What did your mum or grandmother tell you about perimenopause?

[TheUmberKoala]

I've been having a long-overdue conversation with my mother about her experience of perimenopause. She's in her 60s now. When I asked her what anyone had ever told her about it growing up, she said her own mother had once told her: "It happens, it's a phase."

That was it. Five words. For something she lived with for years.

My older sisters are approaching that same age now, and I've been thinking about how much of this silence is generational. The dismissal, the lack of anyone passing down practical knowledge, the way the topic just wasn't discussed at home.

I'd love to hear from this group: what did your mum or grandmother tell you about perimenopause growing up? Was it spoken about at home, or was it taboo? And for those of you who've been through it (or are in it now), what do you wish someone had actually told you?

Not looking for medical advice or anything to buy. Just curious about the inheritance, or the lack of it, and how families pass this knowledge down (or don't).

Nothing. It was a thing years ago.

This

Nothing. My mother would not have dreamed of mentioning it.

She had five daughters and could never even say the word period without doing a cartoon check over each shoulder in case someone respectable was listening, and then hissing in an embarrassed "for goodness sake don't be vulgar" way. 😁

Nothing, now that you mention it! I’d not thought about this. I have told my DDs (early 20s) about it and though.

@ginasevernI was responding to the idea that the perimenopause was an invention that “didn’t exist in my day” or “isn’t a thing because I don’t experience symptoms” or “Doesn’t really exist because I’ve only heard the word recently”.

My DH trained as a doctor in the early 1980s and it was a term being used then (among other prefixes/terms including pre-menopause) but you’re right that the term didn’t travel perhaps even as far as GPs (and training about menopause was very patchy until very recently). I was reflecting that the lack of vocabulary for this until recently demonstrates how women’s health and what actually happens to them was a low priority.

Loads of people don’t have difficult symptoms but for those that do the labelling of this part of the process is helpful.

My mum never talked about it at the time, I don't think she had ever heard of the term 'perimenopause'. The only thing she has ever said to me is that she went through menopause at 56 and got a lot of hot flushes into her 70s. I know absolutely nothing about my grandmother's experience.

My mum died at 40 so I don’t think she experienced nothing from my grandmother

I was reflecting that the lack of vocabulary for this until recently demonstrates how women’s health and what actually happens to them was a low priority.

You don't have to hang out for long on this board to hear experiences from women who have struggled to be heard by the medical profession.

I was just thinking about my mum's mum, she would have been around 52 or 53 when her husband was seriously injured in an industrial accident, and menopausal age. She was put on valium and remained on valium for then next 35 years until a new GP stopped her prescription. That's how the medical profession used to deal with women who struggled with medical issues or emotional issues.

My Mother didn't even talk to me about periods, except to call it 'the curse' and that it would happen for over 40 years. I was horrified as I was about 11. She told me to speak to my sister.

She used to share about her flooding and she just referred to it as 'The Change' when I was a teenager. I didn't have a clue at the time what was going on, and I found it really traumatic.

Sadly, she died 11 years ago so when 'The Change' started for me, I couldn't talk to her about what she actually went through.

Reading this is like when women say “oh I had painful periods, I just got on with it, it’s normal” and me on all fours wondering why my pain threshold was so low
I had stage 4 endometriosis with my bowel folded in half

if every woman had vaginal oestrogen, it would cut UTIs in elderly women which often lead to falls then broken hips, then loss of mobility
women wouldn’t stop having to have sex they wanted because of vaginal atrophy or loss of orgasms that could be easily resolved

I think whether you struggle through it or not, it has to be acknowledged that we are much better off for knowing about this stuff now so we can use vaginal oestrogen, HRT, etc

@LaliqueSaltGrinderyep, shocking really. My grandmother spent years in her forties and early fifties (1960s/70s) on various tranquillisers. She had a lazy Susan on her kitchen worktop holding brown bottles of Nitrazepam for sleep, something else for calm and something to make her more alert. All to treat the “neurosis” that appeared in her 40s. Sent away with a pat on the head and a bottle of pills losing more than a decade of her life in the process.

I’m not only 34, you’re quoting the wrong person!!

Never mentioned. I had almost no symptoms and would be interested to know whether my mother was the same. My sisters and I have never mentioned it to each other either.

