For me, the complete loss of ability to have sex AT 47 was the clincher.
I booked a 9am Monday appointment with one of the female GPs at the practice and walked out with a prescription before she'd woken up. I remember the trepidation before I took the first pill that night - would it help? Would there be foul side effects?
I sh1t you not ladies, the cloud lifted and I felt normal and human again within half an hour, before I was even in bed. A working sex life within weeks. Madness and depression gone.
My regular (male) GP started muttering about how long (OR NOT) I might stay on it, though, so I see
the new female GP at the practice, who is more pragmatic, to renew my prescription.
The last few years I had a senior job, I had both parents die and other elderly relatives have had health problems. Thank god I didn't have to go through that without HRT (i.e. without sex or sanity!).
I don't dismiss breast cancer; I had a friend who died of it, and others who have had it and had to stop HRT. But I drink very little and there's evidence suggesting that reduces the risk...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1049386799000262
I am now in the "you'll take it from my cold dead hands" crowd and hope to stay on it until DH & I are both too infirm to care about sex (hopefully v v old!).
When men are facing complete impotence in their 40s & 50s we know it's treated differently...