Where Was This Chapter in 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret'?!

Hey ladies! Has anyone else noticed that once you hit a certain age, your vocabulary expands to include medical terms you never needed before? Ferritin testing, fructose intolerance, autoimmune disease, freaking histamine intolerance?? Where the hell were these things when we were young? I’ll tell you one thing—these topics were NEVER part of my party planning!
Fast forward (and boy, do I mean FAST forward), and suddenly these are all I talk about. Like, if someone had told me ten years ago that my idea of an exciting Friday night would be Googling "histamine-friendly foods" while sipping my chamomile tea, I would've laughed my ass off.
But then peri-menopause snuck up on me like a ninja in orthopedic shoes. One minute, I was fine, the next, I was on a week-long hospital stay, feeling like I got hit by a truck filled with hormones, brain fog, and existential dread. That little "phase of life" they brushed over in health class? Turns out, it’s an Olympic-level endurance test that no one warned us about.
So, after years of research, trial and error, and managing my stress in creative (and sometimes questionable) ways, I started clawing my way back to feeling like a functioning human being again.
Does it suck? Oh, absolutely. Starting from ground zero while feeling like a dumpster fire is the single hardest thing I’ve ever done. I’m talking full-on depth of darkness mode—where your brain tells you that you're a goner, and your body backs it up with a chorus of bizarre symptoms. But somehow, through the ashes of menopause, I kept putting one foot in front of the other, one second at a time.
Do I still have bad days? Of course. But I’ve learned to remind myself that it’s okay to feel things. To scream into a pillow if necessary. To allow myself the space to process, store, or release whatever weirdness menopause throws at me next.
No one talked about this when we were growing up, but dammit, I’m determined to make sure you all know the real deal. There is more to menopause than hot flashes and mood swings, and I am here to help you through the dark days with pure, unfiltered, been-there-survived-that understanding.
So grab your fans, your antihistamines, and your questionable Google searches—because we are in this together! And I promise, there's light (and laughter) on the other side.
💙 Menopalz: Because we don’t just survive menopause—we conquer it.

Written by: Raquel Riggle