To think perimenopause can make you feel all over the place mentally

@Lifeswhatyoumakeit73 i have found your post reassuring. I could have written it myself.

I have never felt so anxious, tired and unmotivated.
My sleep is shocking and for the first time in my life I have developed psoriasis.

I cant take HRT and just feel so overwhelmed with work , the house, my 2 teenagers and my 2 parents who are in poor health.

for you.

Why are you anxious about it?

Never have I wanted a slogan T so much.

I can relate to all these experiences on here. I am about to turn 49 and am peri. I feel I am on the verge of loosing my mind. This post might be a rambling one but this will be good for me to get it if my chest. Last week I had to attend 2 meetings at work. I sat on my bed before hand literally shaking and crying. Head in hands in total despair. I attended the meetings and made a complete idiot of myself. I stumbled my way through it it was bloody harrowing. I want to run away as far as I can. I actually fantasised the other day about visiting the monastery on Tenby island and staying until this shit is over. I am paranoid all the bloody time. I think that people hate me and think I'm crap at my job. I have lost all confidence in everything I do and can't make a decision to save my life. I nearly lost my shit food shopping today as dh called me asking me to buy fresh dill. I feel like every person or object in my life has a negative voice which is screaming at me 24/7 telling me I am the worst person in the world. I have started Hrt. I'm just over 1 week in. I am terrified that I will never be me again. I'm even getting scared to drive. This just is t me. I am so so sorry for anyone else goi g through the same.

A poster on a similar thread a while ago said the menopause made her '5% Namaste and 95% Fuck Off' and I couldn't agree more.

Can relate to so much of what everyone is saying. Quite frankly, I would welcome some form of internment into an institution at this point. Perhaps family could visit on a Sunday afternoon for an hour or so? Hopefully a bossy matron type character will ensure they leave at the right time.

I'm on HRT and although it has helped with sleep and reduced the nightly panic attacks, it is no cure all. The massive MEH feeling pervades everything.

I'm also convinced there is a little shit who attaches a tube to me at night and is ever so slowly blowing my stomach and thighs up. The goal seems to be for me to look like a rectangle with no waist. I suspect this will be achieved within another year or so. At that point I will go to Evans for a new wardrobe.

I had no idea it would be this bad. I put on a good front and try to act like a normal human for the sake of all around me but it's a real struggle.

Big hugs to everyone suffering.

I'm 41 and cry at everything. Which is very unlike me. I hate it. But don't have any other symptoms. So not sure it's worth bothering the GP about.

I'm with you OP, my general feeling about everything is that I've lost any oomph for anything.

@GCalltheway

And call me menopausal but why should I take more drugs to deliver more sex that my body tells me I no longer need? For the benefit of men? And to work every bloody hour? Again to serve what purpose?

But most women aren't taking HRT to "deliver more sex", they're taking it to ease physical and mental symptoms of the menopause, some fairly debilitating.

You absolutely don't have to take HRT if you don't want to but it's quite a big jump from this to insisting other women are only doing it to artificially prolong their sex and working lives.

I have never felt so much anger as I did with peri menopause, I wanted to kill everyone. It was such an overwhelming feeling and everyone drove me mad.

I also suddenly piled on weight for no reason and that was deeply upsetting. I started HRT and Testosterone and progesterone in March and I am slowly starting to get back to normality. It’s been a live saver as I was just an awful person to live with

I don’t take HRT to have sex or be ‘sexy’ for the male gaze, I take HRT because oestrogen deficiency affects my health significantly and I’d rather feel well enough to do the exercise I need to go to keep my bones & joints healthy.

women should do whatever works best for them. Some women sail through menopause and need no help at all, some don’t. It’s not a value judgment.

i am still pissed off women are expected to take contraceptives for decades - what responsibility have men taken for their 50% contribution to pregnancy? And call me menopausal but why should I take more drugs to deliver more sex that my body tells me I no longer need? For the benefit of men? And to work every bloody hour? Again to serve what purpose?

I am fucking sick and tired of putting my needs and my body at the back of the queue to make things easier for everyone else!!!!

No. I will not. I will do now what I god damn please, and to hell with it, my duty is absolutely done.

@GCalltheway

You want to work 90 hours - you can do it, if it makes you feel good. If I want to work 19 or none I can. You don’t need to convince me it’s the making of you, your opinion is the only one that matters.

I don't work to feel good. I work because I have to work. I'm a lone parent and the sole breadwinner for my family and my child would live in poverty if I didn't so my opinion or yours on my work are an irrelevance, I have no choice in the matter. However, if I have to work I want to make damn sure my work is as remunerative, pleasant and interesting as it possibly can be, thanks very much.

So when people (who I assume don't have an entire family dependent on their wage) tip up here and say things like "living to work sounds like avoidance", and suggest women HRT to make their lives run as smoothly as possible are being "pumped full of hormones" I will call it out as the nonsense I think it is.

