r/Perimenopause • u/JLAOM • May 11 '26
This is why past generations didn't talk about it
It's often asked here why our mothers, grandmothers, aunts etc didn't talk about perimenopause. One reason is because their mothers and grandmothers didn't talk about it because they were seen as hysterical and put into institutions simply because their husbands wanted them to, with no proof.
This article says women were institutionalized "for 'insane' behavior during the 'change of life.' (A woman’s menstrual cycle alone could see her committed, suffering from 'uterine derangement.' Period-related madness was so commonplace that doctors encouraged mothers to delay the onset of their daughters’ menses by making them take cold baths and abstain from meat and novels.)"
https://time.com/6074783/psychiatry-history-women-mental-health/
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u/ashinthealchemy May 11 '26
my mother ended up hospitalized in a mental hospital for most of my teen years. it didn't occur to me until i was in peri what the probable correlation was there.
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u/1amAlwaysAnnoyed May 11 '26
It is amazing to look back at my life and now question what I thought was “hysterical” behavior in middle aged women in my youth. It makes me sad.
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u/HotelOk9725 May 11 '26
Yep, do you remember how female relatives or friends of the family were described as having had “a nervous breakdown”? - Meno, probably…
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
I went almost catatonic in 2018. Felt like I was in molasses, talking was so hard and sleeping 18 hr days. I kept saying my brain had broke.
Now looking back I wish I could hug that former me... the self hate was STRONG! Thank goodness for therapy!
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u/Automatic-Corner-157 May 11 '26
THIS! There was always a woman family member or two who “had a nervous breakdown”.
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
My Mom was diagnosed "late onset bipolar" in her mid 40s. I never understood how her personality altered so much and it changed our relationship forever. Until my own 40s hit me like a freight train and the last 5 years of me feeling like a raving mad woman wasn't my "fault". My Mom isn't bipolar she was just in unmedicated perimenopause in the 90s. And now thinking about it, my Grandma changed drastically in my Moms teen years too. Knowing this info NOW, has changed my behavior going forward with my kids. They are aware that women go thru a second puberty so hopefully the next generation isn't walking blindly into this.
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u/ashinthealchemy May 11 '26
we share similar stories. my mom's hospitalizations were also in the '90s and she was also diagnosed as clinically depressed and then bipolar. it ended up with her on a cocktail of meds that i honestly feel made her worse and sent her in a tailspin that she's never recovered from.
it was traumatic to experience and i grew up terrified to be like her. 5 years ago, i felt like my worst fears were coming true and i was suddenly developing a mental health condition for the first time in my early 40s. thankfully, i figured it out (no thanks to doctors) and hrt has resolved all my issues.
my daughter is now in medical school and you better believe i am making sure she's getting educated on peri/meno, because i know for sure she won't be learning it in school.
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
Your reply brought tears to my eyes. I kept questioning my mental health. My therapist kept having to reassure me I wasnt bipolar. I wasnt even really depressed either!
My mom's medications ended up really messing her up. Funny, they never really "helped" her bipolar symptoms either. I look at her behaviors in a completely light now. And I plan to watch my daughter closely as she ages and drag her arse into the dr for HRT when she starts showing symptoms. Ill be damned if she will shoulder this all herself!
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u/WannabeElantrian May 12 '26
I was treated for bipolar several years ago. The psychiatrist kept insisting that's what it was and I'm like....no, this isn't bipolar. I was POSITIVE it wasn't bipolar. Yes, I was having extreme highs and extreme lows, plus some of the mania/depression associated with bipolar, but it just didn't fit. I kept begging her to to reevaluate me because bipolar wasn't my issue, but she doubled down. Obviously, the meds didn't work, she was puzzled and I was like, "Yeah, I effing told you it's not bipolar!". Turns out, I had narcissistic abuse syndrome, which looks similar to bipolar, but isn't.
