When Your Brain Feels Full of Mud: Perimenopause, Overwhelm and the Eye of the Storm
If you are in perimenopause, or anywhere near it, you may know this feeling well.
The moment where a small problem suddenly takes up the whole room.
You know, logically, that the world has not ended. You know there will probably be a solution. You may even know exactly what you would say to a friend if she were in the same situation.
But your own brain?
Mud.
This is not a character flaw. It is not proof that you are becoming useless, dramatic, flaky, or incapable.
It may simply be a sign that your system is overloaded.
Yesterday I failed at humaning (not for the first time and I am very sure it won’t be the last. I wanted to sell my old phone so I did all the things, got a quote, entered my details, printed out the label to send it off, erased the data very carefully and congratulated myself on a job well done.
I then picked up my phone to go out and realised it was off. My first thought was ‘weird’ my immediate second thought was ‘Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!!’ I couldn’t have. Surely not.
I turned it back on with one eye closed (no idea what I thought that was going to do), and sure enough I was greeted with the welcome screen of a brand-new phone. Face palm.
I hate dealing with tech so the ‘What a pain’ thought as I started going through the motions of re syncing to my old, very much undeleted, phone was a little bit less polite than that. It didn’t take me long but I resented the fact that it took up time I wanted to spend doing some work. My fault though. Not judgment here, just healthy acknowledgement, as I secretly kicked myself under the desk.
When it finally came back to life I sighed with relief. Then I realised that in my diligence, I had also erased the eSIM. That meant no phone number. I should say at this point that it was Sunday evening. That meant no customer service. I scrabbled around the Help section of the service provider’s web page trying to figure out how I could fix this.
I felt myself start to panic. Heat came up my neck, my heart started to thunder in my ears and my previously cold hands, started to sweat. I run my business through my phone number, not getting messages is far from ideal and Sunday is prime ‘I need help Becky’ time. I felt helpless. I couldn’t concentrate on the work I wanted to get done because my brain wanted a solution to the problem that was making my body freak out. My brain started generating every solution or pathway to find the solution you can imagine. My brain got was clogged with answers that weren’t answers. I couldn’t think past them. It was like my brain was a sink which was full of mud and the plughole was blocked. There was no room for fresh clean thoughts until the mud had gone.
I needed space. So I did what I do anytime I feel the mud of overwhelm cloud my brain, I went for a walk. It helped. I definitely thought about it more than I wanted to during the walk but those thoughts were, as always, interrupted by throwing the ball for Flynn, or more accurately, finding the ball he had lost 2 minutes ago when he went to chase a squirrel. As my body moved and my eyes saw things that weren’t computers or phones, a gentle flow of new thoughts found their way in as the mud drained away. I realised that I could pay for stuff in other ways for a few days, I had time in the morning to speak to customer service and I still had WhatsApp so most messages would find their way to me, those that didn’t, I couldn't do anything about. Most people would say ‘if you can’t do anything about it, just don’t worry about it’. That is like telling a screaming toddler to ‘calm down’. Giving myself a new perspective in my life, let me give myself a new perspective ‘on’ my life.
This morning a fresh wave of cognitive sink blockage washed over me, but this time I already had a plan. Something I could remind myself of. I asked someone else to connect their music during class and we all had a lovely hoedown during the session, which was not only a fun change of pace but it also let me get to know her a little better. When I got home, I dived straight onto the laptop, determined to ‘get this sorted’ as quickly as possible. Then I reminded myself that my breakfast was a Do Not Disturb time. I asked myself how I would feel if I gave up those few quiet minutes and decided that no one had the right to take that peace from my day, that it would lead the rest of the day into cognitive chaos. So I closed the laptop. Ate quietly. Gave the puppies a quick scratch and then, when I was ready, I made contact with the phone company. Within 20 minutes my phone was back up and running. Easy and I hadn’t given away my peace.
Another Trail Badge added to my collection.
