Perimenopause and not giving a shit type mentality

[xaviaF]

Ok so I’m after a bit of perspective. In your experience, once us women enter perimenopause is it common to care less about other people? I’m 41, I went on patches last year and since my symptoms started at around 38 I noticed I started to feel less bothered with people. Fast forward to now and I’d say 90% of the time I have to fake being a nice happy normal tolerant person around people and sadly that sometimes (not always) includes when I’m around my kids who are 21,19 and 14. I don’t take my frustrations out on them but I’m finding harder to exercise patience especially with my older two kids who I feel are like lodgers and I’m the maid most of the time.

Then there’s my husband. He’s a lovely man but we aren’t what we especially when it comes to intimacy/sex which doesn’t happen much anymore.At first this was all my husband as he was apparently always to tried. I was always the one who initiated things and more often than not I’d be turned down which left me feeling rejected so I stopped bothering and clearly my husband doesn’t care and now neither do I.

I can’t be bothered with work. I work in a school and seriously considering handing my notice in next week as I just haven’t got it in me to work there anymore. Don’t get me wrong most of the kids are great and not to blow my own trumpet but the majority of them are made up to see me everyday as they know I have the time for them unlike a lot of other staff but it’s an exhausting job having to mask (I have adhd/autism too) all day long then come home and have to manage things there too.

When it comes to my extended family I don’t always have patience for them and have been known to block peoples number for the day just so I don’t have to interact with them as I don’t have the energy to talk on the phone. My mum (early 60’s) always wants to talk on the phone when she knows I prefer text. Now I get it she’s that generation and of course she wants to take to her daughter but it’s always the same old tedious conversations which mostly involve me listening to her moan and be negative. Now I see the irony as I am being super negative here but I never used to be like this. I used to do everything for everyone run around like a headless chicken and to be fair it never bothered me as I liked being busy and I used to like helping people but now and I know this sounds awful but I don’t give a crap anymore. I just want to be selfish for once in my life. No one runs around after me or does things to help me so I suppose I’ve kind of become a bit a bit resentful. Is this normal or am I just a horrible person?

I'm with you ! I had a big op (hysterectomy) and was off work for 6 weeks or so, and I really just can't be bothered now I'm back. It's all so pointless and I simply don't care about it.

Family is small thankfully so not much to do there, but this last week especially the house is deteriorating and again I just don't care and can't be bothered. The same is sneaking into friendships.

I was on HRT before the op, they took my ovaries (so full menopause overnight, from peri beforehand) and I think I need more, because it does seem to have suddenly got worse! Are you on HRT? I wonder if this is just part of the whole shitty peri / menopause thing.

Oh no wonder you feel the way you do. A hysterectomy is a big deal. Yes ‘my on HRT and have been for just over a year now. The first six months it helped amazingly and it was like I got the old me back. Then I had a little blip then things improved, but now I feel worse if anything.

I just want to be selfish for once in my life

I can definitely relate to this. I'm going through peri (not on HRT) and I just can't be assed with anyone or anything! I luckily wfh so don't need to interact at work, other than on teams. DC are grown up and I have no partner (by choice). So now I spend the majority of the time pleasing myself and just doing what I want to do.

My mum and sister had a big row recently and are now not speaking. Instead of getting involved I've just taken the attitude of "nothing to do with me". I just don't need anyone's drama. Likewise I've let a lot of friendships drift where I feel I wasn't getting anything positive out of it.

I just want a calm, peaceful life now. If I do get lonely as I get older there are things I can join to meet people. but for now I am happy as I am.

I feel exactly the same. Like you I don’t want drama in my life and sadly a couple of long term friendships have gone by the way side as I just don’t have the energy to keep them going it had mostly been one sided with regards to making an effort to meet up so I just bowed out graciously. I love my kids and my husband but I never get any peace eg the house to myself as there is always someone here. Drives me crazy.

Same here. Two long term friendships have bitten the dust, we're all the same/similar age so we must have all been feeling pissed off with each other. It's been no hardship to give up either friendship either!

At work...I do my job and just go home; rarely interact with people now as just can't be arsed with their conversation of who did what and when.

I used to be irritated with my DM (same type of phone calls; negativity but also about people I don't know and don't care about) but she had an awful medical episode 2.5 years ago (and I've not said this to make you feel guilty btw) and is now wheelchair bound so I do bite my tongue VERY hard when I'm with her.

(I'm not as miserable as I sound, I promise!! 😂)

I don't know if it's biological as much as life stage. I think you just get to a point where you're old enough and wise enough to see through the BS that so much of our activities and relationships are comprised of, and get a bit of perspective. I sometimes read threads from younger women upset about not being in the playground clique, for example, and think, I used to think that way, why on earth did I care so much, when it was literally nothing in the scheme of things? Similarly, the things that kept me awake about work. What did it matter in the end? Once you see that, you tend not to unsee it, and once you break through the ennui that comes initially, it's hugely liberating. Because with luck, you will find your passion again, but it will be real this time, and about something that genuinely matters to you and gives you joy. Not all the flim flam that preoccupies us before we know better.

I think Caitlin Moran nails this feeling of just no longer being arsed perfectly..."Even Moran, who at 45 is peri-menopausal rather than fully at the eye of the storm, says she can feel something changing as the softening effects of oestrogen recede. “It’s like coming down off an E. All that kind of loving forgiveness … once it’s gone, you suddenly feel as rageful and unwilling to help people as men have all their lives. There does tend to be a sobering bit when you think: ‘Hang on, have I played myself for a mug? All those things I did, there’s no medal for it. All the time I was making a lovely cosy house, my male colleagues were putting money into ISAs.’” Moran has, she says, now stopped running around after everyone quite as much; she takes her pleasure in friends, gardening, her dog and what she calls a happy state of “hagdom”. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/22/weird-liberation-women-wild-truth-midlife-menopause

Agree. Not sure if it’s effects of peri of just life stage. I saw an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow once (not sure why because I’m not much into her sort of thing) but she said that when women hit 40 it’s like they get a software reboot and this resonated for me. I think you just hit an age where you realise that the life of a women is 90% drudgery and you lose any tolerance for BS.

I recommend you read The Middle Passage.

The trouble they dont know to what degree your thoughts are. Ranging from just a brainstorm to a very series idea. However if you got a girl and boy and concerned about fairtrade and extreme climates. Its worth a coversation with a mature female GP... Who can decide to refere u or not.