Why am I so rude ?

[aduckandafishwenttosea]

I'm generally not a rude person. I usually avoid conflict and am a people pleaser.

However the last year or so I find myself not coping in shops and inadvertently being rude to staff. I don't mean to be. Is it being rude or having a meltdown ?

example:
I go to the supermarket. It's busy and the item I want is either out of stock or moved location. I've already had to queue to get into the car park and then queue to park. So I'm a bit urghh already by the time I get into the shop.

my reaction: I start loudly saying to myself how shit the shop is, people around me can hear. I then go on a hell bent mission to find the item (if moved), I cant gently start trying to find it, I take it personally that the item has been moved, just to make my day/time as hell as possible. I might ask staff if they have hidden the item for a laugh or eaten it all (this is said - and meant - in a jokey way but has been taken in a rude way before). By this time I am boiling over with rage and anger and potentially in full meltdown in the shop.

What is wrong with me ?

I take everything personally, like it's purposely done to make my day hell. I went to get petrol the other day. I queued for ages, got to the pump and opened my petrol cap on the car. It was pay at pump only and the card machine was not working. I spoke to a worker who suggested going to a different pump. But to do this, as I was at the very front pump, I would have to leave the garage and go and get in the queue again. I had already waited 15 minutes. I drove off in a huff, not realising the petrol cap was still open. Cars were beeping me to try to tell me but I didn't realise. When I did realise I was stopped at a junction, some kind person walking past put the cap back on for me and I was shaking the rest of the way home.

You must realise that’s a silly assertion.

Nobody else in my family had any trouble with the menopause at all, and yet I got just about every symptom going.

Should I assume that there must be some other cause for my hot flushes too? Because millions of women don’t get them.

This assertion that plenty of women go through menopause with no issues is like saying plenty of women go through childbirth with no issues. Or pregnancy. Or menstruation. So ignorant.

Absolutely agree

You should go and see your dr, it could be a symptom of any number of things.

Depression
Peri
syphilis

you could also be on a power trip where there is something that you can’t control in your life so you take it out on low paid people who can’t get away from you.

My mum is 56 and has become a nightmare in shops. Takes everything personally and thinks all the shop staff are intentionally trying to belittle and be rude to her. Like she has had a personality transplant. Also becoming increasingly intolerant

Can you take some time off work?

The lack of awareness of perimenopause as evidenced in this thread is quite astonishing (and sobering).

No, it doesn’t make it ok. Of course it doesn’t. But it’s really telling that so many of us thought immediately, ‘How old is the OP?’, while others just told her to stop this sudden personality change immediately.

Women’s health issues have been minimised and ignored by society for so long, to the extent that most people, it seems, have never even heard of them!

I wonder if perhaps being a people pleaser also means a lack of boundaries and if those boundaries are stepped over time and time again feeling unable to tell people that it's not ok it then instead spills out on to other areas of life where those who have nothing to do with your being pissed off become collateral damage.

Also it's sounds like it could be peri, I have always been a bit firey but the peri rage is something else I swear I could set things on fire sometimes.

Exactly this.

So many women think they have dementia because their behaviour and personality change so much. The lack of awareness and understanding here is phenomenal.

I won't get into the full impact it has had on me here, but it is unlikely to 'just' be retail workers that OP is being rude to. They are just the ones she has noticed it with first

My MIL had dementia where we put the symptoms down to menopause. It is always worth while getting checked out for any personality changes

Quite right. I was sent for a brain scan! Fortunately everything looked fine and after that HRT largely sorted the speech and memory problems.

Well this thread, as a hospitality worker, is unsurprising.

The reason OP is taking it out on service staff is because it's acceptable to behave that way towards them with no repercussions.

I bet no amount of "Oh but you're peri menopausal!" Would excuse me, as a service worker, from returning OP's attitude right back at her if she spoke to me (another peri menopausal woman experiencing similar issues with struggling to control my emotions at the moment) like that and I reacted in the same way, because the OP frustrated me. I could post asking for support and I could almost guarantee I'd get my arse handed to me for my behaviour and very little in the way of sympathy or support.

There'd be emails to head office, reviews and my head wanted on a platter, peri menopause or not . I'd be expected to keep a lid on it regardless of what my hormones are doing or how frustrating I find the situation.

@Maverickess I’m not quite sure what you’re saying. If you’re suggesting that I (can’t speak for anyone else here) would respond that you’re not allowed to have serious menopause symptoms because you work in retail, you are completely wrong.

