Let's name it out loud: you're waking at 3 a.m. drenched, snapping at people you love, forgetting words mid-sentence, and quietly wondering if something is seriously wrong with you. It isn't. You are not failing, and you are not too young. You are outmatched by a hormone shift nobody warned you about.

Perimenopause is the 4-to-10-year stretch before your final period — often starting in your early 40s. Estrogen and progesterone don't glide down gently; they lurch and spike like a bad Wi-Fi signal. That chaos is why your symptoms feel random and unpredictable. It's biology, not weakness.