Older women and how they remember the menopause

[TroubledRabbit]

Just been chatting to my lovely, trained as a nurse, mil whose daughter is struggling with cancer treatment. Apparently she's struggling to sleep and I said, 'it must be hard with separating side effects from the menopause'

Quick as a flash, MIL declared she, herself, had no symptoms and sailed through so it was unlikely to be that.

I've been with DH a long time, Mil was 55 when I met her and a bit broken, not much fun, understandably weighed down by the previous ten years of high need elderly parents, teens and working.

DH remembers her debilitating migraines. her lack of humour in those days.
Since retirement she's fitter, more relaxed and good company.

Any thoughts?
Is this just simply as we age we don't want to think of our chubby toddlers as middle aged, starting to sag adults?
Has mil got such a firm grasp of the Grip that carried her through that tough decade that she cant, even now, put it down?
My own menopause, not discussed with mil, has been such a nightmare that I'm intrigued that the quick answer was 'sailed through'.

My DM in her mid 40s had an ectopic pregnancy but also at the same time she had ovaries or something else removed and there were no longer periods for her. Before this she did get more irritable (peri menopause). She didn’t get PMT when she was younger apart from getting jittery after she drank lots of strong coffee.

I’ve had bad PMT all my life but was also diagnosed with an under active thyroid in my late 30s and thyroid is to do with hormones. I haven’t sailed through the menopause but certainly don’t get PMT rage or peri menopausal rage.

I’ve had bad PMT all my life but was also diagnosed with an under active thyroid in my late 30s and thyroid is to do with hormones.

Yes, and the thyroid gives rise to another mainly female affliction - hypothyroidism, also frequently under-diagnosed with symptoms dismissed ('oh it's your age', 'you must be depressed' and so on). I often wonder if it was a male-dominated illness whether treatment would be so shoddy.

I too ended up with hypothyroidism and have the afflictions that brings, so even though I escaped menopause symptoms, I haven't escaped chronic illness.

What a lot of people forget is that way back when our mothers and grandmothers were young there was no such thing as PND. My sister's friend had it badly and when I spoke to my mother about it she said in her day you 'just got on with it' and I think to a large extent that is how they dealt with menopause.
It's not that they sailed through it as much as they just had to get on with it since there was no recognition of it as a 'thing' and therefore this is probably why women aged so quickly.
I remember as a child my grandmother was positively ancient but the reality was she was only in her sixties.
Other factors such as hair dye and wearing make-up (and lets face it anything other than a perm was for film stars) these things were unheard of so women looked and probably felt old before their time.

Agree with this.

I was looking at photos of my Gran the other day from when I was about 10 and I remember her as very old, typical old woman type look etc and when I worked it out she wasn’t much older than I am now! 😳

My mum suffered a complete mental breakdown when I was a baby in the early 80s and was sectioned and I’m sure that nowadays that would have been dealt with as pnd and / or post natal psychosis but she was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It took many, many years of her fighting against it to convince the psychologists etc that she didn’t need to be on the strong anti psychotic drugs permanently. She stopped taking them when I was 9 and had no relapse until she died aged 71 (didn’t take them again in all that time).

If it wasn’t the fact that I’m 74 and not 67 tells me that I didn’t write your post.
I was the same age: 49, I sailed through it, no hot flushes and apart from some flooding for a few months, it all stopped.
And so did the monthly migraines, the crippling cramps

My gp put me onto HRT, it was awful, instead energising me and supposedly making me feel 20 years younger that everyone said would happen with HRT the migraines came back, the ‘periods’ came back with a vengeance.
I stopped taking HRT after a year and have been fine ever since.

All it says to me is everyone's experience of life is unique and should be respected as such. I am sure we all have crosses to bear - I know I do !

All it says to me is everyone's experience of life is unique and should be respected as such.

You are right. I feel that there is some element of disbelief in some posts. I work with two women who really are struggling with the menopause at the moment so I know perfectly well that not all women are as lucky as I was. And I hope my previous posts didn't come across as smug. If they did I apologise.

I just wanted to add some balance.

I also want to say that things do get much better afterwards. Losing the regular migraines was a win for me.

My mum said the other day that one day her periods just stopped and that was that. She said "People make such a fuss these days." I have to say I don't remember her suffering particularly with the menopause. I just remember her mentioning brain fog once.

