Its not your hormones!

[Putthewashingout33]

aibu to ask women to stop saying 'oh maybe its my hormones' / I'm peri when complaining about unreasonable behaviour? Its like you're gaslighted yourselves! 'My husband takes 5 solo holidays a year and never changes a nappy and I'm a bit overwhelmed or maybe its my hormones from my 6th pregnancy'... no! He's wrong !

Couldn’t agree more. It’s driving me mad that literally every problem a woman aged 35-60 might experience is now being put down to “menopause”.

Depending on the issue, sometimes it is the hormones though. It's good that there's more recognition of the fact that perimenopause and menopause can have a very large impact.

By this stage I think everyone’s aware of it, it’s talked about everywhere. We’ve even been asked to do e-learning on it at work.

It is annoying when replies say 'how old are you? I'm thinking it's peri.'

I am perimenopausal, which does make my brain act unreasonably sometimes. But I was far too young for all that when exH was a twunt. He was just a twunt. DP now is taking it all in his stride. Because he is not a twunt.

I do think there is merit in the theory that we put up with less crap after 50. But that doesn't negate the crap

I would only suggest it is the person is describing their own symptoms like sweats, brain fog, anxiety, just not feeling themselves anymore.

OP - I stubbed my toe and it really hurts.
Replies - could it be menopause, my toes ballooned to ten times their normal size and I was constantly stubbing them.

People keep telling me my symptoms are peri. I mean they might be. But I'd put more money on autoimmune. Or actually I'd just like someone to take me seriously instead of implying I'm a crazy stressed 40 yr old and life's now suddenly 'just too much for me'

My hot flushes, head aches, dry skin and crap orgasms are all down to perimenopause though.

If it's not hormones to blame its SEN.
I get fed up with reading its pretty much in every thread.

Oh wait until you reach 60+. Any hint of "selfish" behaviour (i.e putting yourself 1st for once), is met with hushed tones of "she never used to be like that, maybe it's the early stage of dementia".

We didn’t talk about it ten years ago when I was 45/46 and I really wish we had as I now have long term injuries and lost my career.
I had loads going on I had to deal with but had no capacity or knowledge to realise there was support available. I am slightly jealous but thankful for the fact it’s now more discussed. But if you’ve not gone through it you really shouldn’t be judging others.
Women have taken their own lives due to menopause and peri menopause, maybe they wouldn’t have done if they felt they could openly discuss it/ask for help.

Perimenopause is the new hysteria. A way to shut women up.

Well your example isn’t hormonal but actually the other night I snapped at my mother and started crying afterwards out of the blue- that was hormones and sometimes, especially as we get older, it totally is! I’m a cranky asshole regularly lately, that’s not my personality, my body has been taken over. Yes men can be assholes but also women can be hormonal and I’m not going to let people think I randomly cry and snap when that’s not me

I agree. From teen years and ‘hormones’ to a decade of blaming PMS to then blaming pregnancy and post partum and then peri and then menopause you might as well agree with men that we’re all emotional, impractical, illogical, hormonal wrecks who can’t be trusted to make decisions.

Hormones can make you feel a bit more emotional. They don’t make you crazy (for most) so just take hold of your emotions and handle them like adults!

I had a horrible menopause with awful mood swings and a terrible temper. Yes, maybe the men in my life could behave better sometimes, but my response to them was definitely my hormones.

Now I'm out the other side, I still feel annoyed by others' behaviour sometimes, but the way I deal with it is completely different.

I hate it too. A lot of men think women are too hormonal/emotional to be trusted with anything important and comments like that sound like women are telling them yes, you are right!

Yep I’m sick of hearing peri everywhere. Most people just need to look after their health more.

You're so right. Although also I think sometimes the hormone fluctuations just make us less likely to stick a brave face on things.
I know I'm hormonal at the moment, and that means that my partner needs to do more for our DD(3) than I'd usually expect him to, because my tolerance for the usual toddler dramas is very low today.
So, instead of his usual get home from work and have a tea/scroll on his phone, he has arrived home and been told that he's playing doctors, then doing bath and bedtime because I need an hour to decompress.
Usually I'd love to do those things with DD, but not today 😂

Before HRT I had rage like I’d never felt before, not just angry but absolutely filled with rage for the tiniest thing. I was irritated by everyone and everything. I have always been a slave to my hormones, terrible periods etc. I think I'm a bit unlucky that way but I also know many women who have really suffered with peri too. I could tell the difference between what I used to be like and what I was like when I begged for HRT. I love how the information is out there for people. It may come up in loads of threads but some people aren’t aware of what peri feels like so it’s definitely worth letting people know to do some research. Of course it’s not always the cause of someone’s issues but it’s usually a possible cause.

I am assuming you are not menopausal or peri menopausal. As your comment is childish. I can assure you there are a lot of things that happen that are hormone related.

I started HRT and miraculously my husband and I stopped rowing.

He errs on the side that the root of the rowing was me being an arse, while I maintain the hrt oestrogen boost gives me the patience to put up with his bullshit behaviour. 😂

Absolutely agree that 'hormones' can be a nasty way for people to imply women are being unreasonable when they're actually just identifying shitty behaviour.

But I also think pretending hormones don't exist is unhelpful. I did IVF; I was on high doses of hormones, and it really annoyed me to get comments like 'but why would you feel bad? You deal with hormones every month?'

It ought to be fine to say you're hormonal. If you'd broken your arm badly, you might easily say 'you know, I feel awful; I'm in pain with this broken arm, I am struggling' and most decent people would say 'gosh, yes, don't apologise, we get it: you are in pain so you're finding things a bit harder'.

They would not conclude you were somehow letting the side down by being in pain.

I am torn & it depends in which context. I think if the symptom is physiological, you’re of “a certain age” & it’s not something you’ve experienced before, it could well be perimenopause. In which case I’m glad we know more about it.

If it’s the other alternative - where women are completely overwhelmed, over worked, taking on too much & then we / others / men gaslight us or we gaslight ourselves and blame the perimenopause for these things, then that is something completely different. No I am not having a hot flush, being forgetful, crying with overwhelm because I’m perimenopausal, I am doing all of these things because life / the patriarchy / the man babies / working full time is driving me to utter burn out. Which by the way, I think happens to peak at around the same age the perimenopause symptoms start. But they are two very different things and I refuse to consider perimenopause being the cause for me just completely and utterly f*cked by life