Welcome to Menolescence

Why I’m seeking a menopause specialist.

It hit me last week, not like a truck but more like a slow, creeping warmth that builds until I have to peel off a layer and pretend it’s just “a bit hot in here.”

Hot flushes. Up to twenty a day, if I’m counting. They’re not ruining my life just yet, but they’re here. I’ve started dressing in black at work so I don’t have to think about sweat patches. That’s the level I’m at. Functional, but aware.

My periods have been irregular this year. Maybe six in total? Some normal, some half-hearted attempts. I’m three weeks waiting for the latest one to show up, and I can feel this strange anxiety simmering beneath the surface. Not panic. Just… unease. Emotion. Like my body’s quietly rewriting its own code and I wasn’t given the update notes.

Then today I heard the term “menolescence.”
It stopped me in my tracks. That’s exactly it.

It feels like puberty all over again. The emotional volatility, the not-quite-yourself-ness, the constant sense that something’s shifting but you can’t articulate what. Only this time, you’ve got house renos, a business, and studying for your Masters in action to keep up with while it happens.

When I talk to the women in my life (most of them are my clients, so they are super-smart and self-aware) the advice is all over the place.

“Get on HRT NOW.”
“Don’t touch it.”
“See this specialist.”
“Just suck it up, it’s part of life.”

Understandably - I’m lost.

So, true to form, I did what I always do when I feel out of control, I went hunting for research. And there is fuck all.
A handful of studies, some conflicting data, lots of theories. But nothing that feels conclusive, nothing that feels like a roadmap. For something half the population experiences, it’s wild how vague the science still is.

So, I decided to see a menopause specialist. I googled “best menopause doctor in Brisbane.” Booked an appointment. Earliest I can get in is January.

Typical.

So I did the next best thing, I booked in with a trusted GP for next week. Because I can’t sit here and “wait it out” for months while my body does whatever it’s doing.

This morning, driving home from the gym, I listened to a podcast about women’s health, you can watch it on Youtube here. They said something that really landed- that menopause itself is just a moment in time. One day. One diagnosis. Exactly 365 days after your last period. That’s it. Everything before that - the chaos, the fluctuations, the mood swings, the flushes, the feeling like your body is morphing under your skin- is the important time to take action - the peri-menopause.

Meaning, technically, you’re meant to go through an entire year of all this before anyone even names it. Before you even get to have a conversation about what to do next.

It’s absurd and it’s isolating.

But I’m not going to quietly sit in confusion waiting for that one-day milestone. I’m asking questions now. Because if this is menolescence, then I’m officially the awkward teenager again, only this time I’m wise enough to know I need better information, not just someone telling me to “ride it out.”

I’ve talked before about how stress and sleep impact women’s hormones - this is just another layer of that story.