You're listening to the Loving BDSM podcast episode
four thirty. Kayla Lords here with the one,
the only,
the best damn daddy dom I've ever met,
my favorite person, John Brownston.
Wow. I don't know if I can live
up to all that now.
Sorry. We have to set standards around here.
You know?
Oh, boy. Look. Look. Look. Look. Considering I'm
in the thick of perimenopause and we know
what that does to my mood,
take the compliments while I'm giving them. Because
probably in a few minutes, I'll be cranky.
Thank you, baby girl. Thank you, baby girl.
You're welcome, daddy.
So this week, we are talking about the
thing I have been complaining about for literal
fucking years,
and that is perimenopause,
and specifically
how it has impacted
me as a as of how it could
impact power exchange.
We will for anybody who's like, I have
heard that word, but what? We will talk
about what it is for anybody who will
physically never experience it or is not old
enough yet to experience it.
Don't worry. I I got I came with
resources.
Welcome to the Loving BDSM podcast. If this
is your first time listening, glad to have
you. If you're back for another week, welcome
back. Loving BDSM is produced every Monday and
Friday for your kinky pleasure in education. Show
notes are found at lovingBDSM.net.
Come back often and feel free to add
the podcast to your favorite podcast app. You
can also watch nope. You can also follow
the show on fat life at loving BDSM
PC on Instagram and, technically, threads at that
handle I will forever fucking hate. It's loving
d s and the number one, so it's
at loving d s one.
Or on YouTube at youtube.com/lovingBDSM
where you can watch us livestream the podcast
every Wednesday. All links are in the show
notes.
Audio podcast folks, you have no idea,
what it took for us to get to
this point where we are talking to you
now.
The, folks watching the live stream and the
YouTube video, they now know.
They have been on this journey with us.
Yeah.
It looks like I'm gonna have to change
the way I Do things. Do things. Yeah.
Okay. That's it's fine. It's fine. This is
fine.
And silent asked, did JB just count me
in like a TV producer? Yes. He did.
Yep.
That's a little behind the scenes there too.
Yes.
I did. I wanna give the audio folks
a little rundown. So we started the live
stream. We were in the live stream. We
were live streaming. The sound cut out. We
couldn't get it back on. We had to
stop the live stream, start a brand new
live stream, then talk for a while so
I could calm down and we can make
sure got jealous. So we can make sure
the audio works. So then we always say
you know, I tell I tell JB he
can push the magic button to bring audio
folks in. He went to push the magic
button. Y'all
y'all side wasn't working. He had to do
that again, and now here we are. Yep.
It's like the universe knows that I really
care I I care about all the topics
we do, but I really care about this
one, and I've tried really hard to do
it
right, and I'm being thwarted
at every turn.
And I think the universe also knows that
there are several people that I can name
who really want this episode. Yeah. And they
are also being thwarted. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're
we're jumping through hoops to get it. Okay.
Okay.
So before we get into the topic,
just to for anybody who was paying attention
to notice, and thank you for the the
folks who reached out to check up on
us. Yeah. There was no episode last week,
and I'm being given
a finger
told me to okay.
Okay. Okay. Now I can keep going. Okay.
The mic audio is jacked up. It's it's
like one thing after another. Oh my god.
Damn. Oh my god.
I think we need to get the vodka
out, and I think we just need to
do shots during this episode.
Okay.
So
we were gone last week and, clearly,
the universe went, oh, you clearly don't work
here anymore. Let's fuck up all your equipment.
Jimmy was sick last week, so, no, we
did not do an episode. And he was
mostly recovered. He was, yeah, recovered enough by
Friday night. We did the livestream. Mhmm.
But I was no Yeah. I was no
longer in the headspace to record a Monday
episode. JB thought he was. I'm like, I'm
not prepared for that. So we skipped a
Monday episode, and now we're back.
So
that's where we were. JB's feeling a lot
better. Yeah.
And now the universe
is laughing at us, taunting us.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
Okay.
So let's get into this episode.
I'm gonna I'm gonna say many things. We
know this. So the first thing I wanna
say that should come as no surprise to
anybody with
any amount of sense:
we are not medical professionals.
We are not telling anybody about their experience.
We are using the best information that I
could find that I felt like I trusted,
but that does not mean we will be
correct a %
in all situations.
So if your doctor tells you something different
than I have said and that thing they
said works for you, they get to be
correct and you can ignore the fuck out
of me.
But we are this is not just being
pulled from my ass. I'm I am
I used references that are reputable
and know what the hell they're talking about
to get to the sciency bit and then
we'll get into, like, the power exchange y
bit.
The other thing is I made extensive notes
so I
would have the facts part correct. So,
I will probably be reading more than just
conversing for part of this. Yes, it's weird
to me too. Okay?
But I wanted to get this right.
Okay, so let's start first for the resources
I used,
to do this episode.
I highly recommend them. If anybody sounds new
to you, please go check them out. The
links will be in the places. The livestream
folks know that it's gonna be a minute
for me. So the first one is a
book I own that's actually sitting on my
desk, The Menopause
Manifesto by Doctor. Jen Gunther. Doctor. Jen Gunther.
You can find her online.
She's got,
you know,
blog, a Substack,
she's on social media. I think she's even
got a podcast.
Jen Gunter is,
fairly well known online.
Social media spaces.
Very smart.
Loves, clapping back at fools on the Internet.
It's it's delightful.
The book that I have, The Menopause Manifesto,
that book is from 2021.
So
it misses some of the newer studies that
have come out about perimenopause that you may
come across from the other resource. But but
that book is still very good. The general
information is very, very good,
for
some of the more common symptoms in navigating
how to help yourself while you're going through
perimenopause.
The other resource is
doctor Mary Claire Haver.
She has a book that I want. I
have not read it, but I desperately want
to. It's called The New Menopause.
Her she is a, OB GYN just like
doctor Jen Gunter is,
but doctor Haver specializes in menopause. Her patients
are perimenopausal
and menopausal.
That's who she works with.
She also has a list on her website,
which will be linked, of
doctors who focus on menopause or who have
proclaimed themselves to be
able to and willing to work with perimenopausal
people in ways that actually will help them
with medications and dealing with symptoms and stuff.
There's also a section on her site that
links to studies being done on perimenopause and
menopause. One of those studies I am referencing
in this episode because it had a great
list of
50 plus symptoms, and 50 plus symptoms is
even not the only amount. It can there's
some talk that, perimenopause symptoms can be somewhere
in there's 70 to 80 perimenopausal
symptoms that people can experience.
So yeah.
So
those are my resources.
Links
are and or will be in the places
because we're time traveling. Depending on who you
are, you can or cannot see them yet
because today is chaotic.
So let's talk about who experiences perimenopause and
how I'm gonna try really hard to talk
about this in what feels like the right
way to me which is as inclusively as
possible.
The most concise way I could I could
think to describe who experiences perimenopausal
is
every person assigned female at birth who continues
to have ovaries if they live long enough.
There is a way to go into menopause
that's surgical. Like, one day you had fully
functioning reproductive,
have a full whatever, wake up and you
are fully in menopause skipping,
the thing about perimenopause is everybody's health experience
is different. There are gonna be exceptions to
these rules. When I I hate to say
every type
but every cis woman who lives long enough
will go through perimenopause. It's one of, like,
short of just going directly into menopause. But
every let me put it this way. How
does Doctor. Haver say it? Every cis woman
who lives long enough will go into menopause,
however you get there. Perimenopause is the most
common way to get there. Okay?
But I won't want to encompass people who
are not cis women but have the plumbing
and can experience perimenopause.
Okay.
So, let's talk about what perimenopause is because
here's the thing.
You yourself may not have the plumbing to
ever go into perimenopause, but you might have
or in the future have partners who can
go into perimenopause.
And if that is you, you will go
through this with us.
Just ask JB. Your experience is different,
but you are surviving it. Mileage may vary.
Right. Just like we are.
So
perimenopause is basically the multiple years, and it
is multiple,
when an eggs the egg supply in the
ovaries decreases to zero, and that is when
menopause occurs. Menopause is declared twelve months and
one day after your last period,
or, if you're like me and don't get
periods, there's a blood test you can do.
I'm now getting very used to getting blood
work done every few months and part of
that blood work, they are always testing. Are
you officially in menopause?
I don't know
yet. Speaking from what my mom explained of
her experience of she didn't label it perimenopause
when my mother this is not that long
ago. My mom's only been in menopause
maybe five or seven five to seven years.
Maybe as long as ten, but I don't
think so.
She never used the word perimenopause
to describe what she was going through.
It is absolutely the word I would I'm
using because it's what it is.
For her, the way she described it to
me, her periods were all over the place
and apparently her periods would play the joke
on her of going, she'd go like nine
months without a period and she's like, hot
damn. Three more months and it's officially menopause.
Nope. Here comes a period. So do not
be surprised that that is, you know, a
common experience that you might have yourself.
