Tanya Sweeney: As I slapped on a HRT patch to ease my perimenopause symptoms, I felt as old as Peig Sayers

'Lots of women dread the ‘official’ start of The Change.' Photo posed

Tanya Sweeney

The split second I slapped on the oestrogen patch, I felt as old as Peig Sayers. I felt ancient, weathered, a crone, like a husk of a person. Ready for the glue factory. For the rest of the day, I wondered if anyone could tell that I’d moved over a particular threshold that morning. I was no longer a woman on the verge of HRT — I had now officially set up camp within its city walls.

Like most women in their mid-40s, I had put the dragging, leeching tiredness down to simply… having been around a long time. Irritability was likely due to having a husband who couldn’t locate a dishwasher even with the help of GPS. Night after night of sleeplessness had to be because I had a toddler who woke twice a night expecting to be entertained. As for the cotton-wool brain — well, maybe I’ve always been a bit dim, and I’d been putting up too good a front for too long.