the night hag in my wardrobe essay

I wrote this essay because I’m tired of women being told to push through when our brains are quietly burning down.

For years, insomnia stalked me. Then sleep paralysis arrived—dark rooms, crushing weight, shadow figures watching from the corners. When perimenopause hit, those episodes escalated into something far more dangerous: the creeping return of psychosis I’d spent a lifetime outrunning.

This isn’t gothic metaphor. It’s what happens when hormones, trauma, and inherited mental illness collide—and no one warns you it can.

This essay is about:
– sleep paralysis and night terrors
– perimenopause and estrogen loss
– how close I came to losing reality
– and how HRT quite literally gave me my life back

If we don’t talk honestly about menopause and mental health, women keep suffering in silence—and sometimes, they don’t come back.

Read it on Substack. Share it if it resonates. And if you recognise yourself in it, please know: you’re not weak, you’re not broken, and you’re not imagining it.

https://amrasarmchairanecdotes.substack.com/p/the-night-hag-in-my-wardrobe-when