People make a fuss these days because we all matter. I do believe there was a time when people did not matter, along the lines of children do not feel pain or cold or mind being hungry.......
I can remember a time when I was at primary school seeing families of thirteen and more whose only meal that day was the school dinner and school dinners were grim. Those children would go up for seconds and thirds if they could.
Child cruelty was the norm for some.
Children should be seen and not heard. If I had a penny for every time I heard that I would be able to pee in every toilet in Leeds

One of my neighbours had a breakdown from PND and was hospitalised. We knew what it was in 1971.
And just for context for a pp we didn't have perms and look 100 years old. We were exchanging our minis for maxis and working towards Laura Ashley floral. 😂
Seriously where do people get this stuff from? My granny and her sisters had perms, but that was in the 20s and 30s.

Perms were a big thing in the 80s. I remember my Mum getting me to perm her hair for her in our kitchen when I was about 12. It smelt like rotten eggs!

Interesting Afterfire. My mother had abandoned perms by the sixties - she was born in 1910. I didn't know anyone of my generation who had one. We mostly had geometric cuts in the sixties and longer hair in the seventies when it all got a bit hippyish.
Not to derail the topic any further - I think the point is that it is irrelevant how much you did or didn't know about the menopause in years gone by. If there were no treatments available you had no choice.

My experience of menopause was uneventful compared to others, however my DH says I’m not as quick witted as used to be so maybe I didn’t get through it unscathed. I have friends who went through horrendous times, one was diagnosed with an under active thyroid, another suffers terrible hot flushes.

My mother in law was 52 when I met her. She was a lovely woman and I held deep affection for her.she was best MIL. Never interfered.
But she never spoke above a whisper, as she grew older she began to suffer from paranoia, she thought the neighbours were listening in. She’d hide things, stuff things down radiators. Hide money, We could hear her talking to herself in the kitchen, a conversation with herself, her voice was a normal volume during these conversations.
I asked dh if she’d always been like this, he said she was fine until three or four years previously, thinking about it, it would have been around the time hormonal changes kick in.

I think the point is that it is irrelevant how much you did or didn't know about the menopause in years gone by. If there were no treatments available you had no choice.

This reminds me of my visit to the doctor when I was a teen in the late 1960s - terrible period pains, vomiting, diarrhea - I was prescribed milk of magnesia and told to use a hot water bottle on my tum.

I've asked my mum (70's) about this and she also claims she didn't even notice it. I, however, remember from my teens frequent fury's of the 'riiiight that's IT!!!!' kind and throwing items and shouting at my dad in the bedroom that she wasn't at all interested in THAT anymore. She was pretty cool before that and right as rain again in a few years. I honestly just thought our untidy bedrooms and not clearing the dinner table had sent her to the edge but looking back I am almost one-hunderd and a half percent certain it was 'the change'. She swears she never had it, just 'sailed through' 😆Yeah mum.

I'm not a big fan of looking back at significant historical figures and diagnosing them in 2022 with mental health traits or physical ailments to explain and attribute decisions.

But you are a fan of insisting that your MIL didn’t sail thru menop, based on your own opinion of her history, and that her opinion of that history can’t be true?

That’s what I think OP is saying.
OP is right & her MIL is wrong.
Because OP has decided to retrospectively diagnose the MIL. <shrug>

I flipping can't WAIT until people come out with ridiculous crap opinions about my generation when I'm 70. I will get to laugh at these misguided people.

No @lljkk I'm not quick or insisting on judging my mil. The thread title is 'Older Women and how they remember the menopause'

I kicked it off, on an anonymous forum, with some details changed to protect the innocent and a bit of context because I didn't want to drip feed.

Terminology changes - women in their 40s don't talk about the 'change' they go straight to menopause.

Attitudes to mental health have changed as have euphemisms like 'taking the Waters', 'nerves'.