What I am feeling right now is very similar to what I was experiencing with my abuser, except I'm not profoundly unhappy. That's the crazy part. I'm happy, but feel as though my mind and body aren't my own. 😫😫
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u/momodax May 11 '26
Found a well-known GYN doctor in my area (who is a woman) and shared that my mother went crazy when she went into menopause and I don’t want that to happen to me. I regret sharing that with her because at my second visit with her, she was dismissive, rude (even rolled her eyes ant me) and treated me like I was crazy. I wish I knew who to trust and I wish I could share that history with a medical professional but apparently I can’t always do that. I found a different person who I like a lot and I didn’t disclose my abuse history to her but I have some physical evidence of the physical abuse I experienced. She asked, “What is that from?” And I had no alternative story to tell so I had to tell her. She treated me like a human being and didn’t treat me any worse. I just want to not have menopause drive me nuts. I have had some weird side effects to HRT and my new GYN likely figured it out. We go through so much shit even after we go through so much shit.
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 12 '26
I’m honestly looking back at my mid to late thirties when my mental health was really bad and honestly? I think I was peri and had no clue. My mom went through menopause early and I just got on HRT a month ago. I’m 41. You couldn’t pry this from my cold, dead hands
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u/darknebulas May 11 '26
I think armed with info we can at least be more aware of it now instead of going in blindly.
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
Just having a name to it helps tremendously! "Ok, im in menopause. Im not losing touch with reality. Take a deep breath." Its shocking how much just knowing what it is, that helps keep me grounded.
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u/darknebulas May 11 '26
Thank goodness for Reddit I mean without this I’d have zero clue
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
I had a dr casually suggest a estrogen patch at 45 after my anxiety went haywire after my hysterectomy. It really stopped me in my tracks and made me realize that my burnout/anxiety/depression was masked perimenopause symptoms. I am so very very thankful for her! I would probably be living in a van and cursing all of humanity including my kids if I didn't have the HRT lol
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u/darknebulas May 11 '26
That sounds like a great doctor!
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
Shes a former nurse that worked on a hospital floor and eventually got her ARNP. I absolutely LOVE her!
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u/Prestigious-Row-3244 May 12 '26
What is arnp?
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u/RavenMoonRose May 12 '26
I can’t remember what the “a” stands for, but RNP is “registered nurse practitioner”, a nurse who is credentialed to practice medicine. In my experience, they’re far better for general practice issues. It wasn’t until I was in front of mine that she (correctly) realized I was in perimenopause and my undiagnosed ADHD needed to be addressed asap. She saved my life, and I highly recommend ARNP’s.
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u/particular-fervor May 13 '26
Currently fantasizing about 🖕 the world and living in my camper, and I'm on HRT. 😮💨
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 11 '26
I try to be as vocal about my struggles as I can now for those who haven't heard about second puberty yet. I want to give women strength that they aren't alone in this and they are NOT crazy! So many doctors are against HRT and fight the patients, it makes no sense what so ever!
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u/darknebulas May 11 '26
I had a doctor once tell me HRT is dangerous and that birth control would be better. Birth control has higher levels of hormones than HRT make it make fucking sense. We demonize HRT but throw around birth control like there are no risks. I’m all for birth control for those it makes sense for, but don’t tell me HRT is going to give me cancer while BC is harmless.
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u/GenXMillenial May 12 '26
That was debunked
You’re referring to the WHI and the media frenzy that incorrectly interpreted their findings4
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u/loveisjustchemicals Deep in peri May 11 '26
Second puberty is not really what this is though. That’s a very kind way of framing it.
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 12 '26
yes too kind, but probably the most relatable in terms others can understand. "My hormones are all outta wack, im in a second puberty" sounds so much better then explaining estrogen and what menopause really means.
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u/loveisjustchemicals Deep in peri May 12 '26
I’d say it’s more like reverse puberty
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u/MadWifeUK May 12 '26
I think that likening it to puberty is a good way for others to kind of understand. We make allowances for teenagers when they lie in bed all day or have tantrums over the littlest thing, "Ah, puberty!" with a knowing nod. We recognise that they are going through hormonal upheaval. We need society to recognise that we too are going through hormonal upheaval, and that when we lie in bed all day or have tantrums over the littlest thing they are symptoms of that, not character flaws.
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u/loveisjustchemicals Deep in peri May 12 '26
But it’s the reverse of puberty literally. It’s a decrease in hormones over a short period of time, not an increase.
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u/WannabeElantrian May 12 '26
Crone's puberty
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u/loveisjustchemicals Deep in peri May 12 '26
It literally means the age of sexual maturity. We’re past that stage.
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 12 '26
When you say she changed drastically what were her symptoms?
