Do you really stop giving a f**k during peri/menopause?

[Melrobbinswannabe]

As per my title. I’m 45, and sick of living my life caring about what people think of me. I was a HUGE people pleaser, and have done some work on that but I still feel I let people hold some weird power over me, and care about what they think about me sooo much. I hate it.
I’ve read about women hitting a certain age, and poof, wake up and they DGAF.
Has this been true for anyone at all? I know I need to put work into it, but I’d so love to wake up one day and it’s happened overnight.
Or, any tips on how to stop caring about the opinions of others? I’ve been how I am since childhood, so it’s a lot to unlearn.
Thanks

It was a gradual feeling of not giving a . Now post menopausal and.....i still don't give a! 😂
I'm less inclined to put up with bullshit from anyone now.
If my sons speak disrespectful to me (rarely) they get short shift.

@HauntedBungalowhow long was the transition? I've been here about 6 years now and hoping to get to the other side

Isn’t there some theory that oestrogen drives the nurturing instinct and therefore its absence means the biochemical rewards for nurturing others vanishes? Oestrogen also helps with balance, bone density, heart health and a myriad other health benefits, so I have continued on it long past actual menopause and plan to continue. I suspect any diminished GAF is more to do with having more money, more autonomy, fewer obligations (or at least, more manageable ones) and a realisation that this relatively golden period of life won’t last forever, so yeah, please yourself as much as you can!

I can’t say that happened for me. Early 50s was probably the time I had most on my plate in terms of caring/work responsibilities and I very much did GAF . It’s only now having come out of the other side and post menopause that I’m properly relaxed. I’m no longer working and there’s only me and DH at home and we just do our own thing. I’m very much focused on what I want to do for me now, but there’s not really conflicting priorities any more.

ETA - I have never experienced any desire to ‘hunker down’ though.

I personally think it’s a myth.

I think what happens is that many women are socially conditioned AND their hormones fuel the need to raise a family within optimum conditions (hence why so many young women break their neck to be the perfect hot wives, yummy mummies, career women and Hinch-perfect homemakers). Once that passes (kids grow up, husbands disappoint, homemaking fails to satisfy, career becomes a millstone) AND the supporting hormones decline, women have matured into a wiser and a more battle scarred phase.

This wiser, and more weary stage, means you naturally give less fucks about the trivial shit that occupied you as a younger woman. It’s life that mellows and humbles you. Not menopause.

But you will still need to work on people pleasing.

definitely. I still care a bit what others think but I don’t take being treated badly by anyone anymore in the way I used to. It’s leading to some turbulence in relationships with my eldest daughter, who has consistently treated me like shite for two years and with my mother who has done it for 45 years, but I’m starting to see that that’s fine-they can alter their behaviour, I don’t need to appease them anymore.

Yep, it's true in my case. I also never get cross, it's lovely 😍

I never was a people-pleaser I just care even less now.