Thirty-seven. That is how old I was when it started. That is the number that made every doctor do a small double-take when I sat across from them.
Too young, my mother said. She was not unkind. She just could not fit it into what she knew. Menopause in her world happened to women in their fifties. Not her daughter, with a toddler still at home and a job she had fought to keep.
Too young, my first doctor said. He ran no tests. He told me my periods were probably irregular because of the stress of having a young child and going back to work. He told me the night sweats were anxiety. He told me to rest more.
I believed him. Why would I not? He was the doctor. I was the person who had never heard of early perimenopause. I went home and tried to rest more.
For almost a year, I tried to rest more.
What changed was a conversation at a family wedding, the kind you have standing near the food while children run past you. My cousin's wife, ten years older than me, mentioned offhand that she had been on HRT for three years. I asked her what it was like. She asked me why I was asking. I told her what had been happening to me. She looked at me with a particular kind of recognition and said: Sunita, you need to see a gynaecologist. Not a GP. A gynaecologist who deals with perimenopause specifically.
The tests took two weeks. The diagnosis took one appointment. Early perimenopause, confirmed, documented, real.
I have thought a lot about that year of being told I was too young. About how much I accommodated that explanation because it came from authority. About how different things might have been if someone had mentioned that this can happen in your 30s.
I am mentioning it now. It can happen in your 30s. If your body is telling you something, find someone who will listen.