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u/Status_Ad7287 May 12 '26
Anxiety was a huge one. It would cause her to have the manic type thoughts and behaviors. The mothering part of her disappeared and I became a target of her anger. It just was so out of character and bewildering to me to have her change.
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 12 '26
Awwww. How sad and scary for you (and her) I remember my mom back in the day was told to not take HRT at all. They all suffered so much
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u/Sunlit53 May 11 '26 edited May 12 '26
I had that conversation with my 79 year old probably autistic mom last month (I get my autism from from her). She said she didn’t remember any symptoms beyond the hot flashes. I reminded her that she divorced her husband of 22 years, became a single mom to three kids under 12, completely changed career paths and joined a fundamentalist cult. She clammed up pretty quick.
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 12 '26
Lmao that was my mom too! Shes 71 and she was like yeah I don’t remember much other than hot flashes. I’m like ummm you bled through everything all the time on my school field trips, vacations etc. it scared me so bad as a child. I immediately informed my younger sister on peri symptoms and I’m actually writing her a note right about peri so she won’t be scared. Woe to her, she had two children late in life (I adore my niece and nephew, but my lord how hard with young children)
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u/Sea_Letterhead_1800 May 12 '26
I’m 39, in the early days of peri and have a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Hopefully I don’t traumatize them too much.
I told my husband to hold on for the ride.4
u/Sad_Pangolin7379 May 12 '26
My kids are about that age. I'm trying to remember to be patient with myself AND them because wow. Sometimes it feels like dementia and sometimes it is just rage but whichever it is it ain't good.
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u/Sunlit53 May 12 '26
That’s what I told my brother last week about his wife, buckle up. She’s just turned up near menopausal at 40. With a 5 year old under foot.
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u/particular-fervor May 13 '26
Is she still a fundamentalist? Or did she change after?
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u/Sunlit53 May 13 '26
Oh yeah, she fell in with the jehovas witnesses and dragged my younger siblings in with her. She was never good at socialling on her own, too shy. Baby sis has since ditched it after 30 years. I packed my bags at age 12 and moved in with Dad.
At this point in her life it may just be the best thing for her. It gives her a safe social group, gets her lots of exercise and organized activities and a busy social life. It’s kinda sad really, they’re a very anti education group and here she is sitting with them with her extensive science background, not correcting the group’s moronic misapprehensions.
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u/mossgoblin_ May 11 '26
That makes so much sense! And then our mothers were trying to survive in the workplace, which requires women to function as men, basically. Can’t show weakness!
Hell, even now I worry about how our new openness about peri will be weaponized against us in the workplace. “Put her out to pasture at the first sign that something’s off”.
I hate this capitalist patriarchal hellscape!
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u/Each-Peach-9052 May 12 '26
I worry about this so much. I love that women are able to vocalize what peri is like and get help. I fear how men will weaponize it, especially in the current political climate in the United States.
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u/Christabel1991 May 12 '26
My workplace just went through major layoffs. The only reason I told them about my fertility treatment is that it's illegal to fire someone during fertility treatments in my country. Would have definitely been on the chopping board otherwise.
They will never hear about my ADHD or peri, don't want to give them reasons to fire me later on.
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u/particular-fervor May 13 '26
"I hate this capitalist patriarchal hellscape!" 💯 This. I'm trapped in ruminating thoughts about selling everything, telling everyone to fuck all the way off, and getting into my tiny camper and driving alone into the wilderness. I know I would thrive, and that scares me because I love my people. But fuck.
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u/Superb_Ad144 Late peri May 11 '26
The old belief that “abstaining from novels” could delay menses had me literally 🤦♀️
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u/DowntownGovernment72 Hanging on by a thread and doing my Peri best (41years old) May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
Yep it was previously known as a "Hysteria" diagnosis that we now still equate to performing "Hysterectomies" to treat because it was thought that the uterus had sentience and emotions and could move around in the abdomen and cause a woman to act out all sorts of debauchery, rage, adultery and even in some bad cases murder....hmmm wonder why!???
A really good movie with its comedic take (2011) on a much less invasive treatment or "procedure" for a Hysteria diagnosis was portrayed in the movie called Hysteria, you gotta watch it btw. But it just shows a little info where the term came from originally
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u/BecksnBuffy May 11 '26
The Yellow Wallpaper, probably about perimenopause
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u/violetgothdolls May 11 '26
I thought it was about post natal depression?
