For all you can say about Lena Dunham, and there’s a lot, she’s doing good work with the Lenny newsletter, perhaps by passing it off to other people. In this week’s edition Gillian Anderson, 48, talks to her best friend, a journalist named Jennifer Nadel, about menopause and perimenopause. Anderson and Nadal have a new book out today called We: A Manifesto For Women Everywhere. Just reading this brief interview makes me want to buy it. The two friends talk candidly about medical and mental health challenges as they went through menopause and I have to say this is one of the few times in the many years I’ve been writing about celebrities that I’ve heard The Change discussed so candidly.

The first time she remembers experiencing perimenopause
Anderson: Two years ago it was eight in the morning and I remember throwing my coat down on the floor in front of at least two of my children, and saying out loud, “This day sucks!” The day hadn’t even started, but there was something about my inability to handle anything that morning that alerted me to the fact that something was up. And as the day went on, I kept having to excuse myself from meetings and go into the bathroom to cry.

It was at the point that I felt like my life was falling apart around me that I started to ask what could be going on internally, and friends suggested it might be hormonal. I went to a menopause specialist who informed me that my levels of estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone were incredibly low.

Can you explain what perimenopause is?
Anderson: Perimenopause, as I understand it, is a period of time that can last anywhere from a few years to even a decade before one’s period actually stops, before one actually goes into menopause proper. What happens is, over time our levels of estrogen start to deplete, and as a result we develop symptoms like anxiety, depression, mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats, fatigue, and find it harder and harder to cope with the normal routines of our lives.

I was used to being able to balance a lot of things, and all of a sudden I felt like I could handle nothing. I felt completely overwhelmed. When I talked to the menopause specialist, she said that she often gets phone calls from female CEOs screaming down the phone, “I need help now! I am losing my mind!”

And that’s completely right. I felt like somebody else had taken over my brain.

Nadal: It’s kind of weird. I talk to older women who have been through it, and they can barely remember the details. It’s a bit like childbirth. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, I did that.” They can’t remember or give you the details, and yet when you’re in it, every single moment of it is so tricky. It’s not just the physical symptoms, the loss of memory, the loss of emotional perspective, or that feeling of having lost your emotional shock absorbers; it’s also a feeling of loss.

[From Lenny]

Right now I’m going through perimenopause and feel very sad, beyond anything I can remember feeling before, and unable to concentrate, just like Anderson describes. I’m alternately irritated and my periods are painful. I could relate to most of what Chrissy Teigen just wrote about postpartum depression (although of course that’s not the cause for me). So when Gillian Anderson talks about feeling emotionally raw in perimenopause and how hard that is to deal with it helps. I have an appointment with my doctor today and will ask her about options. Both my mom and my aunt went through this at my age but no one talked about it or warned me, I think they thought I might be spared. Hopefully the comparison to childbirth is apt because that’s something that seems so remote when you’re not dealing with it. Like “holy sh-t, I can’t believe I got through that” but you push it out of your mind. I’m looking forward to that phase the most.

Photos credit: WENN and Fame