Post Apocalypse

How do I explain something I don't understand myself?

Things have been going great, especially since I am so bad at knowing what it is I want and need. I know what I don't want, does that help? Maybe a little. 

So yesterday I woke up to my alarm going off and was in the grips of a nightmare. I have a terrible history of repetitive nightmares. They have occurred my whole life and sparked my interest in dream interpretation. Once I remember the nightmare, I can write it down and then I use Dictionary of Dreams to interpret it. It always helps me figure out what is going on and deal with it and then like magic the nightmare goes away. 

I don't remember the nightmare, but it did trigger a full fledged plunge off the ledge to what I refer to as menopause brain. They have a pattern, a definite beginning, middle and end. If I can catch them at the beginning I have a chance to stop them and not have a total melt down. Once we get to the middle though, too late, I'm a raving lunatic. By the time Musicman woke up I was in the middle, how pleasant for him to wake up to a raving lunatic for a wife. Not so much.

After the last time this happened and we talked about it I thought he understood what I needed him to do to help me. Yeah, no. He reverted right back to what he used to do many, many years ago when I had PMS issues that were out of control. He leaves me alone, back then that is what I wanted. It was pretty easy to figure out since I would scream at him to NOT TOUCH ME.  I would tell him, leave me alone, his instinct was not to do that. But I couldn't stand to be touched then, it made things worse, so he learned to leave me alone and at all costs not to touch me. 

A change in birth control helped get that issue under control. This menopause brain thing is something relatively new, I've been dealing with it for about a year. I understand his instinct to do what worked last time, only it doesn't work this time. I need his help, he wants to help, but during these times I am not able to tell him in any coherent fashion what will help. It is very frustrating for both of us. 

Once the episode is over I am always physically and mentally exhausted, not the best time to talk.  He tried, he wants to know what will help. I am frustrated because I have told him before and he doesn't seem to remember. Apparently reminding him of it doesn't jog his memory, it just confused him more. 

We did make some small progress, I told him about this little blog. He knew I was writing, he knew I was reading blogs, he has seen me leaving comments on blogs and when he asked what I was doing I told him. I never kept it a secret, I just never came right out and said I was writing a blog. I never worried about it because I knew that if it helped me he would be ok with it. 

He reacted exactly as I anticipated, he asked if it was helping me, I said yes and that was the end of it. He has not asked to see it or to read it. I'm ok with that, but he did ask me to write to him about what will help with the menopause brain episodes. Normally he doesn't like me writing him emails, he prefers me to just talk to him, imagine that. I guess he has realized that if we are going to make any kind of progress with this issue I need to write it down or I can't really get it out in a way that makes much sense.

So I will try again, because as he reminded me, we have been through worse and will get through this. I just don't know yet what I am going to put in the email. I have time to figure it out because he doesn't check his email for months at a time, so once I do finally get it all out and send it I will have to tell him I sent it or he won't find it for months. Not helpful.