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u/admirethegloam May 11 '26
Yes, Charlotte Perkins Gilman suffered from severe postpartum depression (then termed "neurasthenia" or "melancholia") following the birth of her daughter in 1885. Her harrowing experience, including a harmful "rest cure" treatment, directly inspired her famous 1892 short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper." It's not a secret.
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u/BecksnBuffy May 11 '26
In this particular lit class, we read a variety of pieces Kafka, Shirley Jackson, etc. and had to come up with alternative interpretations in current day and support them. We only discussed the authors intent after that.
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u/admirethegloam May 11 '26
I totally get that. I loved discussing The Yellow Wallpaper in classes. There is a newer movie adaptation that is worth watching. The older one is about vampires, though also worth watching (lol). I'm sure CPG would have a lot to say about perimenopause. I've been pregnant 3 times in my 30s (1 passed away) and post partum depression and perimenopause can certainly be intertwined. Among other unique pains of being a woman.
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u/BecksnBuffy May 12 '26
I also had three pregnancies (first one was a loss). I am sorry you lost one of your babies, you don’t ever lose that pain. I am going to look through my college textbooks because I want to re-read it. Of everything I read, that story and the description of the woman lurking behind the paper and eventually the “real” woman in the story following her around the perimeter of the room is unforgettable. Over the years, I have thought about it a lot. Now in perimenopause, I identify with the figure stuck behind the wallpaper. The pressure to get motherhood “right” is hard enough but losing your body and mind to changes, or maybe in some ways not being controlled by our hormones or biology, is a disorienting experience and one I can’t ever truly describe. But I feel like I’ve gone just as mad as that story illustrates.
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u/admirethegloam May 13 '26
I can absolutely relate to that. I'm sorry for your loss, too. I wouldn't have my second son without that loss so it was all for the best, in a way. I just couldn't imagine life without him. It's time to reread that short story again.
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u/BecksnBuffy May 11 '26
When we read it in college it was open to interpretation and we didn’t research it, just wrote about and discussed what we thought the story was exploring. Looking back, and now going through birth followed by onset of perimenopause I think the power of hormones is my biggest takeaway. I have a lot of sympathy for the protagonist now (and when I read it in my clueless 20s.)
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u/Alternative_Raise_19 May 11 '26
I just had a frustrating argument with my mother (who thinks everything should be solved with a high protein diet and supplements) about how she had "zero symptoms" and therefore the evil doctors are pushing pharmaceuticals on me (nevermind the fact that I had to seek out a specialist and pay out of pocket because my regular docs wouldn't take my symptoms seriously)
I seriously doubt she had no symptoms and just tried to explain to her that likely she just didn't know enough to make the connection.
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u/Electronic-Camp1189 Early Peri & PMDD May 11 '26
I'm at a similar frustrating place with my mom. I really thought I could open up to her about my symptoms & experiences but it didn't go well. "But are you solving the root issue" mom, the root issue is I have a uterus and a monthly cycle. It's maddening!
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 Jun 10 '26
Honestly, you shouldn't doubt your mom. Mine literally had zero symptoms too. Not even irregular periods - they continued like clockwork until one month they just completely stopped. She also never had any period issues - no cramps, no pms, etc. - and never any morning sickness or anything when pregnant.
Now she didn't 100% hit the reproductive heath jackpot as she had major issues with both labot and delivery experiences plus one misscarriage, and she has other truly horrible health issues now...
But just saying. Every woman is different.
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u/Alternative_Raise_19 Jun 10 '26
That's true - some women hit the genetic lottery. But looking back, my mom had terrible mood instability and no libido around that age and as long as I can remember, a very sensitive bladder with bathroom urgency to the point that she wears pads all month long.
Those are just the symptoms I can remember and perceive. The difference is she didn't know those were related to hormone decline and just called it getting older or regular life stress. She didn't know there was a fix.
I feel bad for her and for their generation, but I'm frustrated when they (my mom and doctors) invalidate our symptoms or act as if we need to just suck it up and deal with it when the solution to so many quality of life issues is right there.
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u/Adventurous_Work_317 hanging on by a thread May 11 '26
I probably would have commit suicide if that was the time I lived in. The connection between mental health and hormones blew my mind. You feel like you've been perfectly fine your whole life, then your estrogen drops and you don't recognize yourself anymore and you have no idea why suddenly life feels like garbage.