Because it just isn't that interesting.

I don't particularly discuss what it felt like when I had cancer either. Other people's ailments aren't particularly interesting to most people.
When I'm spending time with any of my dc, I've got lots of FAR more interesting things to be talking about than some mild symptoms of aging that I had 10 - 15 years ago.
I know people who have all kids of things that ail them, from an ingrowing toenail to a friend with MND, and one thing that is common to all of them is that they are still people who I laugh with, talk about current affairs with, perhaps analyse the latest sports match with, perhaps sing with, perhaps have a catch up with to do with people we both know or important things that are going on in our lives (job searches, house moves, worries over our jobs or partners or dc or parents, etc). I don't know anyone that wants to spend time talking about a stage of life that affects some people quite a lot, others, a lesser amount, and others barely at all, and certainly is unlikely to happen to the person for many years yet.

I laugh and chat with my friends too. But we also discuss our bodies and health. Personally I don’t find my friend’s health concerns boring at all. I’m sorry if you felt others would think that. Cancer is scary but not boring. Wishing you all the best.

The point is, going through menopause, let alone perimenopause affects everyone differently.
It should be clear in any discussion that it is NOT inevitable that people will suffer any of the symptoms at all, let alone to a degree where it is disabling.

Let's not get to a stage where employers won't want to employ women in their 40s because they have been fed the lie we all become incapable in one way or another as we hit a certain age.

Your experience is valid, but equally, so is the experience of people who haven't had real struggles.

Absolutely nothing. No one talked about anything so personal

Nothing helpful. I heard the phrase 'Going through The Change' amongst older women in the family but it was always spoken in hushed 'ashamed' tones. (For context I'm in my 60s)
As I got older my mum said it meant your periods stopped.
I thought that meant after The Change life would continue on as it had before except you'd be period-free, which sounded good ... little did I know :(
Looking back, many of the women in my family were going through various menopausal traumas but it just wasn't talked about.

Let's not get to a stage where employers won't want to employ women in their 40s because they have been fed the lie we all become incapable in one way or another as we hit a certain age.
Hear, hear.

My mom had hysterectomy when she was 40. We never talked about menopause.😔

My DM had a hysterectomy at 50 after 15 years of horrendous period problems which disrupted our family life. Thrust into surgical menopause and unable to get to an HRT clinic, she had a complete breakdown, became depressed and agoraphobic, my DF absented himself from home and at 15 I had to run the show, looking after the house, her, and my resident grandmother, as well as doing my exams.

It took me a long time to figure out what had happened. These things were simply not spoken about. Not a word. From anybody.

None of it was discussed or even mentioned in a proactive, or informative way. My mum didn’t really even buy me sanitary pads, occasionally a pack might appear in my room, but not as regularly as I needed them. I recall though having a conversation with my mum, when I was maybe 17, about wanting to go on the pill as I had very heavy periods, and my mum being outraged and telling me that I had nothing to moan about, it was just something to accept, and that my Gran suffered in silence despite having a prolapse. 😳

Both my grans suffered significantly with their ‘nerves’ in their 40s and 50s, one to the extent that she was very mentally unwell and had a life changing, almost fatal stroke. The other suffered with severe agoraphobia. Both were, by all accounts, very difficult to live with during middle age, and I think maybe ‘the change’ was alluded to, but never discussed.

My mum has never discussed menopause with me, but my aunt, who’s now in her 60s, did and said she highly recommended HRT after struggling for a while with her ‘nerves’…

I’m in my late 40s now and have been on HRT for about 4 years. I’ve found it massively beneficial, as have most of my friends.

I was well aware of menopause. My mum (hysterectomy in her mid 40s) told me menopause was a hard time for women and it was very important that she go to bed or have a rest every afternoon and talk to her friends on the phone.

Perimenopause wasn't a thing - only heard of it on MN. My own menopause was very easy so I'm not sure what I should be saying to my children.

My grandmother was on tranquillisers for her nerves, as was my mother in law. My mother had years of behaving very strangely. We thought she'd lost her marbles. Looking back, I think was menopause.

I agree with this. Reading menopause / perimenopause threads on MN, if I was an employer I would be desperate to employ as few middle-aged women as possible.