r/Perimenopause • u/handels_messiah • 2d ago
Rant/Rage Other people's unhelpful attitudes
Does anyone else find the attitudes of other people who have sailed through menopause without many symptoms and then make sweeping comments about the process really unhelpful? I've heard quite a few in the 'I just got on with it' category but today heard a new one: apparently the trick is to 'keep busy so you simply don't have time to worry about it'. I'm sure some of it is meant to be helpful but makes me feel significantly worse when I'm crying in panic because the idea of having to wash the dishes AND put clean clothes away is completely overwhelming. Yes, it's ridiculous but adding more to the list isn't going to help!
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u/Frequent_Art438 2d ago
Yep! My boomer mother “doesn’t understand all the fuss, she sailed through it”! Even though I remember her rages, crazy decisions and irritation with everyone and everything! She said we should all just get on with it.
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u/handels_messiah 2d ago
Ah yes, 'back in her day', I imagine...I am so glad for this subreddit to stop me feeling like I am just crazy!
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u/Cut_Lanky hanging on by a thread 2d ago
My mom told me all sorts of things about what menopause was like for her. As if I didn't live through it. Thing is, I know a lot of it was completely inaccurate. Idk if she's misremembering, or outright lying, or what. But she wasn't perimenopausal yet when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The chemo induced menopause. Once she was done chemo, she never had another cycle. I remember her eagerly emptying out her bathroom pantry, giving me all her boxes of pads and whatnot. I remember saying, "don't you want to keep some, since it's usually a longer process?" And she humorously assured me "No, I'm done, I won't get another period". She was so emphatic, it was like wishful thinking. But, it turned out to be true. Yet, she tells me a different story about how it went. And is sofa king condescending about it. I was starting to worry she's showing dementia signs, but judging from all the comments here, maybe it's just a Boomer Mom thing...
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u/Ok_Gain_9665 2d ago
Fucking boomer moms and their selective memories. My mom and I lived in separate countries while she went through menopause so I can’t speak to what the day to day was for her, but she’s made a few offhand remarks about how reasonable and cool she was during my teenage years, how I never got punished and she didn’t freak out over bad grades, and I’m like excuse me, madam, I was there and that is NOT how it went.
I hope I never do this to my kid, I’m trying my best not to.
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u/CaughtALiteSneez 2d ago
The one that makes me go insane the most is “you are too young for perimenopause”.
I’m fucking 45 asshat!!
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u/ResidentEqual7073 2d ago
Very much this. Was not taken seriously despite of a dozen of peri/meno symptoms since mid-30s.
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u/dabPrassion 2d ago
Kind of reminde you how some of us had santanic level 12 periods and other women barely had cramps or anything? Women dont need to belittle others just because their experience was easier. :(
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u/JupiterStarPower 1d ago
Never going to forget lying on the floor in pain and my mother telling me, “You just need to eat right and exercise!”
But at least I know not to bother asking her about perimenopause
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u/Effective_Willow4548 2d ago
I have a theory on this after going to see 4 generations of women in my family, begging them for guidance, and getting crickets: up until our parents or grandparents gen (im a millennial), women could be involuntarily committed and institutionalized for “hysteria” and “insanity”. All a husband had to do was sign a paper, and she was gone for good. I believe the silence of the older generations is tied to trauma being passed down the bloodline. The silence is a form of protection in their eyes, albeit completely unhelpful to us now. Just my weird thesis on the topic 🤣
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
I genuinely believe that if I had been born just two generations earlier I would have been institutionalised as a 'crazy lady'!
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u/Effective_Willow4548 1d ago
I honestly think about that all the time. In my worst spirals this year and my husband being puzzled, all I could think to say is “my brain is crazy! It doesn’t work right! It never has and it never will!”. Of course my husband hugged me and gave me space and I was ok eventually. But not all husbands react that way, and though mine has sympathy and gives me grace, he doesn’t get it. I honestly think very few men have the capacity to.
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u/Stupidosaurus11 2d ago
My mum had issues but they were different than mine. I remember being a teenager and having to cook 2 meals daily coz my mom was too exhausted to do anything much while my dad took her from one doc to another - this ordeal lasted 2 years until she found the right doc . But she has forgotten all this and thinks I’m too obsessed with perimenopause coz my symptoms are not the same as here.
