To feel like mid life and perimenopause is really changing me

[Edenspirits]

I am about to try HRT to try and help with some of the symptoms of perimenopause as I am cross and grumpy a lot of the time (I am 48) but in a bigger sense, I can really feel and understand why it was always known as ‘the change’ as for me I feel like I am becoming a different person and it’s so strange.

• I gave zero tolerance for bullshit and thus worries me as I feel like I will end up living on my own with cats as people just annoy the fuck out of me 😬

• I just want peace & quiet! Sometimes i can’t even be bothered to think about stuff anymore - it’s like I feel tired of trying to work life out & just want to sit on a beach with books quietly forever (I still have relatively young kids at 10 & 13 so not really possible)

• all my drive for everything has gone. I feel like my old ambitions have changed and i no longer have ‘the chase’ in me for career etc. I just feel tired!!

• I fell out with a friend of over 20 years as she lied to me. I have no time for that kind of shite anymore and yet it’s something I might have let go in my younger years.

I am hoping HRT might help- I feel hardened by the world and I think it might be loss of nurturing hormones making me so much less tolerant!

Anyone else experienced this? It’s all so strange!!!

I am 48 and have a 7yo. Never had a maternal urge so don’t think it has decreased.

However, the desire to tell every arsehole what I really think of them is stronger than ever. I have no ambition and have stepped down from my leadership role and gone part time. I’m happy with this but then I see others doing my old job making mistakes and I want to tell them it is all wrong. I feel that I’m grey (my hair isn’t - very dyed!) and invisible. I have no significance in the work place as I am at least 20 years older than my bosses.

Everything about DP irritates me at the moment and I keep thinking about all of his “past wrongs” and it makes me so angry. I have real murderous thoughts and sometimes I fantasise about killing a range of people.

I take the mini pill so progesterone is being maintained to some degree. I suspect my other hormones are well out of kilter.

If I won’t the lottery I would just up sticks and love to somewhere quiet where I could have some peace and quiet from the many idiots I deal with daily.

Some people do sail through menopause and don’t need HRT which is great, some ppl need it & can’t take it which sucks. There needs to be so much more research into it than there is. It affects 50% of the population but the research base is still so small
^THIS! We do need more research as, while HRT can be a lifesaver for some women, it seems to be being touted at the moment as a cure-all and a preventer of all illnesses of old age which common sense would tell us it cannot be.

Some new evidence suggests that the female brain changes seen in perimenopause are resolved post menopause as the brain adjusts and compensates

@MatildaTheCat The documentary by Mariella Frostrup featured a trial of mindfulness which showed substantial effects in reducing hot flushes so CBT may do the same. It was thought to be do with stress reduction which allows the body to use the raw materials for hormone production for oestrogen etc instead of for cortisol (so, in effect, stress lowers hormone levels and exacerbates menopause symptoms)

This is such a good thread. I am all of these things. I dont work anymore which is a good thing because I have no work ambitions whatsoever. I can't be bothered with any of it. People are now one of my least favourite things! I suffered an abusive childhood and upbringing by vile parents and I frequently think they should have died by now. I still have teenagers at home and frequently fantasise about how wonderful it must be to live alone. I often think it must be easier to become an astronaut than lose menopausal flab. I can't take hrt because of breast cancer in my family. Joggers annoy me. Who has the energy or inclination to get all sweaty and out of breath? My favorite past time is taking an afternoon nap.

When I was young I worked with 2 menopausal women and they were terrifying!

I have now pretty much turned into them now. A bloke (falsely) accused me of pushing in the queue and invaded my personal space in a shop last week, I went ballistic, everyone was staring, and I didn’t care! I was told to calm down by a member of staff. Yeah right, not going to be the good little woman putting up with all sorts anymore..,

Yes I think peri menapause is at play, but I also think you get to a point where your just tired of being shat on.

@o8T8o

NewGirl, menopause is the end of periods, HRT makes them start again, and yet you claim: HRT doesn’t impact on your periods ?

That’s wrong sorry

@Egghead68

You’re the only one I’ve ever heard say that. Menopause means the end if periods. HRT holds back menopause. For the vast majority that means periods continue as far as I’m aware

Continuous HRT like Evorel Conti patches = no periods.

Women take hrt for peri meno when they still have periods.

You take dif products for peri and meno - you need progesterone if you still have periods.

Hrt itself doesn’t change your periods. I am sure your gp can explain this if you need to know more info. The Maisie Hill books Period Power and Peri-menopause Power explain this too.

The worst thing for me was the brain fog. I was in serious danger of finding myself unemployed. HRT was so helpful and it really got me through the worst of it. I’m out the other side now and it’s a great place to be. My zero tolerance of bullshit is a permanent feature though!

I feel the same op. I'm going to talk to my GP about HRT. I have just upset dd ranting about being fed up of doing everyone's washing and ironing for the past 22 years. I seriously just want to go and live on my own rather than exist with four teenagers in the house. I hate feeling this way, I'm just so angry and resentful.

I went to the doctor and she said the hormone levels weren’t too different. Well, I can tell you for something, they were for me. Spatial awareness shot. Couldn’t cross the road easily. Balance and anxiety. All ok after HRT.

