Molly Parker

"I Went Through Menopause at 19"
As told to Stacey Colino
Cosmopolitan, January 2001

As a college freshman, Molly Parker was struck with mysterious hot flashes and mood swings. Here, she describes what its like when your body ages before its time.

When I was 18 years old, I felt that my life was off to a nMolly Parker-Myersew start. It was the fall of 1990, and I was a freshman at Mount Holyoke College, in Massachusetts. It was my first time away from my home in Clinton, New York, and I was excited about making new friends and getting involved in campus activities, especially theater. I wanted to explore everything that college had to offer. But in my third month of school, I began feeling seriously out of sorts. My period started showing up late and then not at all. I had bad mood swings and would find myself on the verge of tears for no reason. Occasionally, I would get so depressed that I would sleep all day long.

At first, I thought I was having a reaction to stress. My parents were splitting up at the time, and I was adjusting to a new environment. When spring semester rolled around, I went to the college health clinic where the doctor told me that my period would probably come back when things settled down. But it didn't. Six months later, I went to another doctor and was given a different diagnosis. What I heard would change my life forever.

A Strange Change

Before my diagnosis, I had spent almost a year in the dark about my condition. Strange things had been happening to my body that I couldn't understand. I would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and feeling anxious. During the day, I'd get a restless feeling in my gut, which would seem to turn into an intense heat. I'd start sweating profusely and it felt like my whole body was going to explode. I'd have to take off my coat and fan myself, even in the middle of winter.

But things weren't just out of whack physically--my mind was affected as well. I started having trouble concentrating, and I'd often find myself daydreaming when I was supposed to be studying. I was out of control emotionally and cried a lot, often spontaneously. The littlest things could set me off. For example, one morning, the dining hall was supposed to serve chocolate-chip pancakes at breakfast, but instead they only served plain ones, which upset me greatly. Once I started crying, I had a hard time stopping. I actually began thinking that I might be mentally ill.

Unable to explain to anyone what was happening, I began withdrawing from the world. Neither my friends nor my parents had any idea what was going on with me. Amazingly, I was able to get through the year academically. That summer, while working as a camp counselor in New York, I constantly felt restless and was crying nearly every day. It had been months since I'd had my period, so I knew something was really wrong. I went to see my gynecologist, who recommended that I go to an endocrinologist (a hormone specialist).

In October of 1991, I finally went to see the endocrinologist. He ran a slew of tests, and a few weeks later, I got a letter with my blood-test results, saying that he thought I might be menopausal. A second round of tests confirmed his suspicions. My ovaries, he explained, had stopped working, and as a result, my estrogen level had plummeted, causing the hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings-all the weird symptoms I had been experiencing. But he wasn't exactly sure why. He said that a virus may have killed all of my eggs or my body may have mistakenly produced antibodies that were attacking my ovaries. I later learned that the exact term for my problem is premature ovarian failure (POF) and an estimated one percent of women under 40 are afflicted by it.

I felt really, really old before my time. How could I be going through menopause before my mother did? The endocrinologist put me on the Pill to replace some of my dwindling hormones, but that didn't really ease my symptoms. For a long time, I was in denial. Part of me kept thinking that the diagnosis was wrong or that doctors would be able to give me some magic treatment to make my body function correctly again. So I didn't take the Pill regularly and refused to think about any of the long-term consequences of POF-like accelerated bone loss, being on medication for the rest of my life, and the fact that I could never have children.

Dealing with the Disorder

By the time the next year rolled around, I was struggling with my body image. My weight had been fluctuating wildly, and I felt old and freakish. Unfortunately, I developed an eating disorder. I would starve myself and then binge and sometimes purge. Eating disorders can be a bizarre way of trying to regain a certain amount of control over one's life. In the previous year, I felt like I had lost control over everything--it was an intense and confusing time, to say the least.

After that semester, I left college partly because of my health problems but also because my parents couldn't afford tuition after their separation. I rarely went to the doctor because I was broke and didn't have any health insurance. What made matters worse is that I knew no one who could empathize, which made me feel very isolated.

After leaving school, I went to San Francisco for a year. Finally, I stopped having so many hot flashes, which was a relief. Then I moved to Brooklyn and found a job teaching preschool, which I loved. Over the next several years, things in my life began to settle down. I started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist who put me on hormone replacement therapy, which regulated my symptoms better than the Pill. I loved being around kids every day. But that's when it really hit me that I would never be able to have children, at least not biologically, and that was heartbreaking. It was also hard hearing my friends talk about birth control, knowing I would never need it. Other women my age were doing everything they could to avoid getting pregnant, and it highlighted what I had lost.

If my female friends couldn't relate to what I was going through, then the guys I dated understood even less. When I explained my situation, some just thought it meant that they didn't have to worry about birth control. They only thought about it in terms of themselves.

Making Peace Wlth My Body

Then, in October 1997, I met an awesome guy named Lars. He was in a theater program with my sister, and he came to a birthday party that she threw for me. I was crazy about him from day one, and on our second date, I told him about my condition. I didn't want to fall in love and then have him leave when he found out that I couldn't have kids.

His response blew me away. He told me that it didn't affect how he felt about me-it was more important to him to be with me and develop a relationship. So we started dating, and I was happier than I had been in a long time. Fortunately, my sex drive hasn't been affected at all by my POF. I have enjoyed a healthy sex life, although not everyone with my condition is so lucky.

Last February, Lars and I got engaged. In the fall, I was able to get a scholarship to go back to Mount Holyoke. Lars eventually joined me. We plan to be married the summer after I graduate. We both love and want kids, so we've decided we will try to adopt.

I am still dealing with the physical emotional side effects of POF. But I try to stay focused on the positives in my life. At 28, 1 realize that I can do whatever I want to--be a mother, lead a healthy life and accomplish the things that I have ways dreamed about--in spite of what I've been through.