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There were moments during my own perimenopause journey when I found myself whispering a question, I was almost too embarrassed to say out loud:
“Am I losing it?”
It didn’t come up once. It came up many times. Sometimes in a quiet, anxious way like a thought I could bat away if I distracted myself. And other times in a sharper, more urgent way that left me wondering if something inside me had come undone.
If you’ve ever had that thought too, please know you’re not alone.
I wish someone had told me that years ago.
When Emotions Become Weather, You Can’t Predict
Before perimenopause, I knew my emotional patterns. I could tell when I was tired, stressed, hungry, or annoyed. There was a logic to the way I felt—an internal map I had learned to navigate.
Then something shifted.
At first it was subtle: I was a little more irritable, a little more teary, a little more anxious. The kind of things you chalk up to a tough week or a bad night’s sleep.
But slowly, the emotions started to feel less like mine and more like weather. Coming and going without warning, sometimes bright, sometimes stormy, sometimes both in the same afternoon. I remember one day standing in line at the supermarket, fighting back tears because the woman ahead of me was taking too long. Another day I burst out laughing at something that wasn’t even funny. And a few hours later I was inexplicably furious.
It was like my emotions had become guests in my own house, rearranging my furniture while I was trying to get through the day.
And that was when the question started surfacing more often:
Am I losing it?
The Fear Beneath the Feelings
What I eventually realised is that the fear wasn’t about the intensity of the emotions, it was about the unpredictability.
I’m someone who has always been the reliable one. The person who holds it together. The person others come to when they’re falling apart. So, when I started to feel shaky, it felt like a personal betrayal.
I remember lying in bed one night thinking,
What if these swings mean something serious? What if my mind is slipping? What if I can’t trust my own reactions anymore?
It’s a very specific kind of fear, the fear that one day the crack you feel inside will widen, and you won’t be able to hide it. That you’ll “break down” in a way you can’t control.
I carried that fear quietly for a long time.
The Silence We Inherit
Part of what made it so scary is that nobody around me ever talked about this phase of life in any real, human way. My mother never mentioned perimenopause. My aunts never talked about it. Others in my life only made jokes about hot flushes and night sweats. No one ever said:
“You might cry for no reason.”
“You might feel rage in your teeth.”
“You might feel like you’re unravelling.”
“You might question your own sanity.”
So, when it happened to me, I thought it was personal.
I thought it was something wrong with me.
Only later did I learn it was something happening to me.
Something hormonal. Something neurological.
Something common.
But when you don’t know that the fear fills in the silence.
What It Actually Was: A Hormonal Earthquake
Perimenopause isn’t just a reproductive shift; it’s a neurological one. Your hormone levels rise and fall in seemingly irregular patterns, which affects serotonin, dopamine, and every other emotional regulator in your brain.
But when those hormonal earthquakes are happening inside you, they don’t feel biochemical. They feel existential.
I wish someone had sat me down and said:
“You’re not losing yourself. Your brain is recalibrating.”
“You’re not going crazy. You’re going through a transition.”
“It’s not a breakdown. It’s biology.”
It would have saved me so much worry.
The Breakdown That Was Actually a Breakthrough
Here’s something I didn’t expect: all those unpredictable emotions ended up forcing me to examine parts of myself I had ignored for years.
Anger surfaced where I’d always played nice.
Sadness bubbled up in places I’d pushed away.
Old resentments, unmet needs, forgotten desires, they all came out of hiding.
At the time, it felt messy and uncomfortable.
Now I see it for what it was: a kind of midlife truth-telling.
The “breakdown” I feared was actually a breakthrough. An emotional decluttering I didn’t know I needed. My hormones didn’t just disrupt old patterns; they pushed me toward a more honest version of myself.
But I could only see that in hindsight.
During the storm, it just felt like chaos.
What Helped When I Felt Unsteady
There were a few things that genuinely helped me regain my footing. Not because they erased the emotions, but because they gave me a sense of control again.
1. Naming it out loud
Once I finally said, “This is perimenopause,” something inside me softened. The fear lost its teeth. I wasn’t broken; I was transitioning.
2. Separating “me” from “my hormones”
Sometimes I would literally say, “Okay oestrogen, I get it, you’re having a day.” It made me laugh and helped me not take every mood as a sign that my life was falling apart.
3. Letting myself feel what I felt
Instead of fighting the emotions, I started allowing them. Crying without apologising. Resting without guilt. Saying no without a three-paragraph explanation. It helped tremendously.
The Truth I Wish Someone Had Told Me Early On
If I could go back and talk to myself in those early months, the versions of me who almost cried in the supermarket, who snapped at everyone, who lay awake fearing she was unravelling, I would say:
“You’re not losing it. You’re changing.”
“You’re not breaking. You’re shifting.”
“You’re not falling apart. You’re shedding.”
“You won’t stay in this limbo forever.”
And most importantly:
“You are allowed to be human while this is happening.”
If You’re Asking, ‘Am I Losing It?’—Here’s My Answer
No. You’re not.
You may feel wobbly, unpredictable, more emotional than usual, or completely unfamiliar to yourself. But this isn’t the beginning of collapse. It’s the beginning of transition.
Perimenopause is messy and inconvenient and sometimes deeply uncomfortable. But it’s also an opportunity, A forced pause, a recalibration, a doorway into a wiser, clearer, more honest chapter.
The emotional turbulence is not a sign that you’re breaking down.
It’s a sign that you’re breaking open.
And that opening, though it doesn’t feel like it in the moment, leads to a version of yourself that is fuller, steadier, and more authentically you.
Pam x
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