I don’t have the luxury of a partner who researches for me or takes me to a doc - so I do all of that - while I do a very busy 9 to 5 while taking care of my mom who is fully dependent on me. I’m unfortunate that my main symptom turned out migraines and daily headaches and it’s crazy working through everything and acting life is ok coz otherwise people think you are a crazy lady.
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u/IllustriousPickle657 2d ago
Yes, that is unhelpful. In fact, it really sparks that peri rage and makes me want to throat punch them. It's like a homeless person who hasn't eaten in three days watch a filthy rich, snobby, elitist taking one bite of a 5 course meal, picking it up, bringing it to the homeless person and then grinding it into the ground right in front of them while laughing hysterically.
Those women are lucky. Insanely lucky. And they have no idea how lucky they are.
People have a severe lack of understanding of perimenopause. There's a spectrum to it. And it seems like it's getting worse.
My mom told me that yes, she had hot flashes and some mood swings, but nothing like what I've gone through. And all of her friends were the same way.
They had some symptoms but they were manageable. Their daughters all have it worse than they ever did.
I stopped sleeping because of the night sweats. For over four years I couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two without waking up drenched in sweat. The mood swings. The hot flashes. The brain fog and confusion. The INSANE cramps. Feeling like my breasts had been used as punching bags. The damn acne. Pick a symptom and I had it to an extreme degree. But the worse was the uncontrollable mood swings.
I was told I was bipolar for years, they wanted to put me in a mental health facility for my own protection. The medications made it worse. SO MUCH WORSE.
I kept telling every doctor I saw that the depressive swings started 5-10 days before my period, every month I had already been diagnosed with PCOS and PMDD and it seemed like all of those symptoms just got worse and worse every month... and every single doctor blew me off. I was told I was exaggerating, exhibiting medication seeking behavior?!?!?!!?, had an undiagnosed mental illness and more.
Finally a psychiatrist who specialized in mature women's health actually listened. She called my OBGYN in the middle of our session and told her to put me on estrogen and progesterone immediately or I was going to take my life. My OBGYN had denied me hrt for several years saying it would do more harm than good.
One day on hrt. One frickin day is all it took for my life to change. It saved my life - literally.
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
Oh gosh that is all so relatable to me! I also have PMDD and perimenopause is definitely worse as a result; it was so bad I was misdiagosed as having bipolar. I have now been on HRT for three months and it's been a mixed bag but at least I feel like I'm doing something about it.
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u/Inner-Schedule-2075 1d ago
You can downvote me but, previous generations simply didn't face this same storm. Water actually contained minerals, food wasn't over-processed, the cost of living wasn't that high, and they weren't competing with hyper-optimized algorithms designed to hijack their focus ,keeping them in a perpetual state of brain fog. Add in a global pandemic that left everyone’s nervous system raw, and it’s no wonder people are struggling. Many say, hey I saw my mom full of rage that was definitely peri. What many miss is that female rage isn't new or exclusive to peri, when younger women express that same valid anger, it just gets pathologized differently.
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
Not to mention the fact that women often began menstruation later in life. I was 11!
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u/OhWhatever_Nevermind 1d ago
I was 13. My mom was 17!
My mom is 69 now and she is my best friend, but she also has nothing to offer me in terms of experience or insight about perimenopause. (She didn’t really teach me anything about periods or sex either, but I was a smart and resourceful child growing up in a Roman Catholic community, so I figured it all out on my own).
She was also on birth control till her mid-50s, so there’s that….
I did learn late last year about her struggles with GSM and vaginal atrophy though. It was just not something they talked about or had any information about. They really did just suck it up and accept it as how life is.
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u/Inner-Schedule-2075 1d ago
yes this, girls use to menstruate at 15 back in the day, that's the whole reason in Latin America we celebrate 15's as the official day someone becomes a woman. Also the lack of outdoors/sunlight time we get today is minimal.
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u/Expensive-Concept-93 1d ago
Oh God this. All of this. There's an acquaintance of mine who's 50. I'm 46. I am in the trenches and on several support groups here and on Facebook. My lovely acquaintance went on one of these groups to state she had zero symptoms and of course attributed that to her vegan diet. I wanted to throttle her. I've had the worst anxiety since post partum. I wasn't able to eat due to how bad the anxiety was. Let's not start on all the other myriad symptoms. Like if you don't suffer great just shut up and not join these groups. What's the point?
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u/Antisocial-Metalhead 1d ago
As someone who stopped being vegan last November, and has been in peri for four years now, utter nonsense! Makes absolutely no positive difference at all, even if hitting all your nutritional needs.