One thing I was both a little pissy
to learn but also gratified to learn. Like
your experience with periods, if you are a
person who
has or can get or used to get
periods,
perimenopause and menopause are your experience with it
is gonna be wildly different. Some people are
going to have it super air quote easy.
They won't get a lot of symptoms. Those
are typical those might be similar to the
type of people who go, Oh yeah, my
period's not that bad. I barely notice it.
I'm so happy for you, but I hate
you. Okay.
Perimenopause can be that way as well. Up
to debilitating.
Right? Just like periods can be debilitating for
some people, perimenopause
leading into menopause
can be debilitating. And then there's the amorphous
in between all that. Okay? So not everybody
is going to have the same experience with
this.
And so that means it's, from my perspective,
is not at all an expert. I find
it very difficult to talk about because what
I know to be true is I'm somewhere
in the middle of I can kind of
function
but it's not pleasant and I'm now on
medication to help myself function better, right? And
other people will have it worse so other
people have it better.
I mentioned this briefly a minute ago. We'll
go into a little bit more detail here.
One study and it's fairly recent and I
got the link to it from doctor Haver's
website,
showed in that study that there are as
many as 52
possible symptoms.
While some experts,
including doctor Haver in,
it was a Tik Tok or Reel, whatever
that I saw from her, there can be
as many as seventy seventy to 80 possible
symptoms.
That does not mean everybody
will
experience every symptom. It also means you get
to do the fun dance of, is this
a symptom or does, like, my ear just
itch? Because one symptom
is ringing in the ears and and or
itchy ears.
That's
wild. So let's go over
not every single symptom. I don't think y'all
want me to list all 52,
but let's let me give you this list.
I have to scroll
down to this thing. Okay. The study is
pretty interesting to,
to look at. Like I said, it is
and or will be linked. I now have
to get very close to the screen because
this is very,
small oh, there we go.
What are you're doing buttons.
Yeah. Ah, okay. K. And now let me
Just slide it over here. Oh, there we
go. Here we go. I'm gonna do some
of the most common based on this study,
and then I'll stop at a certain point
because we go from, like let me see.
What is it?
There's some that as many as sixty eight
point nine percent of participants in the study
experienced down to
one point six. So we're not gonna go
through all 52, but some of these might
sound familiar to some of you. Mood swings,
Brain fog, Fatigue, Irregular periods,
difficulty
with or just poor concentration,
anxiety,
irritability,
insomnia and problems with sleeping,
weight gain, night sweats, low mood, poor memory,
lack of motivation, reduced confidence, heavy periods,
tearful low sex drive, headaches and migraines, aching
joints, hot flushes.
Heart palpitations
scared the shit out of me. I thought
I was having heart attacks.
Bloating, depression,
itching, body parts, ears, body, vagina,
anywhere.
Facial hair growth. Been there, done that, breast
soreness, painful periods, digestive issues. Do you see
where I'm going?
A lot of shit's happening. I haven't gotten
halfway through the list yet. Is is that
like,
Pokemon? You gotta get them all? Oh, god.
No.
I
because of, like, just how people and bodies
work, if there are, let's say, up to
even just this 52 list of 52 symptoms
Yeah. Just mathematically, statistically, there's a chance that,
yes, there are people out there with every
single symptom just like there's a chance that
there are people with almost none of the
symptoms. I'm I'm curious because,
anybody who sits and watches
TV for any,
amount of time, we see all these
pharmaceutical
advertisements. Okay?
And and the pharmaceuticals,
they say, you know, these symptoms may occur.
Mhmm. Alright?
And
we we both know,
most people
know,
you could have a cold going into one
of these studies and they're going to list
Right. You know, sneezing, runny nose, etcetera as
a symptom. And that is my understanding of
those studies too. Hopefully,
If anybody can tell us that they don't
do that anymore, that'd be great. But yes.
So are you saying is this sort of
like that? Is this sort of like that?
The study was specifically done to look at
this, and I'm not, expert enough,
in any way, shape, or form to Mhmm.
Pick apart,
studies and really explain them and the efficacy.
What I could say is when I was
reading through it, I did I have read
even, like, blurbs of studies where I went,
what was that? A a a survey you
put on Twitter? Like, how did you get
your data? This did not read that way
to me, and it came from a source
a re a person I trust to read
these kinds of studies.
So these are based on their measurements.
They are classifying them as legitimate potential symptoms.
Now
So my experience with some of these symptoms
I may get into some
interesting but and also annoying,
realities that,
can happen in perimenopause is that,
sometimes you've had these symptoms your whole adult
life or maybe your whole life, and now
you hit perimenopause
and they just get worse.
So I know for me, when my anxiety
spiked two points of literal panic,
I did not immediately go, oh, that's perimenopause.
Right? I was like, oh, I'm already anxious.
It was looking back, I was like, Oh,
this is happening in conjunction with all these
other things.
Perimenopause is playing some part in it. Now
here's, an interesting how many of these do
I have?
An interesting
ish
fact about perimenopause.
So a couple things.
If you have,
have been diagnosed with or just know yourself
anxiety,
depression,
you know, anything that, like, fucks you up
mentally, perimenopause
will exacerbate that. If you've never, in your
mind, experienced those things before, perimenopause can bring
it
on. The most interesting one, and is why
I feel like I'm playing whack a mole
with my own self, is
that perimenopause symptoms
can be mistaken for neuro
divergency.
So you could be going through perimenopause
and,
you know, it could look like, oh, is
this do I have ADHD?
Am I, on the autism spectrum? Right? But
also, but also
perimenopause
can make the symptoms and experience of that
worse,
which
I couldn't find a study to back this
up, but I know I've heard it from
literal doctors.
Late diagnosed,
ADHD specifically I'm sure I've heard about that.
I'm not sure about autism
in women
can be is often found,
at the time of perimenopause.
Because prior to perimenopause, when your hormones were
at least whatever their air quote typical level
was and your coping mechanisms and if you
mask, your masking skills were right where they
needed to be. Perimenopause
sets everything on fire
and now everything's worse than it was and
so coping skills no longer suit. They don't
help you at all. So it is not
uncommon
for perimenopausal
people to start getting diagnosed legitimately diagnosed with
neurodivergence. The ADHD is the one I'm sure
about. I can't remember if autism is in
that list.
So
if you happen to be like me where
you're like, was I always like this? Is
this the perimenopause?
But wait, maybe we just missed like, I
don't know either.
And you would hope that doctors could help
but sometimes they don't know either. And I'm
sure many of us have already figured that
out.
Okay,
okay.
Let's- when does perimenopause occur?
So that's this is an average, so some
people will be higher or lower.
Typically,
perimenopause
happens seven-ten
years before
menopause.
The
typical
age range of menopause is anywhere from 45
to 55.
Yes, it can happen later. Yes, it can
happen earlier. We're not even talking surgically, like,
just the natural progression.
That means the age range of perimenopause
can be 35 to 45. So if you
are in your mid thirties like I was
starting to experience some of these things and
you think,
am am I dying or have I lost
my mind? And a doctor won't believe you
because they'll tell you like they did me.
You're too young for perimenopause.
Not necessarily.
For a minute, I believed the myth that
the earlier
you
get your period, I was like, if hormone
blockers had been a thing they were offering
in the eighties, I'd have been on them.
That was that early.
Then the earlier you hit perimenopause and menopause,
according to doctor Havert, that is not true.
I was very sad to hear that
because I was like, wait. I could go
until 55?
Are you fucking kidding me?
So, yes, perimenopause
can hit in your mid thirties,
and then on on up. Right?
So, no, you are you're you might be
crazy but you're not crazy
if you're recognizing some of these symptoms.
To potential treatments, the one I'm most familiar
with is hormone replacement therapy. There are other
options. It is important to talk to your
doctor.
Doctor. It is ideal to have a doctor
who will listen to you. Because
even now, in the year of our Lord
2025,
a lot of doctors suck with dealing with
perimenopause and menopause. Doctor. Haver said, and I
I believe it continues to be true or
has been true until maybe recently. I don't
know. But doc doctor Mary Claire Haver has
said on more than one occasion that meds
typical med school experience is one hour on,
learning about menopause.
A thing that has that will in some
way affect
fifty percent of the population,
they spend an hour on. And if you
get to have a long lived life, this
is something you could be dealing with for
thirty to forty
fucking years and most doctors don't have a
fucking clue.
So if that annoys you, like it annoys
me, welcome.
So it's
most likely you're gonna have to advocate for
yourself really fucking hard and or if this
is an option for you, find a doctor
who gets it.
The doctor who did my partial hysterectomy for
me a few years ago was in the
same practice as a doctor who told me
I was way too young for perimenopause. Couldn't
be a perimenopause.
I did not like that lady and went
I'm not gonna be gaslit about my own
fucking experience. Even though I was still unsure,
I was like, but I think it is.
