I also got divorced in the middle of all that. I found as the stress in my life resolved itself to manageable proportions, my menopause symptoms lessend. But it’s hard to say what came first — the chicken or the egg because I was on quite the emotional roller coaster thanks to all the hormone fluctuations. I know I was forced to pay attention to a lot of stuff that I had otherwise been able to overlook. I still consider menopause a profound gift.

Ironically — neither one of my sisters ever had a hot flash. One had a hysterectomy/oophrectomy in her late 30s and was put on HRT for the next several decades. The other simply never had any.