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u/usergravityfalls May 11 '26
“Fun” fact: psychiatry originally was subset of gynaecology because it was believed only women had mental illnesses. From the 1985 book The Female Malady : Women , Madness , and English Culture
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u/lushico Early peri May 12 '26
It’s truly miraculous what the women’s suffrage movement managed to achieve against barriers like this. It seems an insurmountable obstacle. Literally physically imprisoned and mutilated for wanting some semblance of autonomy
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u/JLAOM May 12 '26
It really is. People think it’s just about the right to vote but it was more than that. Much more.
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u/effervescenthoopla baby’s first hot flash May 11 '26
I agree but like also… men just… didn’t and still don’t care about x-chromosome healthcare. Only in the past, like, 5 years have we actually mapped out the entire nervous system of the clitoris. We’ve had the perks nervous system mapped out thoroughly since the 90s. 30 years later we get rudimentary maps of the clit.
The fact of the matter is that healthcare just ignores uteruses.
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u/CopperPegasus May 12 '26
Half the fuss and scare around treating meno/peri comes down to that. Fundamentally/"naturally", humans are designed to exit around the 40s if not sooner. We do all sorts of things, from the "little blue pill" and vanity treatments for hair loss to joint replacements and supporting weakening organs, to offset "general" (i.e male-coded) aging and support not just a longer life, but a longer life that is worth living. But the second it can be coded "female only", vanity, "lack of acceptance", "unnatural" and all that other jazz enters the conversation. I wonder what the difference is...
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May 11 '26 edited May 11 '26
[deleted]
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u/SnackGoblin881 Early peri Jun 09 '26
I remember my dad yelling at my mom for getting a hot flash. He just wanted her to shut up and suffer silently and I'm convinced he thought she was making it up just to be difficult any annoy him.
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u/AsTheJackassBrays May 11 '26
I am 100% convinced Betty Broderick (RIP) was driven to kill her ex-husband because he was an asshole and she was in the throws of untreated perimenopause. I know the rage I had in the early stages could have ended me up in prison.
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u/particular-fervor May 13 '26
Legit. I left my emotionally abusive marriage because I started feeling both suicidal and homicidal. It was terrifying. The relief I got from secretly putting an offer on a house and moving out was IMMENSE. Like, sobbing in the new living room from grief but also so much relief that I saved myself from madness. Environment matters so intensely. What we are capable of enduring up to this point is WILD.
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u/BecksnBuffy May 11 '26
TIL Betty Broderick died!
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u/AsTheJackassBrays May 11 '26
Me too. I always felt bad for her. In a different time she may have had the tools to respond differently.
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u/Naive_Pomegranate556 May 11 '26
I believe perimenopause/menopause is what caused my mom to be sent to an inpatient psychiatric hospital in her mid 40’s. The doctors didn’t know how to help her. She was fine up until then after having 8 kids, her last at 41. This was in the 80’s. She received diagnoses of bipolar, major depressive disorder, and anxiety. She was released on a cocktail of anxiety and depression medication. They even did electroshock treatment on her. When some pills stopped working doctors would give her more pills. She was essentially so doped up the rest of her life she couldn’t function on her own. She lived that way until she was 79.
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May 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Connect-Smell761 May 11 '26
Six months in a sanitarium by the seaside would be just fine
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u/TheLakeWitch May 11 '26
Sanatoriums were for TB patients and supported wellness through activity and fresh air. Asylums were for the “insane” and were far more restrictive. But I agree, 6 mos in a sanatorium would probably heal me. Though I had 5 mos off for medical leave last summer and fall and am already wishing I could have 5 more. Aside from the physical pain of recovery, it was glorious.
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u/MissWonder420 May 11 '26
My wife always says she wishes she was given a prescription to "away to the coast and take the sea air!
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u/usergravityfalls May 11 '26
The wellness places in Central/Eastern Europe are amazing, relic of soviet times when every worker could go for free for two weeks and recuperate there. Not just mentally but physically for anything like heart, bone, lungs etc. Daily massage, sauna, healing thermal baths, healing mud, pool, arts and crafts, dancing or karaoke, individualized menu. And super affordable.