The next year, I went to the doctor
who ended up doing my surgery, gave her
my same list of symptoms. I'm only one
year older at that point. And she's like,
oh yeah, you're definitely in perimenopause. There's no
doubt in my mind. She was also a
doctor who had no qualms about and was
very quick to, when it was a viable
option, to offer me
the partial hysterectomy. Right?
So that was a good doctor. My current
doctor absolutely,
you know, will prescribe the things that people
need to help with their perimenopause and menopause.
But
something about my age, something about I'm not
100%
sure, she was hesitant until I reminded her
I'd had a partial hysterectomy.
I should not have to tell you that
I don't have a uterus and a cervix
anymore
and no more fallopian tubes
in order
to get you know what I mean? Like,
come on now. But
that was a place where I kinda had
to advocate for myself a little harder.
I mentioned this at the top. Doctor,
Mary Claire Haver's website does have a list
of people who,
are like, oh, yeah. We we do menopausal
care. We will help patients who who need
that kind of care. When I went to
look for our local area,
I found one
doctor's office in Gainesville which is forty five
minutes away.
And that doesn't mean that we don't have
anybody here locally. It's just that they don't
they are not connected enough to have put
themselves on a website.
So if you do need to do the
advocacy route,
more than trying to find a new doctor,
I've heard Doctor. Haver say this. I've heard
other people say this. Take copies of the
studies, like print them out or whatever,
email them to your doctor and go,
this is the science showing that this thing,
you know, this thing I'm experiencing whatever whatever
or this is, you know, a good treatment
option or whatever whatever.
You know, let them see it for themselves.
Now,
common suggestions that are not
just HRT
for dealing
with perimenopause:
more fiber, more protein, weight training, better sleep,
stress reduction, and yes for some people HRT.
Supplements can also be like part of
the equation.
My doctor suggested a whole handful of supplements.
I I felt nothing different on any of
them. Took them for months and months and
months. So supplements were not it for me.
Now, if anybody else out there feels like
trying to get enough protein as their full
time job,
same. I it's I don't know that I
don't know how to do it without
I don't know. Without mainlining protein powder, I've
still not figured out how to do it.
And the
irony
of telling people
that who have the main symptom of fatigue
and not being able to sleep well, that
if they just got better sleep, their perimenopausal
symptoms will be better. Yeah. It annoys me
too. That that that,
Circuitous.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Also stress
reduction. Just don't be stressed. Just don't be
stressed. Oh, you're at a time of your
life where maybe you're like me and you're
caring for children and you're helping to take
care of parents and you're that sandwich generation.
Don't be stressed. Oh, you're at that point
in life where you're trying to, like, do
something with a career, let's say, and pay
bills that now include college tuition or something.
Oh, no. Just don't don't stress so much.
Just don't stress so much. That'll help your
symptoms. Yeah. I'm bitter about it.
Okay. So
that's that's a lot that's a lot of
information about perimenopause.
The folks who have dealt with it already
or are dealing with it now and or
the partners of those people were like, yep.
Yep. Yep. Yep. For anybody else who's like,
this is all new information.
Please use the links that I have,
live stream folks. I will get those links
as soon as the live stream is over.
Sorry.
But for podcast listeners,
the links are there. Check it out. Learn
more.
Highly recommend The Menopause
and I desperately want doctor Haver's book, The
New Menopause.
So now let's talk about
power exchange and perimenopause
and
our specific
experience for sure because that's the thing I
can definitely,
draw upon.
So
and I also want to point out that
this is not a the thing I'm talking
about will be about my role as a
submissive and how it's being impacted.
But AFAB doms, you're gonna have your own
experience. And if it if perimenopause does not
affect how
you operate as a dominant, I would be
fucking shocked. Right? I think the biggest, most
important thing for anybody who can experience perimenopause
and maybe is about to or is not
that far away from it is to know
that it fucking exists. Because I promise you,
I heard the word perimenopause,
like,
once or twice in my early thirties
and then never fucking heard it again
until I started to realize I had perimenopause
and was in it because the internet was
teaching me something and it was social media
that was teaching me shit. Fucking kidding me.
And now if you can get onto that
part of an algorithm and whatever app you
prefer, there are definitely people talking about perimenopause.
So there's more information out there.
So I will talk about my my personal
symptoms that
I don't I don't know that I have
fifty two. I tend to, like, wave away
the small ones that I'm like, it could
just be an itchy ear. You know?
The heart palpitations is one I get very
infrequently and it the first two times scared
the shit out of me. I thought I
was gonna have to wake JB up in
the middle of the night to call 911.
I was like, am I dying right now?
Because I've never had heart palpitations.
And then I woke like, the first time
I woke up the next morning, like, terrified.
I was like, do I need to watch
myself? You know, I'm trying to think of
what are the main signs of heart attack
in women. Like,
am I experiencing any of that?
Thought I thought I was both losing my
mind and dying.
My
bigger symptoms, the low libido,
abso fucking lutely. I think that was my
first clear sign that I was hitting perimenopause.
Mhmm.
The other being and this is I'm only
can tell you
retrospectively looking back, an absolute spike in my
anxiety.
Massive spike in anxiety.
The first time I was terrified to answer
to make a phone call,
was late thirties. Like I don't like talking
on the phone. I don't like making a
phone call. It never scared me before.
And Jamie was like, we were talking about
me going to a therapist, and you were
like, we had found somebody who was king
friendly. Like, you just need to call them.
And then I cried.
He said, just just make a phone call.
And, sat in my car
And cried. And cried.
And that and that's the hard thing, like,
we were talking about earlier with anxiety.
I've always been kind of an anxious person
on certain levels. I've coped, I've ignored, I've
worked around it.
And then there are times in life where
you have legitimate anxieties. When your when your
daddy dum gets hit by a literal fucking
car, it makes you more anxious. When your
teenage child can now drive and then gets
into an accident, you are more anxious. But
what I've
figured out, again looking back, it wasn't that
I was anxious because I'd always been anxious.
It was how it spiked. It was how
I panicked. There have been I'm I'm calmer
now.
I'm gonna I'm gonna,
equate this to a lot of the medications
I'm on, but there were many nights for
a couple years
where I would cry myself to sleep because
I could think about JB dying.
I can't really talk about that or think
about it without crying like for real, But
I would be
looking at him. We would be cuddled up
snuggling. I'd be trying to be silly and
I would look at him and think, I
love him so much one day he will
not be here. And then just I panic
and and
and I'm a quiet crier. I don't really
like for anybody to see me cry because
that's part of my childhood trauma.
So I didn't tell him I was crying.
And again, it's not that I cried. It's
not that I was nervous about something. It
was the level of it. It was the
way it was impacting me. It was completely
out of fucking character.
Other major symptoms. Brain fog? For fucking sure.
For me,
I remember pregnancy brain from having kids. That
kind of brain fog. This is not that.
Which is what made me start looking more
into executive dysfunction as it relates to neurodivergency.
And that's been its own separate journey and
blah blah blah.
The whole am I neurodivergent,
I think a lot of that's it kicked
in first because the kids got diagnosed.
And then I started looking around at my
own life previous to now and I was
like, oh, high perimenopause
for
making making that made potentially more obvious.
Let me go back to my list here
because I don't wanna,
the tearful. Yeah.
Poor memory.
I fucking hate that shit. I used to
have, at least I told myself I did,
a mind like a steel trap. Now this
is the first one low libido for sure,
and I'll get back to This is the
first one that absolutely started impacting me as
a submissive, and it impacted our power exchange.
Because it used to be pre perimenopause, JB
could tell me to do something.
Some I'd make a to do list. I'm
I've been a to do list person, but
if he told me to do it, whether
I wrote it down or not, I re
I could remember it. I could remember it
later that day. I could remember it the
next day. I could remember it a week
from then. I could remember it up until
the time I needed to do it, and
I could get it done. Now, perimenopause?
First of all, once I realized my memory
was shot,
I was terrified whenever he gave me a
task,
because I was terrified I would not remember
it. And so I started putting in kind
of extreme coping mechanisms to make sure I
could remember it. But it also made me
But it also made me anxious when he
would give me a task that he would
try to say, you don't have to do
it right now. And I would go, no.
I have to do it right now. Because
if I don't, it will never happen. I
will forget it exists. And I didn't wanna
And I didn't wanna be in trouble, and
I didn't wanna let my daddy Dom down.
And I didn't want to not be as
good of at something as I had been.
So I was very
stressed about that.
Did you have a point when you noticed
my weirdness around tasks and my inability to
remember?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. And yes. How how did that
make you feel?
Not too much how it made me feel,
but kind of like,
this is not her. What is going on?
There you would say that a lot for
a couple years. You're like, this isn't you.
This isn't like you. And I only in
retrospect can
I acknowledge this and say this and and
not freak out?