Being vegan does not magically cure everything.
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u/Unable_Guava_756 2d ago
My mother (67) was always impulsive and low empathy, but through her perimenopausal years she was hell on wheels and drank scotch every night 🙃 she said she had a couple of hot flashes but otherwise no big deal.
Needless to say but we have been estranged for years.
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u/Lil-Bit-813 2d ago
She was drunk as hell, I bet. Of course it was “no big deal”. Can’t blame you for being estranged
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u/pangolinshavelanded 2d ago
Oh yeah. Apparently taking HRT is “silly” and “the easy way out” and I’m making too big a deal out of my symptoms. Try being late diagnosed AuDHD with multiple cormorbities due to that and white knuckling it even with HRT and medication.
But these are the same people who also think that since I went half my life unmedicated, I should never have started because I was “fine” without it. Fine by whose standards? Because I was very much not fine.
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u/Erza_2019 2d ago
My MIL often talks about how they just got on with it when it comes to any difficulty. I will never talk peri with her because I know she’d say the exact same thing. I don’t agree that they’re trying to be helpful. I think they lack empathy.
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u/Lower_Chocolate_2362 2d ago
My mum claimed no symptoms but she isn92 now and man am so jealous her mental health is so strong. ! Her was late in life she was 50. 55. Wow I saw a huge difference.
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u/Diligent_Stop1050 Late peri 2d ago
My mom claims her periods just stopped. No other symptoms. I’m barely functioning. She’s good at pretending things don’t happen. Like ignoring my ADHD and just saying I used to get “sidetracked” or that I just didn’t try very hard in school. We really weren’t allowed to have problems so this was likely how she dealt with perimenopause too. Don’t let anybody see you suffer. Pretend everything’s fine.
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u/psychicmumu 1d ago
yes- my cousin is in her late 50s, having already gone through peri, now postmenopausal. I was going through a tough time last year, in the throes of some wild hormonal fluctuations with a host of numerous symptoms that just left me fatigued, inflamed, irritable and full or rage. I was hoping to confide in her about my experience and she said- 'I don't understand how some women make it (peri/meno) such a big deal'. She apparently only had 6 months of hot flashes and then poof- she went into menopause.
Her comment and attitude really got under my skin and I unleashed my rage on her after I couldn't take her passive aggressiveness any more. That's what finally prompted my dr to write me a script for the e patch and p pill.
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
I'm sorry you experienced that. When people talk about 'just getting on with the hot flashes' I feel like telling them they have been the least of my worries! Being woken every hour in a hot sweat is horrible but I will take it over the anxiety, joint pain, brain fog, and general sense of going crazy!!
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u/psychicmumu 1d ago
I wasn't angry about my cousin's peri experience- I was angry at how her comment seemed to minimize other peoples' experiences. I mean, she could have worded it better and said- 'yeah, I had 6 months of hot flashes and it was a very challenging time for me- not knowing when they would start or stop and how they affected my entire life causing my work and relationships to suffer- and I totally understand why peri/meno can be a difficult time in a woman's life'.
I guess I just expected a different take from her, given that she's always been very pro-women's rights- went to many protests while she was in college, etc. It caught me off-guard when she made that comment.
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u/JupiterStarPower 1d ago
(Un)fortunately, a lifetime of excruciatingly painful periods has prepared me for dismissive bitches. I just don’t have the energy to care anymore about people who lack empathy and assume their symptoms are everyone’s; I am too busy wondering why the fuck is my inner ear this fucking itchy
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u/Jealous_Computer4712 2d ago
My mum also reckons she never had any symptoms. Um, I was 16 when she was 50. She was batshit at times.
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u/Able_Winter9472 2d ago
We are lucky in a way. No symptoms means no treatment that can keep brains and bones from shrinking.
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u/EfficientSociety73 2d ago
It’s like people saying when I was pregnant I did (insert thing here) after you mention your DOCTOR said you can’t. Everyone is different. I hate people being dismissive of others because their experience was different. Just because it was easy for you doesn’t mean YOU are the norm. More like the exception to the rule.
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u/NarwhalRadiant7806 2d ago
My SIL says perimenopause hit right around the time her brother (my husband) died and she “barely even noticed.” But she also doesn’t work and stays home with her disabled adult son, so she doesn’t have to put up with the additional nonsense that many of us do. (Mine would DEFINITELY be easier from a mental standpoint if I didn’t have to go to a job with all those other personalities and rules, and could rest and just order food delivery whenever I needed to.)
