Hello All. First, I'm 44 y/o. Four weeks ago I didn't know what a hot flash was. I was hitting the treadmill for an hour about 5 nights a week & feeling I could handle most anything. I had sexual desire & I felt relatively confident about my looks and things in general. All within a month, I've developed hot sweats so intense my entire night consists of covers on, covers off, covers on, covers off, night sweats, you get the picture. I feel as if there has been some weird shift. I feel mentally different, less emotionally stable. I can't remember anything, I haven't had a period in 44 days, I feel old for the first time in my life, my libido has vanished and I feel as if a part of my formerly happy and free spirit has just vanished and it's been replaced with this hopelessness I never had before. I've always been described as dynamic and pretty but I feel the opposite. I lay awake this morning at 5:30 a.m., after a sleepless night, thinking...where did I go? What happened to me? I know it's rare to get so many menopausal symptoms nearly simultaneously but everything I've described is really happening. It's as though one day I woke up a different woman. This feels like a crisis I can neither understand or stop. I can't afford a therapist. I've scheduled an appointment with the ob/gyn doc. In the meantime, please someone, tell me I'll get better. I am scared and sad. I miss my former self so much.