I’ve been noticing over the last few months that I am periodically, particularly smelly. I know it’s summer and we have had some baking hot days but when the smell radiating from your rear end is anything but pleasant and the sheer force of your tit sweats are out of control it’s near impossible to ignore. Admittedly I did get into a fairly gross lockdown routine last year of a very begrudging one strip wash per week instead of the more frequent showering routine I had been accustomed to, and I’ll hold my hands up and say that at the time I wasn’t reassessing it for anyone.
During the first National lockdown when we were banned from leaving the house, mixing with other humans and having any fun at all, I became overly comfortable with my own natural body odour more than what was appropriate, but I settled into it and actually found it physically challenging to wrestle myself into the shower near enough at all. The only other time I remember being this way was during my second pregnancy with my son which I put down to grubby boy hormones. I’m now rethinking this view and hurtling faster and faster towards the conclusion that I am simply a mucky bitch.
I used to be a solid once a day type showerer back in the pre lockdown days but after I was turned by the promise of social distancing and the knowledge that no one would be getting close enough to smell me I embraced the strip wash and it all went downhill from there. Obviously I have improved slightly since the full swing of social imprisonment and have now managed to revert back to actual full showers and the occasional bath but only because I’m back at work and mixing with the general public and honestly the last thing I want is a customer at the bank holding their nose while I serve them.
Worryingly I’ve also discovered more recently that regardless of how many showers I have, or how ruthlessly clean I am I’m still a trifle whiffy. My name could literally be Whiffy McWhiffison. I sweat profusely out of my face, tits and fanny for absolutely no reason at all which would account for the peculiar smell that apparently only I’m aware of, according to Husband. I basically like to randomly ask him if he can smell me while he’s going about his business, eating his tea, watching Gold Hunters or drifting off to sleep. This involves me well and truly invading his personal space to shove my lady bags and privates far too close to his face to see if he catches a whiff. As you can imagine he loves this. (He actually doesn’t love it and I’m surprised he hasn’t punched me in the face yet.) After doing some research I’m considering that it could be perimenopause as I appear to have some of the other symptoms as well, and at 41 I’m definitely in that age bracket, also couple of my friends had it confirmed that they had entered perimenopause by a clever test done at the doctors while in their late thirties so i’m definitely old enough. Brain fog and fatigue have been my new companions of late which would further support this theory. The mood swings I experienced when I had the mirena coil also seem to have returned with a vengeance which isn’t ideal especially not for my marriage. Just to give you an idea of what I used to go through on a monthly cycle with the coil and again more recently with possible perimenopause symptoms …
Week 1 – Crying. At everything and anything including but not limited to puppies, old people, my children because they are just so beautiful, world news, and when anyone smiles at me or shows me a slither of kindness.
Week 2- Anger. The all consuming kind where there’s a chance my actual head might blow off. During this week I am a total psycho who is too easily irritated by nearly everything, especially Husband, who I constantly want to stab to death over the slightest thing.
Week 3- Sex Mad. Feeling frisky 24/7. Desperately trying not to accost strangers who pass me in the street in favour of trying to convince Husband that I no longer want to kill him in an effort to make him shag me, which as you can imagine he is not that keen on, having spent the previous week being the target of my wrath. Not Ideal.
Week 4- Fatigue, crippling period pain and trying to grasp what has been happening the previous 3 weeks and wondering if I have a personality disorder.
Considering all of this I think it’s lucky and absolutely necessary that I have once again become acquainted with my shower, at least on weekdays when I have to share the same airspace as other people outside of my own long suffering family. The other stuff I’m taking one day at a time, as and when it arises. I know there are groups I can join and stuff I can read and luckily there seems to be lots of support around this topic including a great bunch of women on Instagram who are going through much of the same and for this I am grateful, mostly because it’s through social media which means no one can smell me.
Life by Eliza 