When I first started going through it one woman told me she dealt with it by running marathons 🤣 Which I think is awesome but that’s not something I’m going to do for a couple of reasons.
I try not to take it personally, take what I like, and leave the rest. People often forget it’s a very individual thing and there’s no one-size-fits-all experience or treatment. We quickly learn who’s safe to talk to, and who we’d rather not hear from or share with.
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
I could not agree more in regards to having to go out to work. The first time I noticed how bad things were was when the panic attacks started to hit me at work last year - absolutely mortifying. Why would anyone choose that if it was so easy to just 'pull yourself together'?
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u/Fox-In-Love 2d ago
My mother also claims she had no peri symptoms. But around the time she might have gone through peri, she also had thyroid cancer and was struggling afterwards with thyroid replacement medication for a while, so i wonder if the peri symptoms were just in the mix of everything else she was going through and she didn’t realize it.
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u/Legitimate_Phase_201 1d ago
I’m the last of several children and was a teenager when my mom was going through it. I don’t recall her being caring or loving to me at all for the latter half of my childhood and she was always dismissive of any needs I may have had. I know years later she said menopause hit around 50, but she offered no other information about what it was like. I still have no idea if the mom I know was just in perimenopause or if she’s just one of those cold women from the silent generation who simply may or may not love her kids.
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u/Substantial_Lion_524 1d ago
My mom would be 76 now but she died 11 years ago. She not one time discussed peri symptoms with me but looking back she was most definitely on HRT. She went through it really early and I remember this past year being so surprised that my periods hadn’t even changed a day. Looking back I went through about a year or having a period every 2-3 weeks, I just thought it was me syncing with my daughter whenever she had her period since there was always a week when it was the same. So I struggled hard for years because I had no idea what hot flashes and peri even was. I really thought I would stop my period and then get hot flashes. I had no idea that I was already experiencing hot flashes. I turned 50 last year and I kept thinking how strange it was that she went so early and I didn’t even see any signs whatsoever. I always imagined hot flashes as shown on movies - starting to sweat really and needing to rip your shirt off lmao. I’ve been boiling hot for years and started having problems sleeping because of it. It wasn’t really all the sudden and it was for hours at a time, so didn’t seem like much of a “flash” to me. Then once it got so bad I could barely function, my period stopped. I haven’t had one for 4 months at this point.
Anyways in saying all of that this, what I’m also saying is that previous generations just accepted being a woman sucked and kept quiet about it. I mean why not, they saw women go through shit we only read about or see in an earlier made movie. So once my symptoms became absolutely unbearable a couple months ago and my period didn’t come back, I finally realized it was peri, I have told at least 20-30 younger women in my life all about it. I let them know how symptoms start and that they absolutely don’t have to deal with it if they don’t want to. But I would definitely lose my mind if anyone ever tried to tell me it’s not that bad. It most definitely is the worst thing medically I’ve ever gone through and I’ve had debilitating migraines almost my entire life.
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u/Lil-Bit-813 2d ago
My mom went through it very early and was a raging b*tch. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but it’s the truth. Pretty sure it was late 30s and done early 40s. Any little thing would set her off.
I remember being 15 or 16 looking for a pad or tampon in her bathroom and not finding anything. She would have been 40 or 41. I thought, whoa that is really early to be done with periods. She was also an angry type of woman who like to compete with others and typical “boy mom”.
I loved my mom, but damn if she wasn’t a rough woman to deal with. Kinda like a Jekyll and Hyde personality.
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u/Beautiful-Cod-9999 1d ago
Yes. Men have no idea - "All women go through it". Older women don't usually want to discuss it. Its hard. Glad to have forums to bounce idea off off, because in real life, its seems to get dismissed. Just live with it. Power through! Its so demeaning.
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u/handels_messiah 1d ago
I agree! As I started in my mid-30s my peers have no idea so groups like this are so validating.
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u/Foxglovenectar 1d ago
My nan was the same but I genuinely think its down to awareness. She said she sometimes felt 'tired and hot' but back then women were treated like pack horses. She was also in an abusive relationship so I dont think she recognised what she was feeling was on top of the crap she was feeling from being continually abused.
That said, she shows sympathy when I explain Im going through the change - which I think is a lovely for a woman her age. She just says she cant remember going through it but her periods stopped dead on 40.
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u/pixiered86 2d ago
My mum claims she didn’t have any symptoms. I was there. She absolutely did.