The hearing, this isn't like you. You're not
like this
was a gut punch because you are for
me, I already have the, the, am I
losing my mind? What is happening to me
Mhmm. As a human being, which then how
is it impacting me as a submissive?
I was already, like,
really shaky and and I don't always have
a lot of self confidence, but the confidence
I had was lacking.
And then there's JB who, especially in in
times of stress and turmoil and we're already
a little fussy at one another, he wasn't
saying it to be mean. He didn't know
my my thought process, but to then hear,
what is wrong with you?
Oh, that's a tough one.
That's a tough one because I don't know.
That's right. Yeah. I don't know what's wrong
with me.
It did make me very,
not just nervous to take on new tasks,
but I was resistant to them.
Can you can you remember the times you'd
be like, I have a task for you,
and my immediate
response was No. Was irritability. It was like,
are you I Mhmm.
You learn to go,
not right now.
And and sometimes that was okay. That worked
for me. But a lot of times it
was like, it has to be right now
or I cannot do for you what I've
done for you in the past. And right
now was not necessarily a good time. JB's
always been very good about I got a
thing I need you to do, but I'm
looking at your schedule, your life, your mood.
I can tell you you don't have to
do this right now, and I'm going, but
no, I do. And it would be at
a time when I didn't have time to
do that task, but I knew if I
didn't do it right then, it would never
happen. So my stress levels
were through the fucking roof. Now
you, I think, have because I don't remember
having a specific conversation about my memory
loss as it pertained to perimenopause.
Mm-mm. But I talked about my memory loss
and being sad
and and frustrated and and worried. Mhmm. Often
enough, you seem to have adjusted.
So not so that you don't give me
tasks. Mhmm. It's more like,
you know I'm probably gonna forget if I
don't write it down.
And
you don't
Lola
clearly agrees in the background there.
Jamie doesn't get angry at me or annoyed
with me if I have to go,
you gave me a task yesterday and I
forgot to write it down.
Can you refresh my memory?
Can you can you refresh my memory? He's
he's very calm about that, which is good
because then I'm not getting the, oh my
god. I suck kind of feeling,
which is not true. I don't suck. I
No. You don't. At all. Everything about my
brain and body are changing in some way,
and I'm trying to adapt.
Has it changed the way you give me
tasks as your submissives now that you know
my memory is
it's not so much based on your memory.
Mhmm. Okay.
What makes me
think about giving you tasks
at at this
point
is what you have going on at any
given time. Mhmm. Gotcha. That that is more
of a
So when I do forget and I have
to come to you and go, hi. I
forgot. And I don't forget
you've gotten much better about deadlines. Like, if
you give me a deadline, I just go
ahead and do it Right. Within moments, so
I can't forget
But if it's an open ended one, so
there is no deadline, I just need to
do it.
You have have become very sort of kind
and understanding about the, hey, can you remind
me? How do you feel when I'm having
to come to you and go, hi, I
forgot.
You know, believe it or not, I'm I'm
more than anything, I'm glad that you can
come to me and and tell me that.
Mhmm. Yeah. It would it would be it
would be a hot mess around here if
I was
so
anxious or worried about how you were gonna
react or
worried about I went through this already, so
I can talk about it now. Worried about
what it says about me as a submissive.
It doesn't say really, y'all, whether you're submissive
or dominant,
if these symptoms are fucking with how you
function in your power exchange,
you are not doing anything wrong. You're going
through a massive hormonal shift
and it take it can take a while
to adjust. It it probably took me a
few years to finally
go, if it's not written down, I don't
exist. And also, I'm humble enough to go,
I forgot.
Can you help me?
So if you are the partner of a
person like that, extend a little grace, please.
Extend a little grace. The the biggest one
they're all they all feel like the biggest
because they feel like biggest in different areas
of our power exchange. The low libido, the
no sex drive.
Now I am a person, during times of
high stress,
I ain't got no sex drive anyway. But
this happened
I'd started to, like, tank.
I'm gonna say definitely 2019, but I really
think 2018 is when it started to diminish,
which is where I kind of clock myself
as probably going into perimenopause.
But I if I'm trying to do the
math on it, on that seven to ten
years, I start with 2019 just to be
safe or whatever.
But the low libido
has forced us now because low libido started
when there was no outside air quote reasons
for it. There wasn't extra stress. There wasn't
extra pressure. I just one day I just
was like, what is sex and why do
I care about it? It?'
and then we hit the several years of
high stress where of course I didn't have
libido, you didn't have libido.
I
we are now coming out of those several
years Yeah.
Finding our way through. But be while you
were still like, I'm down to fuck. It
could I would love to fuck. And I
was at the point of, what is sex?
Don't know her.
Sorry.
It was a lost point of connection and
intimacy. We've we've talked about that because we've
done an episode on low sec you know,
low arousal levels and and libido.
It was a lost point of connection.
It was
stressful for both of us. Yeah.
Putting it in context of perimenopause and the
symptoms and and you being the witness to
how I have
changed. And I and I have to say
this, you know,
to everybody here.
In the beginning,
when when a lot of this stuff started
happening, the changes, these changes,
now I I don't think I ever actually
got
angry
Mhmm. With you about any of it. You
could get frustrated with me at times. Frustrated.
I I felt mad. I I I was
I was very
frustrated
for a while,
until I began to understand
understanding more of what was happening. Mhmm.
Yeah. And part of that was me communicating
and part of I think part of it
I think it was how consistent it all
was. This wasn't a couple of bad days.
This wasn't me just, like,
you know, putting my brain into out of
office and just checking out. This was
all the time. But in the
my memory is has always been kinda shitty
on certain things, but it's really shitty now.
My
recollection of all this is that certain thing
no. It wasn't an all at once. I
didn't wake up one day and have, like,
10 symptoms.
It was a gradual thing where it was
sort of one at a time. First, it
was
I believe, first, it was my anxiety spiked,
something fierce.
Then there was probably some other stuff. I
I didn't
catch it. Then it was the low libido.
Sex the the desire for sex,
just gone. And that was at the time
I was still sex blogging blogging. So that
really, like,
that was
hard on me professionally
and and how I saw myself as a
professional
and hard on our relationship and hard on
me as a submissive.
We've talked about,
free use in past episodes. We've talked about
it throughout many other episodes. The reason we
were having sex from about sometime in 2018,
but definitely all of 2019
into 2020
was because JB had basic permission to just
do it whenever the fuck he wanted and
I would be there.
And
the strangest thing is that I if I
wanted to speak up and say, no. No.
This isn't a good time. You know, I
don't consent to this. That would have always
been available. But what was actually
oftentimes happening was I really it wasn't just
no desire. I did not wanna have sex,
but I knew this was the only way
we were gonna connect
intimately. And so
the the it wasn't a, oh, I just
don't feel like it. It was like, I
I
don't
I I could be doing anything else right
now, but I want to I wanted to
be connected to him. And so
I got the whole why don't I want
sex when I literally talk about sex as
part of my professional life? And also
kinky sex is a big part of our
connection. I was this
with every new symptom that changed how I
functioned in our relationship especially,
that being power exchange most importantly,
I
had this sort of roller coaster of what
is wrong with me? Why can't I do
what I once did?
And when you talk to people usually, who
have gone through these things who are older
than you, certainly doctors, it's always like, well,
it's just part of aging. Well, yeah. But
this fucking sucks. And there are things I
want to be doing in my life
that that make me feel complete and whole
and good and are great for my confidence,
and now I can't. And you're just gonna
tell me,
sucks getting old. No.
No.
No. There are certain things. Yes. I can
I cannot do as I've gotten older? I
know that. But a whole
mental
emotional
shift?
Like, are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, that
might be natural because perimenopause does that to
you, but
I mean just the way it it just
sapped my confidence is a submissive. We we've
talked about this a little bit over the
past few years
because I I can find ways. My my
Pollyanna,
you know, brain is always, like,
looking for the good,
can find the things that are good and
and keep things going and make me feel
good about myself as a submissive. But the
reality is is when some of these symptoms
were just
hammering me,
That was my immediate thought is what is
wrong with me? Why can't I do this
anymore? So if you have ever had that
feeling or you're having that feeling now, I
want you to know you are not alone.
I
also
I had a thing and
perimenopause in action or is it
a neurodivergency
or is it both? I don't know. But
the thought is completely out of my brain
hole now.
What would you add to some of this?
I had a thing and I forgot what
for y'all.
A little bit maybe.
I was gonna say, at this point in
time, looking
back
in some instances,
there was a point where
your
anxiety started spiking.
Yeah. Okay.
And
it also coincided
towards the end of,
making the decision for you to remove your
IUD.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
And
our
collective,
hope was that, you know, when you got
the IUD removed
that some of that might
level out for you.
Yeah. That's all I know. And it is
not what happened at all.
That's
the thing. So, you know, sometimes I wonder
if that little spike
in anxiety
that was kind of the beginning
Probably. Of that. Probably.