I’ve worked in hospitality and retail FWIW and the vast majority of rude customers are clearly just rude, no other reason behind it. However, there can clearly sometimes be other reasons that need to be addressed.

I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that rudeness is OK because someone is (peri)menopausal. Rather, that this can be a symptom of an issue that requires urgent medical attention.

I’m not sure it is the menopause as DH often feels like this.
I think it’s partly to do with the fact that the world has got so much busier and everything has become more difficult.
In your petrol station example I’m old enough to remember when someone filled up for you and took the cash off you.
Now it’s all self service and if it goes wrong no one knows how to help (if there are actually any staff around).
The people who are working have lost the ability to speak politely so just grunt at you and have no authority to make decisions just follow the rules.

If you don't move with the times you get left behind as they say.

No one is saying it is ok. We are saying this is a change in behaviour, get checked out medically. I would say the same if you came here and said help, I have started being really rude to customers and I never used to be like this. And if you are struggling as you suggest, please go and get help.

You might get your arse handed to you by women who haven't experienced it, and they might make complaints. Those of us who are saying this needs intervention are far more likely to ask if you are ok. At least, I know I would.

Yeah that behaviour is disgraceful and the sort of thing that has left me and my colleagues in tears because it's so aggressive and such personal insults. You need to get a handle on this as repeated incidents like this would end in you being banned from the store. Get some therapy ffs. Would you accept your daughter being treated like that?

10000% menopause at your age, despite regular periods.

Yep sounds like the menopause, irrational anger sounds classic. I took it out on my family. HRT solved it.

I don't understand this the "world is so much harder" now.

You can do an online supermarket shop, it takes 10 minutes once you get the hang of it, 20 at most and you can do it anytime before delivery date, so say when you are not really watching TV, and it gets delivered in a time slot which you pick and you can be doing other chores whilst waiting. Before it took hour and a half, two perhaps physically shopping. How is this harder?

Same with banking. Lots online. Whereas you used to have to physically go into a bank or call for payments, check balance. Again how is this harder?

You can get anything delivered to your door.

The only things you have to do in person is petrol and medical appointments, and again not all of these.

Roads are busier yes, partly because there are a lot more deliveries, can't have it both ways. And more houses and everyone has their own car, just like you do.

So it's still rudeness and entitlement, I want all this but don't want anyone else to have it or drive or go to the shop.

If you get wound up you increase your stress and it affects your health. But that's up to you.

As people have said OP punches down at service staff. Nice. She has been doing it for a year. Again nice.

It helps to accept you are not any more or less important than someone else out and about. You are just an average human doing average human things. Growing older in an average human way. Go see your GP, talk to your family, or just carry on being an entitled prick.

Only read OP's posts.

I am like this when my resilience is low.
By nature I am not someone who thinks "oh typical" when it's raining on a Bank Holiday or that the shop has every size apart from the one you want, so when I rage it's not that I live my life thinking everyone is out to get me, it's more that I feel the world is stupid and annoying and I just can't be doing with it.

Why move everything around in the supermarket? Or if they do, at least do it properly so the aisle signs are correct.
Why is it SO cold in Sainsbury's?
Why, on a day that I really need to focus hard, is someone using a chainsaw?

I tend to mutter and rage and then cry.

I have always been quite highly strung. I had a period of clinical depression and these behaviours eased when I was on ADs, but I also felt flatter. I'd rather have the swings in emotion tbh.
I have just reached menopause so it might have been peri.

Dunno. I'm aware of it, it's not great.

Do you mean perimenopause?
And anyway, I disagree. SO much is put down to perimenopause. It's worth exploring other causes of irrational behaviour.

God I’d probably lose my job if I encountered you in a shop! I’d promptly tell you to F-O with your attitude!

I was actually feeling distinctly murderous before I started on HRT. I'd been a pretty calm and ordered person until that period when I couldn't cope with work / life / people. It all resolved again when I started taking oestrogen.
All the folk saying 'just stop it' have clearly not experienced this themselves and have no appreciation of how much hormones can influence some people and how out of control your behaviour can be.

I have had rage for a while and been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. I thought I have early onset dementia or something too and asked for an FSH level (3.9 so fine apparently) and it turns out I have hyperthyroidism which can make you have symptoms of ADHD and anxiety. When I feel lightheaded or get palpitations in shops I can panic (was getting panic attacks too) and that can make me angry and rude because I am scared I might pass out or need to sit down, for example.