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Scream Your Own Name

Updated: Jan 17

Scream your own Name. This was an unofficial mantra at last month’s Camp Menopause retreat, referencing the billboard ads for The Womanizer, a vibrator put out by Pink Cherry several years ago. It felt kind of righteous and naughty and I slipped it into every conversation I could. Since meeting Katie Spataro of Sacred Womb Services at our Claws retreat last year I’ve been trying to reconceptualize my menopause experience as a sexual transformation along with all the other transformations piling on. But gradually over the last year, facial recognition on my IPhone has stopped reliably recognizing me. It never works in the morning, and the rest of the time it only works if I force a small smile, which instantly puts me in a dangerous mood. On my first day back to teaching after winter break this year, the principal called me while I was teaching and when I answered the phone I momentarily forgot my own name; “Hi this is…… Kate.” It’s bad enough that I can’t remember anyone else’s name around me these days, but the biological transformations, new and different every year, are taking a toll on my own sense of identity. Who am I screaming for and what’s their name again?


A few years ago we read Louann Brizendine’s The Upgrade as a Launch Your Pause book group. It’s an exploration of  the female brain during perimenopause and beyond. One of the details that really sticks with me is about a tiny organ in our brains called the insula.  She describes how the insula’s job is to  ping each of our systems with the question, Are we ok?. Before perimenopause, unless we were sick or stressed, the answer was quickly, yes. But the unpredictable hormonal fluctuations of perimenopause cause uncertainty in our body’s responses to the insula’s query, and this triggers the biological stress system to kick in. Our adrenals turn on cortisol and adrenaline to heighten our ability to find answers to what might be wrong in our bodies. This biological stress often turns into unconscious anxiety which is exacerbated by any actual stress we are experiencing in our lives already. It’s a destabilizing brew that causes, among other things, brain fog and confusion. 


I was remembering this passage in my journal the other day.” Are we ok? I’m not sure. Who even are we and why do we judge ourselves and hide like that? Why are we hiding? Why are we so afraid and mean to ourselves?” This inner dialogue helped me see a piece of my experience more clearly. It also reminds me that my identity and relationship to myself is shifting all the time. Maybe I am more tuned in to it at 55, able to hear, feel it and see it more clearly. Being able to scream my own name actually feels like a lot of  pressure, all the wrestling with who I am and what I believe or want. But, as we practiced during our Sex and Menopause workshop last weekend, I can practice awareness of what brings me pleasure, uncoupled from desire or libido. Just pleasure, in whatever form we encounter it. We turned inward to write about our experience of pleasure these days and we shared one of these discoveries with a partner from the group. One of mine was a fantasy about lying on a couch while my lover makes me dinner. My workshop partner and I giggled in ecstatic agreement about how hot it was. 


So, I might not remember my name or be able to scream it out with confidence right now, but I can tap into something more primal and focus on sensual delight around me and see where it goes. 








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