Did perimenopause make you braver, or just less willing to pretend?

[KarensaP]

I’m in my early 50s and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.
For years I was the agreeable one. I said yes when I meant no, I smoothed things over, and I laughed at things that weren’t funny. Then somewhere in my mid-40s, my tolerance for all of it just... went. Some days I put it down to hormones. Other days I wonder if the hormones just took away the energy I’d been using to keep up the act.
I’ve spent a lot of my working life around people who are very ill, and I’ve noticed that most of them don’t talk about the things they achieved. They talk about the conversations they never had, the things they put up with for too long, and who they spent their energy on.
So I’m curious:

• Was there a moment you realised you’d stopped putting up with something?
• Do you think it’s the hormones, the age, or the fact that you finally have the clarity?
• What’s one thing you’ve stopped apologising for?
• Has anyone around you struggled with the “new you”? Or did they cheer?

I’m not looking for a right answer. I’d just love to hear how it’s been for other women.

I've noticed ive got very loose lips now !!!

I'm in menopause now - late 40s - but I really wish this was me. I think I was much more ballsy in my 20s.

I think it's a combination of a lot of things. My people pleasing days are truly done. I no longer leap in to cover an awkward silence or provide a convenient out to a hard question. Mostly this is because I stopped feeling responsible for everyone else's fuck ups. Life experience, the stage of my career and hormones all play a part in that. It feels like a massive improvement.

All of the above.
I just don't care about people's nonsense anymore.
I have a zero tolerance level of it.

It's made me stropier, more willing and able to speak up for myself and others, and braver in some ways, more willing to go off and do something or travel on my own, but also much more anxious and more of a worrier.

This, all of this.