Hashimoto’s, Perimenopause, and the Perfect Storm That Nearly Broke Me

by Yvonne Levay Markgraf

Severe insomnia. Night sweats. Hemiplegic migraines. Weight gain. Sudden rage before or after the migraines. That was what finally pushed me to seek help.

I kept showing up at doctors’ offices, pleading for answers. No one connected the dots.

Eventually, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. I was prescribed small doses of compounded natural thyroid from an expensive pharmacy. It helped. For a while. My energy was up and my weight was down. I felt like my old self. But it was no match for the hormonal rollercoaster ride I had simultaneously and unknowingly strapped in for.

What I needed was a full picture. What I got instead was a years-long experiment in symptom management.

Psychiatrists cycled me through meds. One after another. “You have anxiety,” You are depressed,” they said to my face, while my chart said "Bipolar". What no one ever said was, this could be both autoimmune and hormonal. Let’s treat both.

Instead, I was put on benzos. First Diazepam, then Alprazolam. Low doses, but long-term. Nearly eight years. I became dependent on them just to sleep. No one warned me what they could do to my brain, my body, or my memory. And no one offered hormone replacement until after menopause, when the damage was already done.

Looking back, I know the estrogen loss was already impacting my word recall, my memory, and my nervous system. The benzos compounded it. They dulled everything, including my instincts. I believe they made me easier prey.

While I was medicated, I married someone who used my symptoms against me. A covert narcissist who thrived on creating chaos, then sat back while I scrambled to fix it. The drama wasn’t accidental. It was his playground. And I was the perfect mark: hardworking, reactive, desperate to please, anxiety riddled from lack of sleep, and emotionally numbed by the medications I thought were helping me survive.

Once I finally got off the meds and stopped drinking alcohol weekly, I began to see it. That was when the physical abuse began. When I stopped being easy to control.

Another irony? I was denied long-term health insurance because of those prescriptions. Despite the low dosages, my use of benzos and other psychoactive meds I tried, that didn't work to cure any of my symptoms, disqualified me. Meanwhile, my then husband, who was regularly abusing legal marijuana and alcohol and appeared high functioning only because of what I eventually discovered was his sneaky use of illegal uppers, qualified just fine. He kept his dysfunction outside the system while I did everything by the book.

I didn’t realize I was just surviving with a covert narcissist. I didn’t know I was in the thick of perimenopause and could ask for HRT. And I didn’t know the two would collide in a way that would nearly destroy me.

But I know now. And I’m rebuilding, one truth at a time. It’s not easy. It’s actually embarrassing for me to write this, even now. But I’m sharing it because I don’t want a single woman to go through what I did: misdiagnosed, overmedicated, and emotionally isolated, while a body that should be strong and resilient is left to deteriorate under a system that refuses to take her seriously.

I’m also done apologizing for the messy, complicated way I survived. It wasn’t graceful. It was real. It was painful. And I made it to this point, and I’m not ashamed of the fight it took to get here.

Who has dismissed, mistreated, or misdiagnosed you when you reached mid-life?
Share your story in the comments. Your voice could be the one that motivates someone else to get the answers they need.