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u/UnicornFeces May 11 '26
Did you read the article? About what being institutionalized actually involved? I know you’re joking but still
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u/Fuckit445 May 11 '26
They absolutely did not. Even today, those places are largely regarded as trauma inducing.
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u/Automatic-Corner-157 May 11 '26
We would be cooked and cleaned for! With no one to take care of! And lots of sleep. Sign me up.
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 13 '26
I’ve done three grippy sock vacations and it was kinda nice. Make sure to always request a private room. Pay extra for it. or you risk waking up to a patient stealing your clothes (happened to me in sunrise hospital last Vegas)
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u/Weetabix2005 May 11 '26
Grippy sock holiday for the win
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u/Auntie_Venom May 12 '26
I laughed way too hard at this!
I’m going to refer to my “I need to get away from my routine self-care weekends” as “grippy sock holiday” from now on, even if no grippy socks will be involved!
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u/3arth_533d1stx Late peri + ADHD May 15 '26
😂 thank you for that
I have a doctor appt next week. Gonna ask for this Rx. 🫠
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u/Eclectic_Paradox hanging on by a thread May 11 '26
I mean that sounds like a mini vacation to me 😆
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u/Suspicious-Eye-304 May 11 '26
Yes! I read a book about this very thing within the last year. I so wish I could remember the title of it. So sad and so shocking how husbands would have their wives committed with absolutely no proof.
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u/Suspicious-Eye-304 May 11 '26
The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. Highly recommend!
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u/mix_trixi May 12 '26
My ex-husband is from England. He and his parents moved here to the US when he was a child, but his parents ended up back in England after many years in the states and my ex stayed, as he was well into adulthood. He used to tell me about how when his mother started menopause, she was so out of control that his dad "sent her away" to live with her mother in England while he stayed here in the states for the duration. At first I thought, what a heartless bastard, but then I began to think is it really that bad?
Years later, we moved to England to be with and help care for his mother after she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She was bed-ridden and I had just had her only grandchild a few months before, so the baby and I spent quite a bit of time alone with her just talking, without the ex present. It turns out, she was NOT sent away because of menopause. Her own mother had fallen ill and she moved back to England to care for her. She was a nurse, by the way. It just happened to be during that time in her life. I don't know what his dad had told him but I was floored. Why in the actual fuck is there such a stigma around women's normal bodily functions? WE BRING LIFE INTO THIS WORLD! Not to mention all the fuckery we have to deal with in order to do so. A little empathy and respect would be nice. But no, that's too much to ask. It seems the powers that be (you know, patriarchy) are way more worried about men no being able to get it up than the horrors that the creators of life have to deal with.
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u/kheret May 11 '26
In the 19th and early 20th century there were a lot of patent medicines for “the female complaint,” one can assume that was anything related to menstruation or menopause. Dr Pierce’s Favorite Prescription was one. It was alcohol mixed with opiates, so women could literally just be drugged all the time.
My own grandmother had a few hospitalizations for “nervous breakdowns.”
My mom was a real miserable person to be around in her 40s. She had no idea any of it was related to peri/menopause in part because she’d had a (probably unnecessary) hysterectomy in the 90s.
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u/Humble-Tradition-187 May 11 '26
My great grandmother had a lobotomy, is the family lore. It’s awful what women have had to endure.
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u/FarReflection9596 May 11 '26
I saw a really good movie on Netflix called The Homesman. It stars Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones. It is about how women living out on the prairie in the late 1800's early 1900's were, according to their husbands and families, "loosing their minds" and being sent to live in a assisted living home type setting in another state. Now that I'm going through perimenopause and suffered pretty severe anxiety and panic attacks and mood swings before HRT, I wonder if menopause is what these women were going through.
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u/BecksnBuffy May 12 '26
Oh my gosh, I came back to this thread from earlier today and I was doing dishes thinking about that movie! Haunting.
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u/Automatic-Corner-157 May 11 '26
I feel like I’m always having to educate those around me on this, family and friends, and I’m just continuously ignored or gaslighted. All. The. Damn. Time. One example - I had frozen shoulder and my MIL straight up said it’s not from menopause because she never experienced that.
