Losing your shit in your 40's

[LaDamaDeElche]

Is anyone else losing their shit in their 40's. I'm 45, I think I'm perimenopausal, I'm drinking too much wine, can't seem to get motivated in life, have a 13 year old who is a nightmare, a DP who also seems to be losing his shit and is so grumpy compared to how he used to be, fed up with my job and just generally feel unsettled and like I can't cope. Is it just me, or is anyone else in the same boat?

You do sound incredibly angry. Maybe he is just trying to communicate with you, albeit in a clumsy unthought through way?

I wanna live in a hut! Peri and on HRT which is helping but so worn down by kids and job and husband and the endless mental load of it all.

Omg the question asking!
And then that makes me irritable
I have absolutely no focus!
Argh

"Sending a virtual hug. It's shit, isn't it?" @LaDamaDeElche

Thank you. Don't be nice to me, I shall cry.
I spent a lot of time near to tears at the moment.
I have been listening to podcasts and they definitely set me off

And for how many years are you going to attribute your drinking and just being generally tired, pissed off and unmotivated as a middle aged woman to perimenopause?

10? More?

In many cases I don’t think it’s perimenopause, I think it’s the culmination of 15-20 years of adding more stuff to your plate and never taking anything off - eventually you reach breaking point.

You leave Uni and get a job. Then a boyfriend, so you need to maintain career and relationship. Then a house, so at least 3 things to manage. Then kids plus all their shite and additional household load. Then schools and ageing parents and you do have a pension, don’t you? Maybe we need to move house for schools/space. Oh, and there’s 4 hobbies to keep track of for the kids as well as what’s for tea on which night when you have 30mins to cook and eat tea whilst thinking about the work meeting that went to shit earlier in the day and you’re supposed to be out for a friends birthday at the weekend and haven’t sorted out what to wear or what to get her….

I've cancelled meetings at work because I've woken up feeling murderous, it's an act of mercy to my colleagues. I have no tolerance for fussing and faffing in the hope I'll just do tasks for them.

I too wish everyone would stop talking.

I don’t send him minutes of my meetings with the dishwasher.

@spitefulandbadgrammar if it makes you feel any better, your anger is entirely cathartic!

Mid-40s, single mum with a 12 year old and wish I could crawl under a rock never to be seen again. I don’t drink.

The news is sending me over the edge too.

Could have written this myself.

Cannot be arsed with work. Get passed off at stuff that would have gone over my head previously
Anxiety, like ive never experienced.
Trouble sleeping
Drinking more wine than before. Its the only thing that stops my mind whirring enough to sleep.

Saw the doctor last week and am now on HRT. Already feeling a bit better. Also have bought a few supplements from Holland & Barrett.

I don't watch the news any more.

Tell me you’ve not experienced perimenopause symptoms without telling me….

I too would never have believed how debilitating and awful perimenopause can be until it hit. And I don’t have kids. Or a relationship at present. And while there’s plenty of stress in my life, perimenopause is a whole other thing.

Some women are lucky enough to experience it only for a few years, some are still having symptoms in their 90s. HRT and lifestyle change help. But gaslighting women by pretending that the very real, often all-pervasive physical and mental symptoms of perimenopause are just down to stress or there’s a time limit on them, is… unhelpful. If you’re one of the women who hasn’t experienced them yet or who will be lucky and not get them badly, just be thankful.

@Hufflypuffly123 judgemental much?

Who put you in charge of the alcohol?

If I didn't have a glass of wine, I wouldn't sleep. I'd prefer to take that choice.

And for how many years are you going to attribute your drinking and just being generally tired, pissed off and unmotivated as a middle aged woman to perimenopause? Do you not think perimenopause is a real thing? You skipped the joint pains and swelling, noticeably different mood swings, shorter cycle etc and minimised it to I'm tired, pissed off, unmotivated and a borderline alcoholic? I've already said in my posts that my grandmother and mother suffered badly during the years leading up to menopause too. Do you often minimise the experience of others? I know myself and I know a massive change has occurred in me in the last year/year and a half. These other symptoms have been occurring for that exact length of time too.