My understanding is you don't go through menopause. The hormones deplete and that's that. You might be successful with alternative meds and yoga but I have a demanding job and need to be on point. I've become much more direct and decisive. They'll Bury me with my hrt.

@aquashiv

My understanding is you don't go through menopause. The hormones deplete and that's that. You might be successful with alternative meds and yoga but I have a demanding job and need to be on point. I've become much more direct and decisive. They'll Bury me with my hrt.

Yes I think ‘menopause’ isn’t a great word. It implies that it’s a short time, say a year, of hot flushes etc and then over. As you say it’s more a fluctuating and fall in various hormones from your mid 40s that continues for life. It’s not done after a ‘pause’.

Re periods - if you’re still having periods and don’t want them then you have the mini pill (which often completely stops periods for many women, not all admittedly) and that gives you some of the progesterone part of HRT and then you can take utrogestan 100mg every night for the other part of the progesterone and then the oestrogel. If you’re still having periods / have a womb you need to take both the oestrogen and the progesterone but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have periods if you take the mini pill. This is what I’ve done when I’ve been on HRT and I don’t have any bleeding or periods whatsoever.

@MatildaTheCat it’s as @IvorHughJarrs says.

Also how we perceive the hot flush (embarrassing/normal) makes a difference to our response and can lead to us getting more anxious and the hot flush getting worse.

I’ve said this before on menopause threads but my hot flushes at night stopped instantly when I got rid of my duvet. I now have a cotton top sheet and thin blanket and I don’t suffer from them anymore. Went to stay with my DSis a while back and she had a quilt on my bed and I woke up drenched again. It’s such a simple change and can really help.

Agree with the night sweats…wool duvet, incredible difference.

The idea of workplaces “ helping” women in peri and menopause worries me a bit.. like, do they need more excuses to sideline older women? I wonder if how much you toed the line as a younger woman impacts how much your work ambition is affected when older? Also wonder if the age of your kids has an effect- if they are still young then it’s just too many people with too many demands so the desire to succeed at work is what goes.
I have found myself really wanting to do something that makes a difference, and a chance to take the lead, because all I see around me is waffling, arse kissing fools so there is a lot of frustration that I am lower down the food chain than I should be (partly due to child rearing as a lone parent). I feel like I’m running out of time to do something that matters.
I think in some ways, once you get the hormones right, peri meno can be empowering. As long as no fucker gets in your way...!

I'm going through peri-menopause at the moment and I'm having a bone density scan next week.
I understand the whole no bs thing. I flit between being extra emotional and crying, to thinking f* it and disappearing in the car for a couple of hours ( I hate driving so this is unusual for me)
Having no periods though is great.

Yes yes yes OP.
Also 48 here and on 3rd day of HRT (oestrogel & ustrogen tabs)
Hope it bloody works cos I am definitely changing. Don't laugh as much as I used to, feel bloody jaded by the 'same old shit different face' day to day stuff & am sooo slow at doing things. Can't remember crap and don't care if I can't remember crap. Want everybody to shut up and leave me alone but I also don't know what I want. Feel like I want to rewind the clock and have a chunk of life back to do things differently but also don't give a monkeys about the fact that I have no ambition other than getting through the day without crawling into a cupboard and crying. Would quite like to get away from myself sometimes.
Kids are lovely but tough at mo (2 ds, 14 & 15) & midlife is poop.
My older sister says her 50s have been better than 40s so am awaiting my 50th birthday when I shall arise like a majestic, triumphant phoenix from the ashes, flapping my glorious, groomed feathered wings into a new era.....
Or then again, I'll probably still be looking like Elton John's unhinged twin sister who's been living in the cellar for 30 years.
So now that I've offloaded my infectious cheeriness onto this thread I feel much better
ps I have also become a complete doom-monger

This is a great thread

There's that Caitlin Moran article
Women who run with the wolves great book
That Spanish film where the 40/50 old woman moves out and gets her own place
And makes me think of Helen mirren

Sorry Georgian film: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Happy_Family

over. As you say it’s more a fluctuating and fall in various hormones from your mid 40s that continues for life. It’s not done after a ‘pause’

Fluctuations don’t continue for life. When it’s done, it’s done and it’s calm after the storm, coming out the other side is brilliant. I really wish I could have had my menopause as soon as I knew I was done with having kids. Apart from losing my waist, life without oestrogen is a million times better.

I'm extended breastfeeding still so assume I have lower osteogen, because I normally I'm quite a bend over to help people, but I've become a wicked witch. I sort of think why should I help, people need to learn the hard way to adult. I fall out with people instant only if they cross me, generally something minor. I'm sure once I finish breastfeeding I'm be straight in peri as I'm a older mother.

@Threewheeler1 I could have written that.

Caitlin Moran wrote a really interesting (to me anyway) article on it a while ago. She came at it from another angle ie that all the lovely pre menopause hormones sloshing round is what makes women put up with so much shit, be too tolerant , understanding etc so eg no sleep for years , partner not pulling their weight with kids and then when the hormones go we are cross at things that we’ll really we should be cross at and have not put up with . We just stopped being doped up, she likened it to being on drugs like ecstasy.

Ah sorry that should have said we are cross at stuff we should have been cross at all along and not tolerated