I THOUGHT I WAS GOING CRAZY. TURNS OUT I WAS JUST 41.

It was Thursday June 12th, and I remember the date because my body remembers the date. Even right now, sitting here writing this, I can feel exactly how that night felt. Which is actually part of the story, but I'll get there.

I had just visited the venue for the I Did It Anyway Awards and was driving down south with my Centre Stage crew for our mini retreat. The place we were staying was stunning. Everything was organised. I was with women I genuinely love.

And I was absolutely terrified.

Not of anything real. Not of anything I could point to or explain or make sense of. Just this low, constant, crawling feeling in my body that something was very wrong. That I needed to run. I just didn't know what I was running from.

I told the women what was happening, because I don't do pretending. And within minutes I was in a full blown panic attack, pacing the house like a caged animal, no anxiety medication, and an hour's drive to an all night chemist at 11pm with one of my girls while every part of me screamed GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT.

There was nothing to get out from.

The next day when everyone arrived, my body was in the room. I was not.

I went home. I needed my husband, I needed my own space, and I needed my daughter Murphy. She's a kid. She had no idea what was happening to her mum. But she lay on my back for hours, just her small weight, pressing me into the floor, and that was the only thing that felt real.

She was holding me in my body. Stopping me from floating away completely. Every time my brain tried to leave, her weight brought me back.

I am a woman who runs awards nights and builds communities and shows up. And I was lying on the floor, held together by my kid.

That was 8 months ago, and those 8 months have been some of the hardest of my life. Not because anything catastrophic happened, that's actually what makes it so cruel. Everything on paper was fine. But anxiety doesn't care about your paper.

It eats away at your confidence, your self esteem, your joy. You stop wanting to work. You stop playing with your kids. You fall out of love with things you used to love and you can't even explain why. You just know you don't feel like yourself anymore. And slowly, quietly, you start wondering if this is just who you are now.

A friend had been dropping hints for months. I ignored her. I was 41, I still had a completely normal period, it wasn't possible. She was right.

One HRT patch later, within a week, the fog started to lift. Not gone. But quieter. Like someone turned the volume from a ten to a four.

Perimenopause. Not a breakdown. Not broken. Not going crazy. Perimenopause, at 41, with a normal period, which apparently is absolutely a thing that happens and nobody bloody tells you.

Here's the list I wish someone had handed me twelve months ago, because I spent a long time thinking I was losing my mind before I worked out what was actually going on:

• Feeling like I had water in my ears
• Brain fog so thick I couldn't finish a sentence
• Burning skin (this one landed me in an MRI machine being tested for MS)
• Itchy skin
• Anxiety
• Memory loss
• Vertigo that made me feel constantly seasick
• Snapping at literally everyone, all the time
• Losing joy in things I previously loved

If you're reading this and nodding, please go talk to someone. Your GP, a specialist, a friend who's been through it. Just don't do what I did and spend a year quietly convinced you're broken.

Here's the thing though. Even with the HRT, the anxiety still visits.

Last Friday it came back hard. And I was so disappointed, I'd had such a good week, that the disappointment itself tipped me straight into a spiral. The old panic. The old RUNNN. The old pattern doing exactly what old patterns do when you let your guard down.

And lying there, doing the breathing, waiting for it to pass, something landed for me.

This is strength training.

Not the cute kind. The actual kind, where your muscles shake and it genuinely hurts and you have absolutely no idea if you're making any progress. My brain has spent years running one program when anxiety hits, panic, flee, spiral, because that's the only path it knows. That's the path it's worn smooth over years of use.

But I am building new paths right now. And the only way to do that, the actual only way, is to feel the anxiety and respond differently. Every single time. Journal. Walk. Sit with my family. Get Murphy to lie on my back. Remind myself of the one thing that has become my anchor through all of this:

You can feel unsafe and still be safe.

It hurts because it's new. That's not me being positive, that's just how brains actually change. The first reps are always the hardest, and every time you do it, it hurts a little less.

Perimenopause can last a decade. I am not lying down for a decade.

I am coming out the other side of this mentally stronger than I went in. And if you're somewhere in the middle of your own version of this, whatever it looks like for you, I just want you to know that the spiral isn't proof that you're broken.

It's proof that you're doing the reps.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk 🩷💙

These are the sort of conversations and connections that happen at our Village Circles. The ones that stop you from thinking that you are crazy, and the only one feeling this way.

Sandra x