Sorry this made me laugh out loud.. I also have notes on my phone if "stupid questions" and I get the "lists"

I've done this
Need to do this
Have washed bedding

Shut the fuck up.

I can feel your rage.

I only drink a bottle of wine a week too! She commented like I was drinking one every night 😂

Some women are lucky enough to experience it only for a few years, some are still having symptoms in their 90s. HRT and lifestyle change help. But gaslighting women by pretending that the very real, often all-pervasive physical and mental symptoms of perimenopause are just down to stress or there’s a time limit on them, is… unhelpful. If you’re one of the women who hasn’t experienced them yet or who will be lucky and not get them badly, just be thankful. Thank you for writing that. I really don't understand why someone would come on a thread that someone has started to share experiences with other women going through the same thing and try to minimise people's very real experiences. Like a stranger on the internet knows you better than you know yourself!

45 and peri here. One day, out of nowhere, I realised that I am the human google in the house. A steady stream of questions all day, from the teenagers and DH. It hit me in a flash and I wasn't expecting it and I've never experienced a sudden realisation like that before. I'm a people pleaser so answering questions, at my expense, is a default setting. DH would ask what the weather was going to be like and I would google/ask alexa and answer... Peri's only silver lining is that I no longer take the mental load for cumbersome cr@p like this......

I am enjoying Lorraine Candy's book "What's wrong with me?". It taps into a lot of what you are all saying and how I feel as well. HRT helps too!

I hadn't heard of that book. Will order it!

The mental load is definitely causing me a lot of anxiety. I sometimes wake up and my stomach just flips and I get heart palpitations just thinking about all the things I need to remember/get done. DD has ADHD, so as much as I'd like to try to switch off a bit, I can't. DP is hyper organised, thankfully. He's just fucking grumpy at the moment, which is very stressful though as I've always been a sensitive person, but that seems to be heightened now too 🤦🏽‍♀️

I only first heard of the peri-menopause a few years ago but fuck me, it is awful.

At the moment most of symptoms are physical but I have significantly less tolerance to people's bullshit than I used to - especially at work.

I do think that there is also an element of women reaching their 40s and just being fucking pissed off with all the shit they have to deal with. We definitely need more of that.

@spitefulandbadgrammar

God that is so accurate. The questions. From everyone. All the fucking time.

DH asking me everything obvious like the 'shall I put the pizza in the oven?' type stuff. And it's the pizza I've shopped for, collected, put away, got back out, suggested for tea, got out the fridge and left by the cooker, turning the oven to heat up, and reminding DH to cook it at 5pm because I have to do X. Then 5pm comes and he asks if he should put it in. Yes! Yes put it in the fucking oven! Fucks sake!

3 kids who ask me everything, constantly, even when DH is there, even if he is more likely to know, even if they're halfway through a conversation with him, they'll ask me.

Relatives who ask about everything. What to get for birthdays, and Christmases, and what to bring, and what to take, and what to wear and what to eat and where we're going and what we're doing and where we sit and where we stand and how it works, and how much it costs, etc etc ad nauseum. As though I'm the only person in the universe who can organise anything, or find out any information.

I was cooking fried eggs for breakfast on a recent family holiday (I did all the cooking for 15 people) and my MIL asked me if the egg shells go in the bin. 🤯 Maybe it's genetic.

I was cooking fried eggs for breakfast on a recent family holiday (I did all the cooking for 15 people) and my MIL asked me if the egg shells go in the bin. 🤯 Maybe it's genetic 😂😂

I bought a magnesium supplement to aid sleep and digestion, but when I drank it in the evening it had the opposite effect and made me have a really restless sleep. Maybe I need to try a different one. It was quite expensive and highly recommended too.