It's it's hard. Anxiety being a symptom of
perimenopause
is like several other symptoms in that it
sucks because
I mean,
look at the world today. There are plenty
of things to be legitimately
anxious about. Mhmm. There are things in per
your personal life to be anxious about. There
are things in the broader world at large,
Jesus Christ, to be anxious about.
So it's
it it feels even when when it's not
perimenopausal, you just are diagnosed with anxiety. Right?
It feels so small to go, well, I'm
anxious. And and a person with common sense
is gonna look at maybe at your life
or the world and go, well, of course
you are. How could you not be? No
no no no. This is a level of
it and a depth of it
that I was never fully able to articulate
because all that would come out was I
am so scared. I'm so scared. I'm panicked.
I can't breathe. You know, the worst possible
thing ever is going to happen. And
I've been anxious my whole life, but just
not to that level,
to where I was like, I maybe I
need to be fucking medicated for this.
But we we didn't have the means to
do that.
I'm I can say,
when my HRT meds, I'm on, estradiol, progesterone,
and a testosterone cream that also has estradiol
in it. When I'm on all three of
those at full level, which I am not
currently,
after after it's in my system for a
while, a couple months usually is what it
takes me,
my anxiety is my air quote normal level
anxiety. Right? Like, once I started once I
got all my HRT good and it was,
like, working in my system,
I stopped crying at night because I was
terrified you would die in the middle of
the night. That
yeah. Yeah.
The other thing I've done that's not met
is coping skills. Everything gets written
down. Mhmm. Now I then have to remember
where I've written it down at, and it
can't be on multiple pieces of paper. It
has to all be on one.
The making me do the family calendar was
good, and we talked about that Yeah. Ages
ago. That was good for a lot of
reasons, but that was
brilliant for my fucking memory. Yeah. Because
It freed up. It freed up so much
brain space. Mhmm.
Let me look at these symptoms because I
there's just Alright. And and while you're doing
that, I want Yeah. Go ahead. In case
you had a question. Sure.
Kayla, do you think
the peri
the peri induced low libido
contributed to the to
the poly jealousy feelings you felt?
I
do not think
so because the feelings I felt
came from
stuff that was older than being in perimenopause.
It came from insecurities I've long held,
and
I was I was able to to some
degrees work through some of those feelings, and
then
they were
not kicking my ass later.
They're there's they've never gone away completely, but
in each time I've dealt with that those
those insecure those feelings of insecurity,
they've been a little less and a little
better each time, which means I'm working through
some things.
And it's in my mind it's not an
outside trigger. It's it's internal. It's
Yeah.
It's stuff I
bad things I believe about myself that definitely
are not true that come from probably pre
puberty, quite frankly.
So digestive issues.
Anybody can have digestive issues for any
reason.
It can be because of, another chronic condition
or illness. It can be
anxiety.
It could be perimenopause. My experience was perimenopause.
Fucked it up so bad. One of the
symptoms in the list here is bloating. I
prior to my hysterectomy and prior to HRT
and prior to things I started doing for
my reproductive health,
I could look eight or nine months pregnant
easily.
And guess what? It's real real hard
to care about sexy kinky times,
or to feel your most submissive self when
you can't even bend over
without
thinking you're gonna vomit? Or does it hurt
so bad because your whole stomach is like,
bitch, what have you done to us?
I spent the latter part of my thirties,
I spent a lot of time going, it
didn't used to be like I didn't used
to have this problem. I didn't used to
have this problem.
My doctor's been trying very hard for me
to get my cholesterol down naturally because she's
like, I don't wanna put you on a
cholesterol medicine if I don't have to.
And then I learned from Doctor. Mary Claire
Haver that high cholesterol is a symptom of
perimenopause. If you
have not had high cholesterol
prior to basically hitting perimenopause
and it's not like major lifestyle
changes or you've done the
things that should bring down your cholesterol, and
I have, and it still doesn't come down,
that could be a sign of perimenopause. Or
that could be one of the symptoms. High.
High blood pressure. High.
But those early years, I spent so long
going, but I've never had this problem, I've
never had this problem, I've never had this
problem, and then here I am with these
problems.
The weight gain is real. I blamed it
on
COVID, like everybody else who had weight gain
during that time blamed it on COVID,
But I was
also
reworking my relationship with food so I could
maybe have a better relationship with food.
And it's never my whole life has never
been easy to lose weight. I was never
blessed with whatever that is.
But it became impossible. I mean, I could
eat, like, the amount of calories a toddler
is supposed to eat. That's 1,200 for anybody
who tries to do those kinds of things.
And it nothing worked. You know? I could
I could eat all this. I could do
this. I could nothing.
Part of that might be stuff that's pre
perimenopause, and perimenopause is just exacerbating it, because
when there's hormonal things and autoimmune things and,
like, other things happening internally.
Perimenopause just makes it worse.
That's my new now that I think I've
got my hormones kind of under control, that's
my new thing to journey down.
But that was one of one of the
things was I was constantly going, I'm gonna
like this. This doesn't happen to me. I
like I said, knocked my self confidence really
bad.
The other part was,
things that had already existed just being way
worse. Right? Like, even harder to lose weight,
but way easier to gain weight,
even harder to manage my anxiety. Even, you
know, things like that.
I think the biggest thing it's done for
me as a submiss ever done to me
or however you wanna put that is is
my lack of confidence.
Not currently,
not always, but every time I had to
adjust to a new symptom
that
made me see myself differently because I was
over there going, I I used to be
able to do this. Right? I had to
go through
usually a long windy,
like, curly q line of
adjusting to that and rethinking that, you know,
realizing that
in in one way nothing is wrong with
me. Like, I'm not a bad submissive because
I'm going through this, but also then taking
on the, oh, this may be either a
symptom of something new or this is another
symptom of perimenopause
and adjusting my own expectations
through that
lens.
But
a lot of the things,
the memory loss, the high anxiety, the low
libido,
just the goddamn
the aches and pains that come from fucking
nowhere and make it so you can't really
function sometimes. Right?
All of those have interfered with with my
submission in some way that either make,
you know, there's less physical intimacy
or there's less of an ability to
connect emotionally sometimes. Jamie will be trying to
talk to me,
and it used to be I could focus
and concentrate on the things he said.
The lack of focus and concentration and the
way that sometimes affects me has absolutely sent
me down the,
do I have ADHD?
And I don't I don't know, and I
don't have the means to go deal with
the diagnosis. And, you know, maybe not. Maybe
it is just perimenopause.
But it is it's hard. You know? I'm
I am a submissive who who
twenty four seven submissive, I am always submissive
to JB. No. It doesn't always look like
it from the outside, but internally, I am.
And I can't focus on anything he's trying
to tell me. Well, you wanna know how
hard that is to know that you have
tasks to do, remember them, and or
I'll have your partner feel important to you.
Like, it's not that he's not important to
me. It's that
the the brain just wanders now in ways
it never did before.
Never. My ability to focus in the past
was this
what I would have called scary. Like, I
didn't hear anything else around me.
I can do that now, but it is
never when I want to do it. It's
never when the light of my life is
trying to talk to me about something and
I have to retain the information. It's when
I go down my own personal rabbit hole
and I'm doing a thing, right?
So
nearly every symptom I've had has interfered
with me as a submissive in some way.
And
much of it has been a rethinking.
All of it has required clear communication.
Like, I have to tell you what I'm
going through. You have gotten better now that
I think part of it is being able
to put the name to it's it's likely
perimenopause. I don't think it's something new. Whatever
this symptom is today, it's perimenopause.
Because in the beginning, we didn't have that
word for it. I was just shit was
happening to me, and you were like, what?
Didn't like What's wrong with you? What's wrong
with you?
I don't say this as a criticism to
you now. It is retrospect.
Looking back, I can see this, so I'm
gonna tell anybody who might need this for
the future.
I understand that urge to look at your
partner, whatever side of of the slash, and
go, what is wrong with you?
If you happen to be a little bit
like me, there's a good chance you will
take it a little bit like I did,
which is the gut punch that it is.
Because
for a partner to notice your symptoms,
good chances are you've been living you've been
noticing it much longer. Right? You've either been
trying to cope and hide them or you've
been able to catch problems before your partner
notices. And so then by the time your
partner notices and going, what's wrong with you?
That can hit on an internal way that
nobody means for it to. Like, a good
partner does not mean to make you feel
worse about whatever you're going through
by asking that question. But I am telling
future y'all who might need this at some
point,
try to be careful how you get to
the bottom of that information. Like, I would
I would tell JB today, maybe don't maybe
don't say it that way.
Yeah. Maybe maybe and I this depends on
the person. Maybe something like, I see that
this is difficult for you or I see
that there's a difference here.
Is there anything I can help you with?
Is something going on?
Can you tell me? You know, whatever. However
you do that conversation. But
when he said, what's wrong with you? It
was already echoing my internal, what the fuck
is wrong with me?
