Lost: My Sense of Self

Along with any idea of how to dress in the morning….

I don’t know how to be me anymore.

More precisely, I don’t know how to dress myself. What looks good? What’s appropriate for my age, my position, my body? What projects the true me to the world?

I’m in some kind of messed-up territory here. I spent about a decade, maybe a little more, battling bulimia. I won, it lost, but I carry battle scars, and one of them is definitely body image. I did a lot of work in therapy (and out of it) to let go of the disordered eating and thinking, to accept my body as it got healthier, a little fuller. I was doing fine, really good in fact. I thought I’d found the sweet spot.

Then peri-menopause came to town.

At first, it didn’t affect my weight, just my moods & periods. But the thing about peri is that it’s a constantly moving target. You can’t nail it down to one particular pattern, a defined set of new things to get used to. The new normal changes every few months — and this goes on for years. You’re constantly off-balance trying to figure out what’s going on, what to expect.

Some of the options on the menu include:

• hot flashes and night sweats
• Hormonal tides of irrational rage alternating with tsunamis of tears
• That delightful physical sloth my best friend dubbed DBS (“Dead Body Syndrome” — the name explains itself) or getting manic energy surges that make me want to clean the house at 3 am
• Nights riddled with insomnia or 10 hours of sleeping-like-the-dead
• Bleeding for 40 days, with the fun of anemia and birth-like cramps (throw several days of “flooding” into the bleeding fest, too, just for kicks) or going 4 months without so much as a little spotting
• And don’t forget the libido: it’s either horny teen or grumpy post-partum C-section mother of 5!

Now, after 4 years or so of that roller coaster, peri has added weight gain to the list.

So I’m 20 pounds heavier. (It feels like 50.) I try not to look in mirrors — it’s better for my mental health to imagine how I’d like to look and pretend that that’s what other people are seeing.

But I can’t always do that. And since I also swell up like a balloon sometimes (another peri signature move), half my clothes don’t fit half the time.

I am at a loss most mornings when deciding what to wear.

I don’t know how to dress this body to make it look good. What looked good 10 or 20 pounds ago doesn’t work now. (I’ll be honest: I would LOVE to look like I did at the height of my eating disorder days. 20 pounds lighter than this? Hell yes, sign me up! …except don’t, because the reason I’m not like that anymore is because it was unhealthy, it cost me a lot to be like that. I’ve worked too hard to recover and be healthy. I don’t want to go through all that again.)

And who am I now, anyway? Cute in perky dresses? Cool and mellow, sporting loose, groovy hippie/boho attire? Business tidy, with blouses, sweater sets, long skirts, and slacks? Gym rat, wearing workout gear 24/7 and even to work on casual Fridays?

No matter what I wear, it never feels right anymore. When I do look in the mirror, I find that I don’t really recognize the person looking back: fuller face, thick, frumpy build, sagging cheeks, puffy under-eyes, frizzy hair that’s really starting to show a lot of silver streaks (each and every one of them with a mind of its own, by the way, so even my hair doesn’t feel like mine anymore).

My closet, my drawers, every space where I keep clothes are overflowing because I keep buying more, trying to find that perfect fit, the size that will always be comfortable, the style that says ME and feels true. Amazon, SheIn, StitchFix, every thrift store in town — I make a regular circuit.

I return a lot, more than I keep, but space is becoming an issue.

I’ve got to get rid of some stuff.

But how? I’m not sure day to day which me I’m dressing. If I give half my stuff away, I won’t have as many options — and what if I give away the option that turns out to be the real me?

What is appropriate for my size, my age, my job? What is an authentic projection of who I am at 51?

(I’m no fan of misogynistic socio-cultural constructs, but wearing a habit is my default preference most days…except I’m not a nun, so that option is off the table. Besides, although I’ve bought too many clothes in too many sizes and too many styles, I haven’t yet bought a habit — which is probably for the best, all things considered.)

I’ve been living this weird identity crisis for a while now, going around and around in my head, one extreme to another, wrestling with my inner demons and puzzling over all the questions, and here’s what I think:

Peri-menopause is a shit time.

So is life in a pandemic.

Midlife, in general, is a shit time for women (I can’t speak for men), because all the things society had previously valued them for (being young and attractive, bearing and raising young) are gone — so who are they now, what’s left, how can they feel valuable, important, relevant?

That’s a lot of shit to deal with all at once. So this lostness I’m feeling? Maybe it makes sense.

Right now there’s no answer, no solution that will resolve it all, dot every “i” and cross every “t”. I think I just have to get through it, head down, pushing against the winds of change till I get on the other side of this — whatever “this” really is, whether it’s the huge hormonal transition into menopause, or reinventing myself as a woman separate from my reproductive value, or … something else? I guess I’ll know it when I get there.

In retrospect, I’ll probably be able to make sense of this phase. I’ll learn from it.

But right now, in the middle of it, with no clear vision as to where I’m going (or being taken, more like) and a strong, daily dose of discomfort in innumerable small ways that undermine my confidence, physical and mental peace, and sense of well-being, it’s hard. It’s not fun. Funny? Yeah, I’m laughing at myself a lot because, believe me, I see the ridiculous side of it all. But not fun, not at all.

So here I am writing about it, because maybe if I put it all out there, reveal the messy inside of me to others, it’ll do some good. Maybe writing this will help someone else who’s going through something similar. She’ll say, “Holy shit, and I thought I was a mess. At least I’m not as bad as she is!” and laugh, wear a smile for a few minutes. Her day will be better and she’ll know she’s not the only one, things could be worse.

I don’t want to do this alone anymore. It’s too scary and demoralizing. At least if we share our inner chaos with each other, we’ll have company as we merrily careen our way to whatever comes next. So…this is what’s hiding in my closet, what midlife and the world is doing to me. How about you?