This Australia Day
I’m reflecting on how far I’ve come.
Several years ago, I was a shell of the person I am now.
I couldn’t quite name it, but joy had quietly packed up and left.
Energy gone.
Self belief gone.
Cognition gone.
Joy gone.
Social life gone.
I told myself it was life.
Family life.
The economy.
Post pandemic stress.
Then chronic fatigue set in.
Panic attacks followed.
The desire to disappear was strong.
Where had I gone?
I asked for help but didn’t get answers.
I was even gaslit by a doctor.
I became too tired to keep pushing for solutions.
Life felt dull, and I honestly wondered what it was all for.
The last few years have been a slow rebuild.
Not going back, but building a new midlife version of me.
What changed?
A podcast.
For the first time, I felt understood.
Maybe this wasn’t just life.
Maybe it was deeper.
A Facebook support group.
Self-education.
Community.
Women walking the same path.
Language for what I was experiencing.
Confidence to start advocating for myself.
And finally, healthcare practitioners who understood.
They existed.
Light started to appear at the end of the tunnel.
Small changes followed.
Added slowly, as my energy and mental health allowed.
Not doing everything at once.
Learning to love the journey, not the outcome.
Two steps forward, one step back.
Finding support.
Connecting with women who weren’t ashamed to share their stories.
Women who could sit with you in the dark.
I returned to my beloved gym.
Just one day a week.
Something I could commit to.
I stopped pushing through.
I communicated my needs to my family with honesty and care and let’s be honest, sometimes rage.
I learned healthy boundaries.
Is it entirely perimenopause?
Maybe not.
Maybe it’s a perfect storm.
Hormones.
Modern life.
The sandwich generation.
But I created what I needed when I was stuck, depressed and lost.
This is my lived experience.
The tools and steps that helped me find my way back to joy, resilience and peace.
It’s not perfect.
I’m not the after.
I’m the during.
Every midlife journey is unique.
But my hope is that by sharing our stories, we help each other not give up.
And we keep choosing ourselves 🤍
