A Love Letter to the Woman in the Middle of Perimenopause

Dear You,

If you're reading this, I already know something about you. You're strong. You’ve made it through things that should have broken you. You’ve carried burdens in silence. And now, just as you hoped things might ease... something unexpected has arrived.

Maybe your body is changing in ways you didn’t anticipate. Maybe food feels like a battlefield again. Maybe trauma you thought you’d buried has come back louder.

Maybe you feel like you’re unraveling.

This is not weakness. This is awakening.

Perimenopause is not just a hormonal shift—it’s a soul shift. Old patterns don’t fit anymore. Old coping strategies feel brittle. And your body? She’s asking you to listen in a whole new way.

This isn’t about discipline or willpower. This isn’t about finally fixing yourself. This is about tending to the parts of you that were never given care.

To the woman who has battled her body for decades— I see you. I see the hunger for peace that diets never gave you. I see the shame you carry when the mirror feels unfamiliar. I see the grief beneath the control, the longing beneath the rigidity.

You learned to survive by managing the unmanageable. By shrinking. By striving. By staying quiet.

But now your body is speaking again—through fatigue, through changes, through emotion that spills over for “no reason.” She’s not betraying you. She’s calling you home.

To the woman with trauma buried in her bones— You didn’t make this up. You’re not dramatic. And no, you’re not “too sensitive.”

Perimenopause is a time when the nervous system often goes haywire. What you’ve held in your tissues, your gut, your silence—it starts to rise. That doesn’t mean you’re going backward. It means your body finally feels safe enough to let it surface.

You’re not broken. You’re thawing.

And if it feels too big to handle alone, there are ways to move through it—gently, and in relationship with your body.

This season can feel brutal. And it can also be holy.

Not because it’s easy. But because it invites you to stop abandoning yourself.

To meet your pain with compassion. To soften instead of striving. To build a new relationship with your body—not based on control, but on care.

You don’t need to be “fixed.” You need to be witnessed. Held. Heard. Supported.

There is life after this. Life where you get to befriend your body. Where food becomes nourishment, not negotiation. Where rest is allowed. Where your voice returns. Where softness becomes strength.

You deserve that life. You deserve that freedom. Even if you’ve never had it before.

With so much love, A fellow traveler