I’ve nicknamed my hot flashes “MPS”…short for “mini personal summer”. I use the acronym as a code to alert my family of the imminent misery I’m about to suffer. The announcement means “get the heck away from me, lest be punched in thy throat.” The family has been trained to scoot away, turn any fans that may be in the vicinity towards me, or retrieve an ice pack. They know not to touch me anywhere on my body for the next 5 to 10 minutes. that I will fan myself with any available and appropriate object I can grab, or that I may yelp, cry, or feign passing smooth the hell out. I honestly WISH I could pass out, but alas, I inevitably remain conscious for the entirety of each incident.
Hot flashes come out of nowhere, fam. They. Suck. They do, however, announce themselves in a variety of ways – a fact I’ve actually grown to appreciate. I’ve learned to recognize the subtle warnings and take the few moments, albeit brief ones, to prepare myself for the coming physical roasting.
During they day, they start with a tingle in my upper bosom. It feels like the tiniest of pins and needles pricking me inside my chest. Next, I get a sudden feeling of super alertness. At night, I experience a surreal “wide-awake” feeling, which can jolt me from being almost asleep. Those experiences are actually almost painful. Imagine being jerked away from your journey to unconsciousness only to have to go through a hot flash right after. Rude.
Initially, there’s no heat…just a rapid heartbeat. Then it starts: the ball of heat under my sternum. It slowly spreads up my neck, then fills the core of my body. The whole of my physical being is victimized: the under-titty, back, arms, legs, forehead, you name it. Sweat pours from everywhere like I’ve just run three blocks in 90 plus degree temperatures. During the event, I’m unable accurately discern the temperature in the room, or outside, or wherever I happen to be at the time. It could be 60, 85, or 105 degrees…it all feels the same to me in those moments. Boiling hot.
Another warning is an odd feeling of impending doom. There’s no tingle. Just a creepy feeling of sadness accompanied by a supernatural awareness that “the heat” is coming. I can’t explain how or why I know I’m about to have a flash, I just do. In fact, I feel it right now. Lawd, ain’t this ’bout a blip? Hold please…
Yup. I for real just experienced an hot flash while writing about hot flashes. What. Is. Life???! And before anyone considers arguing that hot flashes are “psychological”, they happen WHILE I’m asleep, too. I wake up drenched in sweat at least once every night. Haven’t had an uninterrupted night of sleep in weeks because of them. In short: I am miserable.
Black Lotus Chronicles 
It’s definitely not psychological; it’s hormonal. I found a way to love them–and I have been getting them since 1992! They still come about once a day for me. Apparently it has to do with cortisol and the adrenals and how the adrenals and the ovaries talk to each other. Anyway, my approach is to let them remind me that I am not in control, that the body has its own ways, that sometimes, no matter how important other things seem to be, sometimes the body deserves our full attention. I make them a subject for meditation: I watch where the heat starts, how far it travels, and how intense it is, comparatively (is this just a 1? a 7? a full-blown 10?), how long it lasts, and how much sweat it produces. I let myself congratulate the body for the really big, long-lasting, drenching ones. “Well done, you! Brava!” “Spectacular!” “Thank you!” I stop everything else, fall silent, and just observe this enormous event happen. I tell myself it is the body doing its own thing, and I choose to respect it. One day these events may stop happening, and it will be one less reminder of the power of letting go of control. One day my life will be over, and I want to leave with respect for all that my body taught me. I know, if you’re in the middle of a heart-pounding, sleep-interrupting cataclysm, you want to scream STOP. And yet it won’t stop. It takes its own time. It teaches us something about our own physical strength and aliveness. We can resist, which will make no difference anyway, or we can yield to it and let it have its way with us, observing and congratulating the ways the body knows what it knows and does what it does.
I just had one about 20 minutes ago, and I didn’t die. But it made me a little giddy that no one in the room noticed. I’m now able to float through them, knowing they won’t last forever. Also, to know that I can endure this aging process like a champ is such sweet victory. When they first started, they depressed me. More and more they are the daily reminder that I am mortal and to stop at every flower to appreciate it, to befriend every sweet soul that the universe sends my way, and most of all, to not waste time on things that will do damage and harm to my spirit. I do not have that kind of time.
Yes! Beautifully said! Love this awareness!
I notice I wrote this a year ago, almost to the day. So much has happened. Other aspects of my life are no longer miserable….so there is very little a physical uncomfortability could do to knock me off this high.
I completely get that! I hadn’t noticed the date. It’s significant, a marker of how far you have come.