Quotes from Heather Corinna

No one person, group, or book can—or should—tell everyone what choices are right for them, because there is no one right set of sexual choices for everyone. What is absolutely right for one person can be absolutely wrong for someone else. Only you can find out what your sexuality should be like, and define it accordingly.

Radical selfcare is what's going to get us through this kind of endlessly inane questioning of the validity of our existence, through menopause, and through all of the many other changes that are still yet to come.

Give less of a fuck. There's a lot of talk from well-adjusted people on the other side of menopause about how they care a lot less about a lot more things than they did before. I believe this is often a survival skill picked up in perimenopause, one that likely kept them from yelling at other people and helped them carve out the time, space, and energy to care for themselves, often after a process of figuring out they gave way too many fucks to adequately deal with any of this.

Leaning into disappointment in our bodies can make it harder to live and take care of ourselves with injuries, chronic pain and illness, or other disabilities we may have.

No one considered the possibility that I might have been experiencing a hot flash paired with a panic attack, a notoriously common experience in perimenopause.

I didn't know anything about perimenopause, including that I was in it, until I had already been in it for years, despite having an array of hallmark impacts: painful cystic acne, hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, depression including a resurgence of my suicidality, menstrual changes, digestive issues, body-composition shifts, an increase in headaches and other kinds of pain, exhaustion, and some serious cognitive challenges.

Messages we get about menopause more often tell us we must keep ourselves from much of what we want and need in this time. It's easy to get the idea that life in and after menopause is going to be little, dreary rituals of desperate maintenance and exacting control over food, exercise, the shape and size of our bodies, our skin, our intimate relationships, our sexuality, our leisure, our moods, robbing us of what pleasure we might have found in these things before.

Menopause isn't Cocoon. Sorry.

As in puberty,] There will be tears. And anger. And tragically unfortunate haircuts.

Decreased cognitive flexibility, including difficulty or increased difficulty with attentiveness, focus, processing, and concentration. You might feel like your processing speed or your ability to problem-solve is decreasing. Learning can be or feel more difficult or slower to cement, especially in later perimenopause.

Have no shame ... as another woman friend of mine counseled with perfect sincerity and cheer: 'Just gain the 25 pounds. I really think I would not have survived menopause--AND the death of my mother--without having gained these 25 pounds.' [quoting Sandra Tsing Loh's 'The Madwoman in the Volvo']

One of the ways partners, family, housemates, or anyone else who's a big part of daily life can support us is in accommodations, adaptations, or other changes we need in order to get through this or to adjust to the ways that we are just going to be different because of this from now on. That can be bigger things or little ones, but clear, tangible ways to help can go a long way for everyone and can be adapted for every age and ability.

listen-and-validate-only (on their part) venting sessions for you;

Having a bunch of arghful or superdemanding life stuff, all while our biochemistry is flying up and down like a haunted elevator or radically changing to a kind of hormonal makeup we haven't had for more than a week at a time since we were kids—no shit that can have an impact on our mental health.

As Menstruation and Menopause author Paula Weideger said in the 1970s, "The majority of doctors have an elevated opinion of their worth and an underdeveloped ability to respect their patients.

Understanding, acceptance, and management (or not!) of your choosing really are the names of the game here: they are what's actually doable and also won't make you feel even shittier about yourself than perimenopause can make you feel already.

As a sexually active teen in a Catholic family, I was given no sex information other than the nun who advised our 8th grade class to "think of a hamburger when you have impure thoughts.

If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair." —Shirley Chisholm

With menopause, what's considered "normal" vaginal pH changes from a 3.8–4.5 range to higher, usually between 5 and 6, the same level it usually is before puberty, too. That's okay, but it can change our vulnerability to imbalances and infections.

I'm not going to tell you how to feel about or view perimenopause, menopause, and life after. That's yours to feel. If we're entitled to anything, having reached this stage of life or otherwise found ourselves here, it should be the right to own and contextualize our own experience of this.