(Ep 7) You get through the day. But you are not the woman you were, and you cannot work out where she went. The sadness that turns up with no reason attached. The rage that goes off before you can stop it, and the guilt at eleven o'clock that night. The days you feel nothing at all — not upset, just flat. And the swinging between all of it, with no warning and no pattern, until you genuinely start to wonder whether you're losing your mind. You love your family completely — and you also want everyone to stop needing something from you for five minutes, and you feel horrendous for wanting it. And underneath it all, the question nobody can answer: how long is this going to last?

That was my life for years. The hardest part wasn't any single symptom — it was that I didn't feel like myself, and I had no idea how long it would go on. I was prescribed antidepressants, more than once, and not one person asked a single question about my hormones. It took me about three years to work out what was actually happening.

This week I'm going to the emotional side of perimenopause — the part that does the real damage. What's happening in your brain chemistry and why it's the swinging that hurts, not so much the low. How to tell hormonal mood changes apart from clinical depression. What to ask for at your next appointment so you don't lose the years I lost. And what genuinely helps.

In this episode:

→ What it actually feels like — the rage that arrives before you can stop it, and the anxiety in women who've never been anxious

→ Anhedonia — why you can be clinically depressed without ever feeling sad, and why so many of us get told "you don't seem depressed"

→ What's happening chemically — why erratic hormones do more damage to your mood than low ones

→ What to ask for — and the one question that changes the appointment

→ What actually helps — what the guidelines really say about lifestyle before medication

YOUR MOOD TOOLKIT — where to start this week:

Name it out loud to one person, in the true version · Ten minutes of daylight within an hour of waking · Two sessions that make your muscles work — strength training came out better for women than men · Book the appointment and ask "could this be perimenopause as well?" · Ask for your thyroid, iron and ferritin, and B12

Small changes stack. You don't have to fix it all at once — you just have to start.

If you've spent months, or years, quietly believing you've become a worse person — angrier, colder, smaller — please consider that you might simply be a woman whose chemistry changed underneath her without anyone telling her it would. You have not lost your warmth. It's still there.

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Ready to work with me? The Peri Protocol is my personalised coaching program for women in perimenopause and menopause. Apply here → www.kirstencookecoaching.com/apply

Grab your free guide — download your free What the Peri? guide → www.kirstencookecoaching.com/free-guide

Come say hi 🌸 Follow along on Instagram and Facebook @kirstencookecoaching — I'd love to hear what resonated with you.

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Research referenced:

Badawy Y et al. (2024). The risk of depression in the menopausal stages: a systematic review and meta-analysis — J Affective Disorders

Malhi GS et al. (2021). The 2020 RANZCP clinical practice guidelines for mood disorders — ANZ Journal of Psychiatry

Noetel M et al. (2024). Effect of exercise for depression — BMJ

Senate Community Affairs References Committee (2024). Issues related to menopause and perimenopause — Parliament of Australia

Note: Perimenopause raises the risk of depression, and mood changes are often the first sign. If your low mood is persistent rather than fluctuating, see your GP — and ask about your hormones as well, not instead.

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare practitioner for personal medical decisions. If you're struggling, please reach out — Lifeline 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636 (Australia), both 24 hours a day.