I've been prescribed HRT but am afraid to start. I'm on various supplements which do seem to help with the symptoms. I've been taking iron tablets and my last 2 periods have been considerably less heavy.

But yesterday, as I wandered around my local town, I felt bone-achingly lonely and could have wept. I cannot be faffed with socialising but also long for it. At times i feel so utterly worthless and at any one time am beating myself up mentally for being too fat, too poor, being too anxious to drive, having few friends, not being on top of the housework, being boring, being weird. I will ask myself, "what is the actual point of you?"

Oh and moments of murderous rage.

So, yeah, mentally things kind of suck.

Oh god I am there with all of you. Feel like shit, bloated, grim, angry.

I've found evening primrose oil helps.

Also worth reading 'the Happy Menopause' for diet advice - eat lots of protein, veg, and drink lots of water.

Your user name is interesting given your post.

The great thing is you can do whatever the hell you like. That’s the whole point! You want to work 90 hours - you can do it, if it makes you feel good. If I want to work 19 or none I can. You don’t need to convince me it’s the making of you, your opinion is the only one that matters.

👏👏👏👏👏

You have all the experience and skills. Get the full 3 HRTs and do it 🥰

@GCalltheway

It is a pity you can’t see the value of your life or self esteem beyond work. Living to work sounds like avoidance.

Huh?

You seem to have plucked this out of thin air to fit your own story. Who said anything about not seeing the value of life or self esteem beyond work?

I really dislike this narrative you see on here (and elsewhere) of people having a pop at posters who enjoy their work. The "no one ever on their deathbed wished they had worked more" and all this bollocks. It's highly simplistic and has an unpleasantly judgemental ring to it.

Being good at and enjoying your job and having a fulfilling life outside of work are not mutually exclusive. Many people have jobs they love and also make time for a rich and varied family and social life, hobbies and other interests. In fact I would argue people with the energy, direction and self discipline to enjoy their jobs are more likely to use their leisure time well.

Its insulting to people who enjoy their jobs to paint them as some dull corporate automatons just because they have no desire to ease off. It's also unrealistic. We also don't all have the option of going part time to spend our lives gardening etc: many of us have to work full time to support families and there is nothing wrong with seeking to get the best out of our working lives. Please credit us with more intelligence than this.

That’s great it worked so well for you. Especially given how desperate you were feeling. I am not judging you.

I am genuinely worried for many women may need to scale back/make lifestyle changes rather than take HRT or AD. I was staggered at the lack of publicity the last Oxford study received regarding hormones and contraceptions, and quite frankly it feels like women are being expected to take more and more on later in life.

It seems to me that many women are expected to continue living unbearable lives for multiple reasons and the answer seems to be to shut them up with HRT and antidepressants ratter than addressing the root issues. That is my view. For some hormones might be life savers but for others it runs far deeper than that.

Right...so the words loads to you means 'all, and to the complete exclusion of anything else'.

Got it.

I feel you OP.

Has anyone had luck getting help if much younger? I'm 39 now, I have every single peri symptom, for the past four or five years now I've been going through it. Past three years I've had such heavy bleeding almost every single day. I basically stop for 2/3 days and start bleeding for a week or two again and then get a break of a day or two. And each day is horrific. I ventured out into town with a ultra tampon, knickers and fleece nighttime pad and period proof knickers to only bleed through the lot and literally leave a puddle on the seat of my car. This is everyday life now, I hate my life so much, I am sick of bleeding, sick of fainting, sick of night sweats and brain fog and forgetting things. Fed up of mood swings and sheer exhaustion. I literally hurt to even type today things are so bad. What a ridiculous misogynistic health system we live with. It's so unfair.

Literally no help anywhere, told to wait for an ablation, been waiting three years now, and no help for anything in between. I can't go on like this.

I am so sorry so many others are going though this. OP I hope the nurse clinic is able to offer something to try and hopefully get some relief from.

I feel the same. Have 2 DC with 9 year age gap and they both stress me out in different ways. Gave up a long term job this year and started a new job. Thought it was the job but I hate the new one too. My back hurts, I feel tired, relatively grumpy and would love to live simply. Eating basic home cooked food, reading, crochet, decorating. But I can't as I have to be a taxi for DC - driving them to various clubs, friends, play dates etc.

‘Loads of my self esteem comes from
it rightly or wrongly’

Right there.
I am annoyed as I have a fantastically responsible and rewarding job, but I also want space, to relax more and not be worked to the bone. At this stage I want some fun, some freedom and mostly some peace and quiet. For me, the answer isn’t more work, it’s less, but for you maybe it’s the opposite. I am just at the end of the menopause. We are all in different places. I also resent the idea we must be pumped full of drugs to function like 25 year olds! I want to be my age, I embrace the changes and I don’t want others expectations places on me, no thanks. I am running my own race these days!