If any of y'all get to go through
perimenopause
and and it's the mild kind, I'm very
happy for you, but also I hate you.
I love you, but I hate you. Because
I don't think I have, like, the debilitating
perimenopause. I probably have run of the mill
average perimenopause. Right?
And
everybody I've ever kind of
heard talk about their experience who has
multiple symptoms, but maybe not like they can
get out of bed at least. They say
some level of I thought I was losing
my mind, and that's what I thought at
first. I thought I was losing my mind.
On one level, I kinda like that it's
a multi year thing because we've had time
for both of us to adjust. Mhmm. Right?
We adjusted our expectations. I think that's a
huge important thing. Correct. I've learned to communicate
them
better. Mhmm. You now have a better understanding
of most likely
if everything is different from the way it
used to be is probably the perimenopause. Yep.
And so
we're nav we have time to learn how
to navigate it.
But also I hate that perimenopause
could be up to a decade long because
that's a long time to be this hot
and sweaty. Okay?
I am the hot flash, night sweat girly.
That's that's one of the ones I got
too.
You wanna talk about fucking up your intimacy?
When I am so hot that I think
I am part of the sun now, he
cannot touch me. There's no fucking. There's no
pulling my hair. There's no hitting my ass.
There is I love you so much. Get
the fuck away from me.
There there there are
times during the night when I wake up
and I reach over,
put my hand on her, touch her. Mhmm.
It is like a a raging fire. Yeah.
And if it feels like that externally, just
imagine, like, we Yeah. I've joked here before.
My internal combustion engine runs hot. I am
hot and sweaty right now.
And that's
again I can't tell you what if whether
you are the partner of somebody with pyramid
pause or you are the partner with pyramid
pause and for those of y'all where both
of y'all might be going through it,
you are in my heart. If I was
a prayer, I would pray for you because
I cannot imagine two people going through it
at once
once together. You know, I
it's going to impact your power exchange. It
it is in some in some way. You're
gonna have to do something different than you
instead.
You're gonna have to maybe admit to some,
physical discomfort that normally you might not have
talked about.
Happy about.
Poor JB over the years has had to
hear about my
gastrointestinal
stuff. I'm just like, well,
well, this is well, this is what intimacy
really is.
I think I don't I don't know what
you'll experience and what you'll feel,
but I do think that if you feel
that you've lost your mind or everything is
different or you don't know who you are
now
or you don't think you're being a good
dom, submissive partner in general, I don't think
those feelings
are uncommon.
I don't think they're correct. I think there's
there you can do things that make you
not an ideal partner, of course. But I
think there's an adjustment period and there there
needs to be grace given. And I think
for for you, for yourself, like please try
to be nice to yourself.
I think the biggest,
most important thing to do within the power
exchange is just you gotta talk about it.
You gotta talk about
I can't remember shit anymore and I I
work like from a dominant perspective, when I
think about what happens when you forget stuff,
it if I was not aware and this
is not about perimenopause. It's just like aging
can fuck with your memory too. Like, that's
just part of it. You know, if you
forgot to give me praise often enough, that
would that would be hard. If you forgot
to follow-up on things you'd asked asked me
to do, that
would be hard. And those are the kinds
of things I can see happening to a
dominant going through it. Like, the things that,
yes, you know are important and are important
to both of you, and
they just they just
are gone into the ether. Like half the
thoughts I have these days just gone into
the ether. You know, we've gone through it
from your your back problems, but you know
I think about perimenopause,
folks having joint pain and body aches out
of nowhere. Well, you know what? That can
make it a little tough to get kinky.
Right? Like, it and I think
for some people, if you experience it like
I do, and it is a knock against
your sense of self
and it disrupts your sense of self, I
don't think that
is unreasonable. It makes sense if you can
no longer do things or are no longer
doing things you once did, that you wanted
to be doing.
You know? But it
not talking about it, pretending it's not a
problem,
you know,
pretending you can fake it and maybe they
won't notice.
I promise you.
If you are a part if you were
in a power exchange where your power exchange
is a top priority for both of you
and it is, like, especially if it's, like,
in the fabric of your life and it's
just a your partner notices, just go ahead
and admit it.
Just go ahead and tell them. Even if
all you can say is I think I'm
losing my mind. Right? Or there's something wrong
and I don't know what it is. Because
the reality is and this is I've said
this and I'll keep saying it because it's
my
consent.
I'm doing the is this thing perimenopause?
Is this thing something else? Like name your
something else, right? And you can't always know.
You genuinely can't always know. I think, you
know, talking to your doctor is very important.
If you need to and you can find
a new doctor, definitely go that route.
And I think it's sort of the cluster
of everything, right? If it was one thing,
I would not call it perimenopause.
But once you start learning about what those
symptoms can look like and you're like, I
got a cluster of them and I'm in
the age range and it
it's probably perimenopause but definitely talk to your
doctor but goddamn it talk to your partner.
Of all the things that, like,
are strong doms who think they're supposed to
be strong all the time and can't admit
weakness, please admit that, like, your hormones are
kicking your fucking ass right now, right?
To submissives where like, but I have to
be good and I have to do I
have to do what they want and I
can't disappoint and I can't let I know
I have that same internal monologue. I'm gonna
need you to suck it up and go,
I am your submissive. I wanna be your
submissive. I love being your submissive. I can't
remember shit. Right?
Or, I I want us to be connected
physically.
The idea of sex right now
is I just I can't. Right? Like, you
those conversations have to be had because that
the symptoms will impact your power exchange. No
doubt. No doubt.
But the lack of communication
will have a bigger impact. Because you can
work around a lot of symptoms, you know?
Especially if they can be managed with medication
or I don't know, somebody out there who's
gone through the perimenopause and is in the
menopause stage, how much of this goes away?
I've had some people tell me
it all went away and then I have
my mom go No, no, no, I still
sometimes get a hot flash. I'm on with
my mom, I'm like No, no, no. I
want you to go talk to your very
old fashioned doctor who tried to talk you
out of HRT many years ago.
Like, here are the links, take them the
studies, that science about nobody you know, nobody
should do HRT. That's not good science anymore.
There's just some people who shouldn't do it
and I don't know who they are. I'm
not a medical professional.
Take the information to your doctor, please please
please. Because,
what the studies are showing, this is why
I like to follow Doctor. Haver,
is the importance of estrogen, progesterone estrogen especially,
on the body because perimenopause
is this massive fluctuation. It's it's all over
the fucking place, more so than whatever your
previous air quote natural cycle of hormones might
have been.
And studies are showing that if you can
keep those estrogen levels higher,
then there's less chance of dementia. There's less
chance of cardiovascular
health problems later in life. There's all these
things that can be
killers of women and other people assigned female
at birth
can be
can't make them go away completely, but you
can reduce those chances
if medication is an option for you. It
is not an option for everybody?
I know that. But if it is so
I'm like, mom, you need to go find
out if it is an option for you,
and you need to tell that old man
doctor that
put me on it. Because she's of the
right age, she's gone through menopause, she certainly
still has some symptoms. Not all of
them,
but
so yeah. Mhmm. This is, I I I
hesitate to use words that are maybe not
mine to use because I don't have any
official diagnosis, but
just like kink was my very much my,
special interest or whatever that is,
clearly, I made a fucking career out of
it. Perimenopause is on that list partly because
I I have this innate need to understand
myself and where I fit going on with
you. Right. And then where I fit within
the world and how I relate to the
world around me. And the world around me
is not every fucking body. I don't like
every fucking body. But, like, my world. Right?
Perimenopause
is just another part of that that journey.
So like I get I get really geeked
out on some of the information
but then I find it hard to talk
about because my experience with it will not
be your experience with it, right?
Because
we'll have different chronic conditions before perimenopause. We'll
get different symptoms of it.
The role you play in your power exchange
is probably a little different from mine even
if we're both submissives.
And so that impact on your power exchange
is gonna be different. Like it's like every
interesting thing to me in, kink. I can't
give you a five point checklist of just
do this or these are the things that'll
tell you, you know, here you've got all
the secrets of the universe.
No.
And the big boring answer is how peri
what you do when perimenopause affects your power
changes. You gotta talk about it. If medication
is an option, if there are, like
ideally,
if I was weight training, if I could
get enough fiber and protein, if I could
get enough sleep, if I could reduce my
stress,
a lot of not all but some of
the symptoms might not go away but they'd
be reduced. It would be more manageable, right?
Plus I'd just have better overall health.
I would love to do that, but I
can't hire a personal trainer to teach me
how to to strength train because I will
hurt myself. Right?
I will hurt myself.
I can't figure out how to get more
fiber and more protein at the same time
and afford our grocery bill. Like, that's where
we're at right now. It doesn't mean I'm
not working towards it. It doesn't mean I've
gone, oh, that's not important. It's just another
part of the puzzle. I went for the
thing I could do that was, for me,
the most easily accessible and that was medication.