No more convalescent homes. Straight after child birth, hysterectomy you are ushered out the hospital.
No week by the sea with fresh air, good food and female compianship. (Aunt in the 1950s had a week in Liphook after 'a little op' on the NHS )

Look at all the huge mental health hospitals now bulldozed, converted to schools or luxury flats(Holloway sanatorium). The National Trust was partially set up to prevent every peak being blighted by a lunatic asylum (Clough)

What were all be those patients suffering from. My mum loves a bit of gossip was telling me in my teens how my friends mum was carted off to the loony bin when a new mum with 'nerves'. PND was definitely a thing.
Families & community's hid or shamed people going through tough times. All the reach out and talk encouragement is a rebellion from those times.

Don't look for judgement, tell the stories of older women, reflect on your experience.

I'm 63 last period was when I was 54. I think I started noticing what I now know were peri menopause symptoms when I was 47 - knees, hips, shoulder, various joints would be very painful for a week or so each month. Periods became more painful and in my 50's much closer together and irregular. No hot flushes but night sweats lasted until 18 months ago! No brain fog or sleep issues that I recall. I didn't take HRT. I was very pleased when my periods stopped for good.

I like the phrase the change. It's warm to me. Positive thinking because change can be brilliant. We should bring that back.

My mother mentioned once that she didn't want HRT. That was only convo we had about menopause. She'd be 82 now. She had a lover who was 35 when she was 52, come to think of it. Her generation invented Woman's Lib, after all. Her lover was a childhood friend of my brothers. He insisted that he had always fancied her, since he was 8. She left him the nicest of her artworks when she died (I'm only a little jealous). He's a good laugh on my Facebook.

I'm not British-born so talk of convalescent homes or "the nerves" doesn't fit. Think my mom & grandmothers were too busy being teenage mums of twins with absent/wandering husbands to take time to battle with PND.

i honestly just thought our untidy bedrooms and not clearing the dinner table had sent her to the edge but looking back I am almost one-hunderd and a half percent certain it was 'the change'. She swears she never had it, just 'sailed through' 😆Yeah mum.

ticktickticktickBOOM that is so bloody patronising. Your poor mum, maybe she was just sick and tired of living with lazy teenagers who couldn't be arsed to clear up after themselves and left eveything for her to do? Not clearing the dinner table each night would send me over the edge and would have nothing to do with the menopause. I am allowed to be fucked off, all of my own making, without hormones dicating to me. Maybe your mum was too?

I'm 55, I also had no real symptoms, just periods trailing off over two years. They just quietly went away by the time I was 53. It happens.

I am not, and would never, patronise my mother. She is very well loved, respected and everyone pulled their weight in our house but small things got blown out of all proportion when she was in her mid/late 40's. We all worked from the age of 14 so there was no way she was annoyed due to our laziness. She broke a mirror once cause my brother hadn't put the phone back on the hook properly and it started beeping. That in my mind is irrational rage. She was 48.

Just thinking my grandmother had 3 or possibly 4 very emotionally painful events happen in her life. when she was age 21, 22, 44 and 55. I dunno what she thought of menopause but compared to, eg., her husband dying, menopause probably didn't rate much.

Don't look for judgement, tell the stories of older women, reflect on your experience.

Tell the stories of older women for them you mean, disbelieving their own lived and stated experience, and mocking them for what you see as their denial.

There are plenty of older women on this thread, who are not being listened to here either.

To a poster who pulled me for saying women got perms and didn't wear makeup - this was in the late fifties early sixties and my mum had false teeth and had her hair permed. She looked like my granny who was still alive. They almost looked like sisters.
And to those who talk about HRT. Only women who had symptoms of menopause were offered this. If you 'sailed' through it then why would it have been offered. Its all a bit of a grey area.

I remember I worked with an older woman who had a daughter my age. She was a quiet sort of a person but changed into a horrible gossiping dissatisfied bitch and a lot of her venom was directed at me. We worked together on piece work and it was hard. She resented everything about me, about my ability to work faster and reported me for every little thing because she thought I was earning more than her.
It was investigated and it turned out I actually earned less but she was still pissed at me.
Looking back I think she was menopausal (around 50) as her behaviour at that time was out of character
Women matter. We are the backbone of society I truly believe this, and menopause should be recognised and not ridiculed.

One more thing to add to the woes of the menopause - if you say it was okay, people won't believe you.

Mine was okay, by the way. It really was but don't give a shit if you don't believe me.

That's a good thing about the menopause. You don't give a shit about what people think about you any more especially when they are talking rubbish.