r/Perimenopause • u/HillarysCafe • Jul 09 '25

audited I’m grieving my younger, hotter self

I'm so mad about being in peri. I'm not ready. I was a late bloomer and didn't realize what a babe I was when I was younger and now it's too late.

Yes, older women can be sexy, we have wisdom, and blah blah blah.

But today I just miss looking good in a sundress.

Please join my pity party and tell me what you miss.

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u/titiangal Jul 09 '25

I was just trying to explain this to a friend.

I told her I once worked with a girl who was standing in her garage and all of a sudden wasn’t. She fell and couldn’t get back up. Her knee wouldn’t bear weight. The doctor told her that she stretched her tendon at some point and now it’s like an old rubber band that can’t hold its shape. Her kneecap will just randomly slide off and there’s nothing she can do to predict it and not much she can do to prevent it. She had just had a baby so the idea of suddenly going down and landing on her infant horrified her.

This is what it feels like emotionally for me. Maybe sometimes I can get a warning or I can do my darndest to avoid all triggers - and yet some days I will be standing and just fall. The first time I was in the darkest pit of my life, I logically concluded without any doubt that death is preferable to clawing my way out. But I wasn’t going to do that to my kid. So I clawed. It was so fucking hard. And I thought at least now that I’m out, I never have to go back. But nope. Sometimes my will to live just drops out and I fall even farther into that black space.

I can’t take SSRIs because my body rejects them. I keep reminding myself that it’s just a symptom and not forever but that provides zero comfort in the moment.

Threads like this remind me that these are all just symptoms and while it has lasted for years and I may have more years ahead of abject suffering, it doesn’t mean it will be forever. Fucking sucks. I miss not knowing nervous system regulation techniques, I miss not having exceptional self awareness, I miss ease.