Sam Baker Brain feel like cotton wool You re not alone Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Life Sam Baker Brain feel like cotton wool You re not alone By You Magazine - November 8, 2020 You’re not alone, says writer Sam Baker (below), who was plagued by anxiety and insomnia when she hit her 40s. Determined to carve out this midlife shift positively, she shared her experiences with 100 other women. What they all said was surprising – and incredibly uplifting. Not to be negative, but my 40s weren’t my best years. The first half was fine (in the noncommittal way we usually mean when we say fine), but the second half… Whoa! Dissatisfied and bored at work, at 46 I chucked in my job to start a business with a friend. Initially, it was fun. Stressful, but fun. Then, out of nowhere, my confidence plummeted and my anxiety soared. I stopped sleeping and worried all night instead. At best I lost sight of myself. At worst? I worried I had early onset dementia. I now know that I was sleepwalking into perimenopause, mistakenly thinking hot flushes were the main symptom. I kept it to myself. I was lonely. I floundered. It took me 18 months to seek treatment and six years to come out on the other side. By which time, aged 53, I felt great. I was full of energy, purpose – and had an entirely new ability to stand up for myself. LEZLI+ROSE While I knew I couldn’t be alone in this life-altering shift, I’d rarely heard women talk about it. And yet we all experience something like it. I didn’t want anyone else to go through it without a guidebook so I decided to write one and asked other women about their experiences. I canvassed social media – the response was immediate and overwhelming. Soon we’d built a community of women from different backgrounds, races, sexualities, all talking about their lives post-40. Their answers were a revelation. They made me laugh and cry. They made a lot of lightbulbs go on. Here’s what they taught me… You are not losing your mind First and most importantly, you are still you, even if you’ve lost sight of yourself. And you are not going mad. However lonely you feel, you are not alone. By the time I wrote my book The Shift, I already knew that. But how much do I wish I’d known it when I was 46? Even the most together of women feel like they are losing it. ‘I went into premature menopause at 39 and I had no idea who the person was who moved in overnight,’ said Camilla, 56. ‘I started to call myself Jane (my middle name) as I felt plain, invisible and cried at everything. I went from being the life of the party to not going at all. Now I’ve finally got my full mojo back.’ ‘I was blindsided by the memory loss,’ said Jenny, 49. ‘As someone who has always been able to carry a lot mentally and juggle many plates, to start forgetting dates and critical pieces of information – and words! – felt like a massive piece of my identity was missing.’ ‘I had so many weird symptoms from 44,’ says Paula, 50. ‘I itched like hell. My head felt like it was full of cotton wool. I felt rage, then sad or just empty. I didn’t want to socialise; I went from clingy to wanting to divorce my husband in the same night. I had zero interest in sex. I put my game face on. I told no one. I hid how bad I felt. It took months of research to discover it was perimenopause.’ Life s too short to say yes when you mean no I have spent my life saying yes when I mean no way. I’ve eaten pizza when I wanted curry. I’ve loaned people money when I knew I’d never see it again. I’ve covered for chancers. I’ve worked for free. I’ve done endless favours. While my brain screamed no, my mouth said, OK. Why? Because I didn’t want to upset them? Or I thought they wouldn’t like me? I didn’t know I was allowed to put what I wanted first – I was a people pleaser. I still am, a bit, but I’m working on it. ‘People pleasing was my default for years,’ Karen, 50, told me. ‘I’ve learnt I don’t have to say yes to every request professionally, which helped me set better boundaries personally. This led to a shakedown both in work and in my personal life which, at first, was difficult; but increasingly I’ve been able to walk away from clients, friendships – and even family – if necessary.’ Lisa, 52, has elderly parents and a child on the autistic spectrum. To put it bluntly, her time is not her own. ‘Everyone wants a piece of me and at the end of the day there isn’t enough left,’ she said. ‘But I don’t suffer fools any more. I’m not intimidated by people in authority. I surround myself with people who lift my life up. I have no time for those who abuse my help. I prefer quality over quantity: that goes for wine, coffee and people.’ Weeding out the life leeches becomes essential. ‘Probably the best aspect of this age is no longer putting everyone else first to the detriment of myself,’ said Caroline, 55. Bestselling novelist Marian Keyes, 57, summed it up perfectly when I spoke to her for my podcast. ‘I have gained a sense of what I’m entitled to, what I don’t have to take, and I have a certain fearlessness.’ The bottom line: if you want something doing, by all means ask a midlife woman. But brace yourself, because she may well say no! Gyorgy Barna / Alamy Stock Photo Now is the best time to reinvent yourself There’s a reason a growing number of women in their 40s and 50s are starting their own businesses. It’s partly linked to their new-found people-displeasing power, but it’s also because, as Harriet, 52, puts it, ‘After years of childrearing and being tied to the home – for those with children – you get that sense of a release of energy when your kids leave and you want to be out there exploring.’ Joanna, 52, came into her own when she set up her own business – Black White Denim boutique in Cheshire – at 43. ‘I felt more invisible from 22 to 39 when I worked in large corporate organisations. Now I’m in a customer-facing business and have had to make myself known to colleagues in the trade, press and my social-media audience. I took the opportunity to redefine myself and it’s ace!’ Learning to exist outside the nine-to-five was a challenge. But writing The Shift and learning to make the podcast that goes with it gave me an unexpected new lease of life. Everyone wants to get divorced sometimes This was the real shocker. More than three quarters of the women I spoke to wanted to get divorced. Or at least they fantasised about it. Or had already done so. That’s the heterosexual women. Those in a lesbian relationship seemed altogether more content. ‘I’ve been with my husband since I was 17,’ Stephanie, 50, told me. ‘But I have wanted to walk away numerous times in the past few years. My hubby isn’t bad – he’s a good dad and he’s kind – but he’s also a typical beer-swilling bloke who wants to get drunk with his mates every week and I’m bored with it. I wonder, “Is this it?” And I worry we’ll have nothing in common at retirement.’ It’s all about change, argues Kate, 51. ‘A lot of break-ups are happening now,’ she says. ‘My friends are coming up to 50 and they’re dealing with men who haven’t changed. They don’t move. They’re like a train shunted into a siding and that’s where they stay.’ But what makes the difference between fantasising about leaving and actually doing it? Stick or twist, as Kathryn, 46, puts it. ‘So many of my friends have chosen twist,’ she told me. ‘They just don’t want to grow old with their partner. Kids have left and they have nothing to talk about. They are happier and many aren’t looking for someone new.’ That’s true of Harriet, who recently left her husband of 24 years. She says her decision confused her friends. ‘It’s weird the number of people who are certain I’m having an affair. There’s a pervasive view that to be 50 and a woman you must be seeking security. Like, why would you give up a secure relationship to be out there on your own? It’s very old-fashioned and sexist. A counsellor told me that, in midlife, men leave for other women and women leave for themselves.’ ‘The only way I can describe the feeling when I first got divorced was of being stuck in a stuffy room with no air and someone bashed open a window and I was able to finally gulp in the air and breathe. It was wonderful,’ said Jenny, who divorced her husband after 27 years. ‘There were two triggers for me. One was approaching 50 and thinking, “I cannot live the same amount of time feeling like this. I’m gasping to see and experience something new.” But also, my daughter was 14. And I thought – what kind of role model am I? I’m staying bound and frightened of rocking the boat. If I saw my daughter doing that, I’d want to scream, “You are worth so much more!” One evening, something innocuous happened and I heard a discernible voice inside me saying, “Enough. I’m done.” I went to the solicitors the next day.’ Older women don t stop wanting sex Another shocker: women like sex, too. But maybe they want it on different terms. Maybe – let’s be frank – the menopause has made penetrative sex less enjoyable, so we want to find a new approach. Or our libido has been eroded by the anxiety and insomnia. Or maybe – whisper it – it has more than a little to do with our long-term partner. Nahid, 53, went through a nine-month spell where she didn’t want to have sex. ‘I didn’t want to be touched when I felt I was going mad with the worst symptoms of menopause,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to share my body or be intimate. My husband was understanding. If I didn’t know myself, why would I open up to anyone else physically?’ Not everyone feels confident enough to say no to sex. ‘My partner has a high sex drive,’ Jill, 53, told me. ‘We have sex twice a week. Without sex I think our relationship wouldn’t last as he’d probably look elsewhere. But I do enjoy it.’ It’s hardly surprising that newly single women are having more sex – in fact they seem more interested in that than relationships. ‘I have no experience of dating men my own age because I haven’t since my divorce three years ago!’ said Rowena, 54. And who can blame her? ‘The oldest has been 40. Younger men aren’t put off by the age gap. Sex is more fun and fulfilling now because I know my body better. I know what I want and feel confident asking for it.’ ‘There was a period where I felt I’d never have sex again,’ admits Harriet. ‘After two decades of having sex with the same person, the idea of taking your clothes off in front of someone new is daunting. Everyone I know who’s done it has been drunk.’ Although there’s no rule that says you have to get divorced to enjoy sex again: ‘I feel very alive. And – phew – am still married!’ laughed Caroline about the rough patch her marriage went through when her kids left home. ‘We were close to breaking up. But we made some big changes and five years on we are closer than ever. We’ve started having fun (and yes, sex) again. My libido is still high, as is his. The novelty of being on our own again has yet to wear off. Sometimes we nip back to bed in the daytime!’ 50 is better than 30 Here’s the really telling thing: not one woman I spoke to wished she was 30 again (although admittedly a few wouldn’t have said no to their 30-year-old bodies). Because that’s what no one tells you about being 50: it’s not the end, it’s the beginning – of part two, your third act, whatever you call the rest of your life. Contrary to what women are sold – that society values only our youth and beauty – I was thrilled to discover that at 54 I feel more energised, more powerful, more productive, more comfortable in myself than ever before. Stella, 56, sums it up for me: ‘I have a desire to be the age I am,’ she said, ‘and that is from not being dead at 36 from breast cancer. I think it’s amazing that I’m still here.’ That’s the wake-up call, because so many aren’t. We all have friends or family who didn’t see 40, let alone 50, so let’s not forget, being 50 is great. Now bring on 60. Sam’s book The Shift: How I (Lost And) Found Myself After 40 is published by Hodder & Stoughton, price £16.99. To order a copy for £14.44 until 22 November, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. Free UK delivery on orders over £15. The Shift podcast is available on Spotify. 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