That is just a part of the puzzle,
and I'm working through everything else.
Because I want to be happy and healthy
as just a human,
but also as a submissive in our power
exchange. I wanna, like, keep myself going long
term. I can actually
if you happen to go down the rabbit
hole of perimenopausal information,
you will get to hear about the terrifying
loss of muscle mass and now more brittle
bones that I am living in, and I
can see some of the muscle mass. I
I look at my body.
You know, I'm I've lost muscle mass already,
and it's like, I I don't I don't
wanna look like my great grandmother, Dan,
at 81. I don't. I don't know who
I want to look like, but I want
to be strong. Like, I
that's one thing I like about doctor,
Haver because she does talk about diet and
exercise, and so if that's a thing you
can't be around just be mindful of that,
right, if you go look for content. But
she has the best thing of she's like,
if I could tell
any woman in their 20s stop trying to
be skinny, just be strong. Right? And what
she says to perimenopausal
folks is it's not about it's not about
calories in calories out
for this point in life. It's about nutrition.
And I'm like, okay. Well, that takes some
pressure off.
I appreciate that. And I want those things
too because I know that they could
make things better in other ways so then
I can be the submissive I want to
be. Right?
But it's all a process, which I go
back to. That's the double edged sword of
this being a seven to ten year slog.
Right? I get enough time to start figuring
some shit out, but also we have to
survive it for a decade.
Mhmm.
So yeah.
Yeah. If if it's your partner going through
it, try to be as supportive as you
can be. Somebody said in the live chat,
my partner is younger than me and is
perimenopausal.
She had a lot of guilt when saying
no,
and it helped her to know that I
was not going to pressure her as I
had been there myself.
Yeah. If I have to tell JB that
I can't do something right now or at
all, right,
the best thing I can get from him
is just total acceptance. He's allowed to be
a little disappointed we couldn't do a thing.
I mean, that's human.
But
he's just, you know, he goes, okay. It
does help, I think, in our situation. You're
going through a period of life where you're
going, oh, I can't do things right now
that I used to be able to do
either. And so you
we understand it differently, but in in our
similar I'm I'm reaching that stage of life
where,
the mind is still willing, but the body
is not always I would like the mind
to be willing on my end, but my
mind is a bunch of hamsters on broken
hamster wheels. I mean
and they're all going
different fucking directions.
So yeah. Wow. That that that's been a
lot.
Mhmm.
It takes up a massive chunk of your
life.
Somebody said it this way and then had
to, like, make a video, like, explaining themselves
because the Internet hated it. They said it's
a little bit like puberty in reverse. Not
that
it's a literal puberty in reverse, but it's
like the other end of puberty where your
hormones are going wild, your body is changing,
your brain is changing,
but
on the opposite end of the age spectrum.
And I was like, yeah. I get that.
No. No. I I I definitely get that.
I I vibe with that.
So yeah if you are experiencing it and
it's fucking up your power exchange, you're not
alone.
If you're the partner of
somebody,
you are also not alone.
And if you are young enough that this
is like a thing you don't probably won't
have to think about for ten, fifteen, twenty
years,
let me be a person who at least
explained what the fuck perimenopause was to you.
Because I promise you in my twenties I'd
never heard that word.
Maybe once. And I I didn't even clock
it as anything.
So so yeah.
That was a lot. I just kinda knew
this one would,
This one will probably run long. We will
do a
bonus section.
And so yeah.
My throat hurts. Not bad. I don't know
who this helped other than those of us
who are hot and sweaty right now and
just needed a place to, like, share our,
our,
community rage.
At the minimum, if I can help people
realize they are not alone in something, I
then my job here is
done. Yeah. So to all those who are
the the sweaty, cranky, forgettable masses out there,
I'm with you. I am you.
So anyway,
we can do a bonus section. So, are
we good? I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. That's not for me to
say.
Keep it kinky, y'all. And we'll see you
next week.
Daddy.
One moment, girl.
Audacity is being
Audacity is giving me fits right now. Has
been all the whole time. I know I've
watched you. I've watched you.
If anybody's, like,
watching the video part and you've watched JB
go in and out and click and that
is Right. Audacity. Yeah.
Okay. Bonus section. Talk to crickets. Yeah. And
I just realized we gotta work on your
handwriting. I just realized what you were asking
me. But, I know if I ask silent
very nicely, she will help us out with
audio. Yeah. I I can been having problem.
Audacity has been self adjusting the audio.
Mhmm. Okay. A few times it almost dropped
to nothing. Oh, God. And I keep having
to bring it up and eventually it,
bounces down. So I've been I've been fighting
with that. It will not let me adjust
it because it's recording.
Right. No. Yeah. K. So that'll be interesting
to listen to the original audio playback of
the console. I should be able to,
normalize the audio. Okay. It's just gonna be
a few extra steps.
Yeah. And, you know, as long as it
is, it's gonna take a while. Good. On
one of the most important topics I've ever
wanted to discuss in 400 plus episodes. Of
course.
What else? It's like this topic is fucking
haunted Yeah. Somewhere. We got an older guy
sitting here somewhere.
So, yeah. They're asking about the Discord channel.
Oh, I have several things I wanna do
in Discord. Okay. Let me That's the Bing
one I'm Let me know what you wanna
name them, and I'll get them set up.
No. I gotta tell you my whole plan.
I meant to talk to you a few
weeks ago,
and I can't remember what stopped me. It
was my own emotional whatever whatever because there's
a few things I want. So our Discord
is available through our Patreon.
That way it feels more manageable to me,
and I am I personally am less overwhelmed.
So I prefer it to be through our
Patreon.
You can join Patreon for as little as
$2 a month if that's something you're interested
in.
But,
we have all kinds of channels because it's
not just about kink in there for us.
We talk about other parts of life, and
I got a couple of things on my
mind
currently that I'd like to do that are
more
life focused. Well, maybe this evening we can
sit and talk. Maybe we can. Yep. Oh,
I had an idea for a not a
lunch date, not a coffee date, not a
dinner date,
a Culver's
custard date. Oh. Right. I know. Because I
I can eat one custard, like, every couple
of weeks and my stomach can handle it,
and I haven't had one in a few
months.
So maybe we could do that at some
point.
Yeah. The, having the the some of
the brainpower,
opened up because stress has,
been alleviated a little bit means that the
ideas are starting to flood back. I'm so
sorry. And I know. I I get it
because I've I've been the same way, you
know. Now that my that I've been, you
know, slowly,
lifting away from my depression, things are, you
know
Yeah. The creativity can come back. Yeah.
Let's see.
Jesus.
I would just stop if you can. I
can't.
No. I mean, I would stop playing with
it if you can.
I think you're gonna I can't. Okay. If
you can't, you can't.
Lola who's snoring in the background. Lola is
snoring in the background.
We we had been on a a,
a little bit of a journey with her,
some of you know. We were back at
the vet yesterday. That was follow-up, not because
something was wrong. Yeah. That was a follow-up.
We had taken her in again because
we thought
her allergies
were flaring up. Right.
And
And come to find out it was probably
pain. It was probably pain. Yeah. So This
new I really like our new vet. Yeah.
Same office, new vet. He's also
gorgeous. Look what he's so beautiful. God, he
is.
Oh my god. A good looking man. Yes.
Yes. And he has an accent. So I'm
like, you could can I stare at you?
And you just you could just read notes,
like vet notes to me. And I'm good.
I'm good. I I had to go to
their website. Mhmm. And and, you know,
I I believe he's from South America. Oh,
okay. Okay.
I believe he's from South America. Okay. He's
got he's got great hair. Yeah. He has,
I guess he'd be called no. He's would
not be called a silver fox because he
has just one splash of silver at the
front of his hairline, and then the rest
is, like, really dark and it's curly and
I'm like but it's, like, like, wavy curly.
I have spent way too much time looking
at this man and thinking about this man.
I'm aware.
I do feel like maybe there's a little
there's a little in
there even though my meds are a little
off right now.
It's kinda nice. And I love having a
partner where we can elbow each other and
privately, we will not make another human being
uncomfortable and be like, oh my god. Did
you see that person? They're so sexy.
Yeah.
So yes. But he's also very perceptive about
things. Yes. Things that we had been told,
and they probably were for for part of
it, that were definitely allergies, definitely allergies.
There's a good chance that some of what
she's been dealing with has been pain in
from
her her
back. From her injury in her leg where
she was had been shot. They, you know,
had to basically rebuild the leg. We told
them about that. And it's Before we adopted
her. Before we adopted her. And and that
leg is shorter.
So
the last the time before,
he
had asked why are there no pictures of
her legs? Like her leg. Right. And they're
like, well,
nobody has to ever do them. Right. Because
we were we were not
dealing with anything related to her leg. So
he he went ahead and and did a
an x-ray of of her leg.
