Peri, every woman I socialise with is peri, all difficult!

[CreationNat1on]

Is the answer, we are ALL menopausal???

I m just wondering, is it a stage of life thing, combined with post pandemic and culture wars, all the women I know, just seem so cranky. Where are the light hearted laughs? Why is it all comparisons and blame and passive aggressive itchiness?

Dud anyone else find mid 40s a difficult time with "friends".

The only people being too emotional around here and you and your fellow travellers. Everything you say and do is politically motivated by your obsession with your fake career-obsessed 20th century ‘feminism’ to the extent that you can’t and won’t even read properly. Your ideology and its lies have caused immense harm to women for decades, and it’s going to stop. There’s a whole world of possibilities between 1940’s misogyny and sweeping awkward facts under the carpet. We’re moving forward into a world that can cope with little things like biological reality.

Please do tell me how these symptoms which without HRT made me feel so low, could possibly benefit me?

I think the 'benefit' to menopause is societal rather than for us as individuals. Women who no longer have periods, are free to look after their grandchildren and ensure survival of our genes. Which is great and all, on a survival of the species level, but not much benefit to the individual woman.

Some of what Im reading on here is really quite frightening that some women are in such denial that should I approach them if they are GPs or nurses or whatever for support with my symptoms they will be uninformed and ignorant of whats going on and dismissive of me. Im not 'ill' as people keep saying in this thread, I have huge hormonal changes which are not beneficial to me or society, Ive never heard such rubbish

Evolution doesnt have a 'purpose' for society, it just is and its not always helpful to the individual.

And puberty doesnt exist now??!!!

Are you having a bad day? And yes she is spreading hate. If you can't see that I can't help you. And she ain't no feminist.

I'm sorry you're not well. I hope things improve for you. But spreading hatred isn't the way to go. Go outside, you'll feel better or get some hrt

I can't believe people want someone banned for a difference in opinion. What about banning the person that called someone a cunt?

'Spreading hate' is probably the most idiotic concept to come out of wokery. I'm having a great day, thank for your delightful and ever so genuine concern for my emotional wellbeing. Also known as the standard issue passive aggression of you courageous crusaders against 'hatred'. I just despise overgrown children like you who react to anyone who upsets your delicate constitutions by shrieking for Big Daddy to shut them up. Grow up and deal with your emotional problems.

A societal benefit rather than purely individual make sense to me. And at least gives me a non-emotional way of explaining my worst symptom. Sudden and almost irresistible urges to take what I have to hand right then and pootle off this mortal coil.

Thinning out the less/not fertile women to just the genetically most blessed that can lend a hand with kids etc, means fewer elderly mouths to feed, wash and care for. So the genetically most blessed get a less large shit sandwich of caring duties at both ends of the age scale.

I think that might help with managing the worrying about Scary Symptom Numero Uno between the events. I feel less of a weirdo at least.

I’m not a paranoid weirdo ! Evolution really is out to get me 😬

When you look at all the symptoms MNers list for peri, the ones I also have/ever had, started in youth. I end up thinking "Did I start peri at age 2yrs old? Lucky them, they found a simple effective treatment for everything!" also: "Half of what they list is quite vague and seems so mild that if it's overwhelming then they must have never had health problems at all, before."

Well no, because you were two years old, so your body isn't even making the hormones that decline in perimenopause so no-one would think you were peri.

And yes, some of the symptoms can be linked to a lot of different causes. Because there is no one-size fits all perimenopause, it's about joining dots and linking together what can seem like a disparate list of symptoms that could be about something else entirely.

Especially around age 50-53

I am already post-menopause at 47. Just getting my GP to believe I was dealing with perimenopause in my late 30s was a Herculean task, more so because I wasn't afflicted with the more usual hot flushes or erratic periods which they were insistent would be the case if I was in perimenopause.

The problem with this argument is life expectancy - many women died before reaching menopause. It's only in the 20th century, particularly post WWII that life expectancy has increased.

And for those who did live long enough to reach menopause, I do feel that many older women who were carted off to asylums or labelled mad were the ones who were suffering due to decline of hormones. For a long time, the medical profession was convinced PMT and hysteria was caused by the uterus moving around the body. Even now, in the 21st century, medical research is focused on men's health, as is medicine as whole. Given every single biological woman will go through menopause, it's actually a scandal that more research hasn't been done on it. One only has to look at the menopause boards in MN and you can see for yourself just how much confusion and down-right ignorance there is about perimenopause and menopause.

The posters on this thread who are diminishing and scoffing at those who have had troublesome and life-limiting perimenopause are part of the problem, and should be ashamed of themselves.

It's so reductive that women aren't standing together on this and being supportive of those of their sex who are struggling. Who needs the patriarchy to repress women when women do it to themselves.

I'm supportive of anyone who is ill.
Please don't assume that because I'm having a grumpy moment or about the same age that I had your same illness.
Or that every woman about the same age had your illness.
Hope you all feel better soon.

Pollyputhekettleon, you are just weird.

Headline life expectancy figures are heavily skewed by infant mortality though. I don’t know what kind of data there is on the life expectancy of women who survived early childhood but certainly there were plenty of women over 50 alive in 1800 or 1900.

In prehistoric times, ie for 99% of human history, survival of the family depended on grandparents having the strength and health to nurture children while parents were hunting, and providing resources - and this was dependent on grandmothers going through the menopause, so they had that strength and health.

Humans would not have survived as a species without the menopause - it is one of the 3 main factors in our survival as a species.

Don't waste your time, I have zero interest in engaging with you.

and in prehistoric times, many women lived post menopause - far more than men

How exactly does menopause give you strength and health? These boards are full of evidence of the opposite. The brain fog, the joint pain, osteoperosis, anaemia from flooding or continuous periods etc etc etc.

The claim usually is that women are healthier and stronger post-menopause compared to what they would have been if they had continued to have babies indefinitely. Not compared to the health of pre-menopausal women (although no doubt someone is mad enough to argue that one...). One of the many problems with this 'grandmother hypothesis', as it's called, is that none of the researchers involved seem to understand the health consequences of menopause. They start from an assumption that the only consequence is becoming unable to reproduce, which is obviously false.

It just stops you from being run into ground as a battery hen baby making machine, with consequences.

And yet! It is one of the three reasons the human race has survived!

I don't know how many times or how many ways I can say this, but repeatedly making claims without evidence is not how debate works. Could you be any lazier? And, no, adding lots of exclamation marks doesn't turn it into an argument!!!

Yes, but that begs the question why we didn't either evolve to be able to reproduce safely into old age, or die at menopause.

Can we lock Nimbo & Jingling in a small room together? I'll supply the
🍿 🍿 🍿. Who else is in?

Apparently the 3 reasons for humans not going extinct are our:

1..Big brains,

1. Upright walking (partially causing smaller pelvises, making birthing more difficult and dangerous to mother's health), and

3.Menopause (protecting aging women from the birthing process, and making them more available to nurture their existing offspring and grandchildren - grandmothering).

Human lifespans are extending, so we are spending more time post menopause, making us (theoretically), available to guide, nurture and protect our children and grandchildren.

It stops us having children later in life, when we can't care for them as well as we could when more youthful/energetic/healthy, and it stops our resources being spread too thin a cross our existing descendents, and also means that the aging, less healthy eggs, are less likely to be fertilised and mother's are not as likely to go through the risk of pregnancy, of a potentially less healthy offspring that may not thrive (evolutionary speaking - no judgement of older mums or their children, modern natal care probably solves a lot).