctor friend of mine describes perimenopause to her patients. She's not wrong. The perimenopause years (preceding the moment of menopause) can be when the most challenging symptoms kick in – and when you're least expecting them.
For me, perimenopause was one big imperfect – and sudden – storm, hitting when I was 49 and in the midst of all of the other challenges that midlife can throw at you.
Daily gnawing anxiety was the symptom that struck me. Like many women, life was busy and demanding, and I had plenty of things to blame my daily feelings of panic for. I’d made a major career change for a start, leaving journalism (and my beloved Red magazine) after decades and moving to a PR and marketing agency as a global account director. It was a very different world, and I put my struggles down to my new life of clients, timesheets that tracked my billable hours and the appearance of PowerPoint in my working day.
Adding to my stress, house-moving delays caused my mortgage to fall through, resulting in endless telephones calls and paperwork to organise a new one at pace. Much to my horror, I found myself struggling to cope. I was over the moon about my rebooted career path, my new colleagues and clients were lovely and yet everything felt out of reach and overwhelming. New ways of thinking and working eluded me, new systems felt confusing and impossible to grasp (yes, PowerPoint) and, worst of all, I was scared. For the first time in years, I didn't trust my judgement; I felt inexperienced and completely out of my depth.
My daily feelings of doom impacted every aspect of my life. My partner, while hugely supportive, must have been exasperated by his previously career-confident girlfriend sobbing into her pillow before getting up for work.
Family and friends probably didn't realise what I was going through, but looking back, I suspect I was too preoccupied by my own mental health concerns to be open to the support of others.
It didn't cross my mind that my hormones were to blame. Perimenopause and menopause weren't the high-profile health issues they are now. Like many women of my age, I assumed I'd be 'old' before I had to think about 'the big M', and even then, the only symptom I knew about was hot flushes (and I'm yet to experience one of those).
So you can imagine my shock when, having finally gone to my GP to ask for some help, she told me I was 'in menopause' and offered HRT. Not the diagnosis I was expecting.
A happy-ever-after ending would be that I started HRT that day and everything calmed down. Sadly not. These were the days when the myth that HRT was a fast-track to breast cancer was prevalent. HRT came with stigma and fear. It wasn't until six months later, at an NHS specialist menopause clinic appointment, that I was properly educated about the facts – and the fictions – of what I now consider to be a wonder drug.
After just a few weeks of taking HRT, my anxiety levels dropped, my brain fog cleared and my confidence returned.
I echo what Trinny Woodall said in a recent interview: 'I'll be taking HRT until the day I die' - you'll have to prise it out of my hands.
Today's perimenopausal women are more informed and empowered than I was. Thanks to celebrities talking candidly about their struggles, menopause doctors and specialists being given more airtime, and magazines such as Red bossing midlife health and wellbeing, there are more facts at our fingertips.
One of my biggest regrets is that my menopause challenges were opaque, but I was clueless, and my colleagues were too. None of us realised that a forty-something, previously self-assured co-worker suddenly struck by insecurities could be hormonal.
That's why it's great to see so many more workplaces educating their employees about this completely normal ageing process. Knowledge is power. Once you know what you're dealing with, the solutions – for most women – are fairly straightforward. If only I'd known that back then.
Saska Graville is the co-founder of Hylda, a health and wellbeing platform for midlife women. This feature originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of Red magazine.
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