And,
what come to find out
where they
did did the work on the bone in
her leg and whatever they used
to put in there To stabilize it. To
stabilize it,
bone has completely grown bone. And whatever they
used to stabilize it has shattered in her
Yeah. Leg.
Basically, what he was saying is if she
was in more severe pain, if it was,
preventing her from being able to function, he
would probably recommend surgery. Yeah. But she can
get up and down from the couch. She
walks. She does this. She does that. But
he said I there's a because we were
talking about, you know, she licks her paws.
You know, that if you have a a
dog, that grotesque sound of them licking their
paws. Oh my god.
Anyway,
we were like oh, and we've always equated
that to her allergies of licking in between
her toes. And and the fact that I
have seen so many people
on on social media
with with Staffies,
complain about how their dogs just lick randomly
lick their paws and Right. You know, seems
to be a Staffy thing too. And when
we got her, her allergies were just she
was just inflamed. It was so bad for
her. So that's what made us think, okay.
And he was like, well, he says it
could be. And we did give her an
allergy shot that she's had in the past
that Yeah. Calms us up down. He's like,
but that can also be a way that
they soothe
when they're when they hurt. It can be
a soothing thing. And we're like and he
was saying a couple other things to kinda
describe, like, signs that that she might be
in pain, and that was like a light
bulb went off over our heads. Yep. And
so he's like, let's try some pain management.
And the first medication he recommended, which we
did end up going with, is a very
expensive monthly medication. And he was like, well,
before I prescribe this, let's do this test
that's
of medication. Like, let's see if she gets
pain relief
from this less expensive thing. And if that
works, then you know you need pain management.
And it did. She
this for seven days on
two pain medicines.
She has been
spry. She's been running. She's gotten zoomy. She
gets excited about shit. She
still struggles to get in my little Corolla,
which I find fucking hilarious. It's like a
small car and she's like, whoo. Yeah.
But she's just she's acting younger. And we
were like, oh my god. I think
part of this has been pain, but she's
such a sweet, gentle girl.
She just looked like she was becoming like,
you know, a baked potato. You know, it's
just napping all the time. Right.
So
so yeah. We're,
we're, on a different different track with her
now a little bit, and it seems to
be to be working.
Yep. We got to see the oldest in
concert last night. Yeah. We will that's Tuesday,
the day before recording. We will go back
on Monday for another concert, of which he
has solos in that one. Yeah. So next
week, he has two days of concerts back
to back. And I was like, hey. We
love you so much. We wanna support all
that you do. We cannot do two evenings
of concerts in a row because we we
struggle to function the day after. Today is
a day where usually we start working at,
like, 09:10 o'clock in the morning. Nope.
11:30
is when we did our first actual work
thing today because we just needed to sleep
in and we had a slow start. So
we can't do two days in a row
and get anything done. No. So I was
like, okay.
We want to see you in this band
and this band, but this band, Monday, you
have solos. Right? And he's like, yeah. He
goes, actually, I'd prefer you to go see
me in that performance because
the band that I'm performing in on Tuesday,
it's gonna be a hot mess. We're not
prepared at all. So come to another one
of those concerts. I was like, cool beans.
I can do this.
So
yeah. He's, I cannot maybe I talked about
it during the Friday night livestream this month.
I cannot
remember. But his he cannot ride his motorcycle
right now
because
he
he got into an accident. He did not
get hit by a literal fucking car. But
they cut him off. But they they could
have hit him, and he swerved, and
he could not slow down fast enough to
not hit this car. So he had to
swerve and he ended up in the median,
and he busted a part of his bike
so he can't he can't safely ride his
bike. Turn signals have broken off. Right. So
he's gotta get into the guy who does
his bike repairs for him. He's got a
guy now.
And yes, Silent. I I do think so
too.
So
Silent says, isn't that his third accident? I
think he's cursed.
Yeah. He's also a human being that only
learns by doing. The hard way. Right? It
has to happen to him, and then he
goes, oh, I know. Yep. Yep. Yep. And
and Not a cautious bone in that job,
buddy. We we did give him
the Corolla at one time. Remember that that
time? He really, really needed a car and
we we let him have it for a
few days. Yeah.
Got it back with a flat tire. We
had We did.
But before we could even take the car
home and the and the car was track
it couldn't even repair the tire. Had to
get a whole new tire. Yeah. That was
that was fun times. Yeah. Fun times.
Yeah. He's he's been on a vehicle journey
after college. Yeah. Yeah. He he other than
a little shook up and
mad, but also I think Yeah. He was
not hurt. I was more scared than anything.
He was fine. This was this was not
like JD flying through the fucking air and
landing on his head.
For the record, I was having my panicky,
overanxious crying because something could happen to my
daddy Dom before he got hit by a
literal motorcycle. It just got worse after he
got hit by a literal
fucker literal car.
So I'm I'm just saying,
yeah. So
but, yeah, we were
we got to see him, and
he's been very tired. There's some man, there's
still not that spring semester of probably any
school, but certainly college that,
is, I guess exhausting. Yeah.
I guess maybe because everything's kinda coming together
for the year, maybe. I don't know. I
don't know.
I don't know right now. I I just
bring him pay for and bring him his
medication now And food. And food and feed
him and take him to Sam's Club when
he needs it. Mhmm. And my favorite thing,
I I love that we continue to have
this relationship. He'll call me, and it's always
at, like, 09:00 at night.
He'll call me on like some random
Tuesday or something and go, can I rant
to you? And I'm like, yeah, sure, of
course, baby. He always real sweet. He always
goes, are you busy? Like I would tell
my baby boy that I am too busy
to talk to him. And what the hell
am I doing at 09:30 at night that
I'm busy? I'm like, no. No. I'm fine.
I'm fine. What you got? I need to
rant. Go for it. Forty five minutes later,
he feels a little bit better. I'm a
little more stressed on his behalf.
So
yeah. And I'm I'm trying to figure out
why it looks like I have a line
down the center of my head. Well, look
at me and I'll oh, you're looking at
yourself on camera? One half is lighter and
one half is darker. Okay. Can you look
at me and see it, like, been your
because one half of your head is lighter.
Wily.
Yeah.
And I don't know if it's from the
glare or if it's legit, but at this
angle,
podcast folks,
I'm so sorry.
But if you if you wanna if you
wanna see this for yourself and judge for
yourself, just just go to this week's video.
For anybody who, like, actually accesses our show
notes page, whether it's through our website or
whatever, at the very bottom, I always put
the video to the episode for anybody who,
you know, might come across our website before
they come across anything else. Mhmm.
So yeah. Yeah.
Skunk daddy.
Thank you, silent, for giving us a new
name for JB.
Skunk daddy.
I'm
not making that shirt design. I'm not.
And now and now it, makes me think
of the skunk cabbage
I had in the woods growing up when
I was a kid. Okay. That's beyond my
understanding. At least that's what I it it
was a, it was a plant grew mostly
around swamps, bogs,
and Okay. I didn't I didn't do anything
like that. And,
when you if you, like,
disturb the plant, you crush it, it stinks.
Oh, okay.
It's like a stink plant instead of a
stink bug. Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know if it's a light
no. Come here. Come here. Come here. Come
here.
No. It's
oh my god.
Okay. Podcast sisters. Let me see if I
can describe this. JB's got his head pointed
out. Come here. Come back to me. Come
back to me. Me looking at JB, the
left side of his head is this dark
brown with just a little smattering of silver.
And then there's this patch
on
on my right.
Yeah. My right. Yeah. My right. And it's
more silvery than dark. And it's just this
patch, but it is there's a center line.
Is that new?
Or did we just never notice it? I
don't know. But now when you look at
me head on, there's a I can't understand.
See it. No. We need to ask one
of the kids who, will absolutely,
tell you like it is to hurt your
feelings, what they see. Yeah.
Yep. Yeah.
Alright.
Okay. So
I know.
Right? No. Silent Silent said if if we
only had several years of video footage, sure
for two. Here's what thirsts me off. Every
once in a while, somebody watches an older
video and they'll comment on it and then
I'm I'm seeing things in my feed again,
like, on the the dashboard side of things,
and I'll see one of our videos from
2019, '20 '20. Oh my god. Your hair
was so dark. We were so much thinner.
And I I I look at those and
I'm like, what the fuck happened? I know.
I know.
So
anyhoo.
Anyway,
I think that's enough chaos for
this week. Yeah. We'll be back with more
chaos.
Next week.
And, hey, hey, if you're a Patreon member,
the behind the scenes podcast episode will be
up soon, and there there's some more more
chaos for you.
So, yeah, we thank y'all, for being here.
Mhmm. Even if perimenopause is a thing you
will probably never be around in your whole
life, but you listened anyway, we appreciate you.
For my fellow hot cranky folks out there,
I see you. I am you.
We will survive this. This.
And so yeah, we're we're gonna go. Thanks
for being here with us. Yep. Okay.
Bye.