The “stuff goes wrong, can you stay with yourself when there is no immediate solution?” badge.
I call this one: The Eye of the Storm.
What I have learned through this and previous challenges is that finding your way home has nothing to do with having it all figured out, whatever that even means.
It is about realising you are in a storm and finding your way to the eye.
The place where it is calm enough to breathe.
Safe enough to think.
Quiet enough to find yourself again.
So next time the cognitive mud fills your head, try this;
1. Change the scene before you try to solve the problem
Reddit is not your friend right now, neither is Google. Do not keep staring at the same screen, refreshing the same help page, or rummaging through the same thoughts expecting a clean answer to appear. You are literally keeping your brain focused on danger. When we feel under threat, our attention narrows. We stare at the problem as if watching it harder will keep us safe. Useful if the problem is a predator. Less useful if the predator is an eSIM.
Move rooms.
Step outside.
Look at the sky.
Walk to the end of the road.
Give your brain different information. Let your field of vision widen again.
The answer almost never arrives when we try and think harder. It arrives because you have stopped trying to think through quicksand.
2. Move your body, but don’t turn it into a workout
This is not the moment to punish yourself with burpees because you feel stressed, although I have some clients who love burpees (sadists) and if that’s you and they make you feel energised, go nuts. In fact fast paced movements that get your heart rate up can turn your rage into calm.
If you want something less physically demanding, try a walk, let the world be bigger than the problem for a while.
Movement gives the stress somewhere to go.
3. Ask: “What can actually be done right now?”
Not what can I find online to help me out of this impossible situation.
Not what should have been done earlier.
Not what you would have done if you were a flawless administrative goddess with a colour-coded life and no eSIM-based nonsense.
Right now.
In this moment.
What is the next honest, possible step?
For me, it was: check WhatsApp is still working and close the laptop.
That did not fix everything, but it stopped my brain trying to chew through a locked door.
4. Protect one small pocket of peace
This might be breakfast.
A shower.
Ten quiet minutes before you open the laptop.
A walk without checking messages.
A cup of tea that you actually drink while it is hot, instead of abandoning it on a windowsill like a tiny beige ghost.
The temptation, when something goes wrong, is to hand all your peace over to the problem.
But not every problem deserves immediate access to your nervous system.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is:
“I will deal with you, but you do not get to take everything.”
5. Write down the plan so your brain can stop holding it
Overwhelm loves making you carry the same thought around in circles.
So get it out of your head.
Write:
What is the actual problem?
What can I do now?
What has to wait?
Who can help?
What do I need while I wait?
Your brain is not meant to be a filing cabinet, crisis manager, emotional support animal, and smoke alarm all at once.
Give it somewhere to put things down.
6. Use the phrase: “Well… this is a pain.”
This one helps me because it does not dismiss the irritation.
Some things are genuinely annoying.
Some things do cost time, energy, money, or attention.
But inconvenient and catastrophic are not the same thing.
When my phone number disappeared, it was inconvenient. Very inconvenient. Deeply irritating. A tiny admin goblin tap-dancing on my Sunday evening.
But it was not catastrophic.
That distinction matters.
7. Feed the body before you interrogate the mind
This is especially important if you are already tired, underfed, over-caffeinated, overstimulated, or running on fumes.
Sometimes the “mental spiral” is not a deep existential message from the universe.
Sometimes your brain is simply trying to solve a problem with no fuel in the tank.
Eat something.
Drink water.
Get warm.
Then reassess.
Breakfast before battle is not avoidance. It is strategy. It also reminds both your brain and your body that you matter – which is important because the first thing that comes under attack when we hit problems is that good old self esteem.
8. Let “good enough for now” count
When your brain is muddy, you do not need the perfect solution.
You need the next stabilising one.
The one that gets you through the next hour.
The one that gives you enough space to breathe.
The one that stops the problem from eating the whole day.
Good enough for now is not failure.
It is often the bridge back to capacity.