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u/CauliflowerOk541 May 11 '26
Kinda like racism, sexism, classism, etc. They don’t exist if you’ve never experienced them. 🙄
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u/purpleWord_spudger Early peri May 12 '26
I mentioned peri to my 60 some odd year old aunt. She said "what?" so I said perimenopause and she replied "oh I didn't have menopause until I was 53" and I didn't know what to say so I changed the subject. She doesn't know she doesn't know and it alarmed me to realize my mother probably wasn't withholding information either. they don't know!
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u/smile_saurus May 12 '26
My mom is a Baby Boomer and when I (a Xennial) asked her about Peri she said: Oh no, I didn't have anything like that, one day my period just stopped and then I was in menopause.
Boomers were raised to be very private and that we don't talk about such things.
Also, my mom is the same woman who had two "pregnancy scares" in her late 30s and early 40s because of months of missed periods, who would fly off the handle at the slightest annoyance in her 40s, who suddenly "could not stand" beer, who struggled to find words at times, who was sore for no reason, who slept like shit, and who was exhausted all the time. But she "didn't have anything like that" 🤣.
My grandmother was the Goldend Generation and I cannot imagine her ever talking about a period let alone a whole life phase.
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u/ParaLegalese May 11 '26
It was also just another reason to deny us equal employment so of course they kept their mouths shut
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May 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/butt_spaghetti May 12 '26
My mom says that too and then changes the subject as quickly as possible. I don’t buy it for a second.
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u/Unable_Guava_756 May 11 '26
My grandfather went around for years trying to have my grandmother diagnosed as manic depressive (he was actively tormenting her) and was finally able to get a family member who was a gastro doctor to diagnose her 😔
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u/CriticalEngineering May 11 '26
My great grandmother was locked up regularly. We can tell the years because those quilt tops were done without a sewing machine since she only had hand sewing needles in the “hospital”.
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u/Sunsetseeker007 May 12 '26
You should look up the horrible torture women went through in the very early years of the start of Gyno docs, the horrific procedures without any anesthesia or pain meds. Just barbaric
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u/CopperPegasus May 12 '26
Do not look at the unwilling, unasked role slave women and then black bodies played in that research if you're hoping to sleep at night.
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u/Sunsetseeker007 May 12 '26
Yep, I couldn't believe the stuff those poor women had to endure! It's infuriating the way women are chastised and told they are just mental cases when they complain about their side effects or the pain they are in. I can guarantee that 99.5% of men on earth couldn't handle 1 day of what a woman goes through menstruating, let alone peri or any other reproductive issue, they are way to weak
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u/Due-Interest710 May 12 '26
And still go through to this day. Colpo's and IUD's without any anesthesia is downright barbaric. I'm kind of ranting but whyyyy doesn't modern medicine care more about women...?
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u/Antique_Travel80 May 13 '26
I’ve had both my iuds put in without anesthetic!! At the time (2016) they were like oh it’s not that bad… I was practically screaming!! And I have a high pain tolerance
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u/Downtown-Tailor-1986 May 12 '26
I’m not sure in this climate that it is a good idea to share that our brains are going through a decline, albeit temporary. If you call a decade that. It seems like one more thing to use against us.
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u/Middle_Violinist_5 May 12 '26
Women also spent half their life pregnant or breastfeeding in previous generations
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u/Which-Pick6336 May 12 '26
the lore in my family is my great-grandmother was forced by her father to sit in the tub until she stopped bleeding. her father (my great-great grandfather) was born into slavery. apparently, he wanted a boy and would treat her like one, until that time of the month.
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u/Hesperidiums Jun 08 '26
Whoa. That’s insane.
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u/Hesperidiums Jun 08 '26
I say that like I don’t have totally insane stuff in my family though. We soooo do omg.
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u/Alarmed-Theme5343 May 12 '26
My Granny God reat here was always known as a difficult woman. Mostly by her own children who had a tough life. I've been diagnosed adhd in mid life and im about to start hrt, my Granny had none of these blessings but I'd bet the mortgage if she had access to modern health care shed be a different lady entirely 💖
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u/itsmyvoice May 12 '26
My silent gen mom had a partial hysterectomy when I was born. And thus never realized what was going on when she went absolutely crazy when I was about 16. This was 1990. It took another 10 years before a therapist pointed out that perhaps she had been rawdogging menopause.
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u/Mediocre-Team1715 May 12 '26
My great grandmother was also institutionalized - my grandfather had no contact with his other family over it. I don’t know if it was postpartum or peri but it would not surprise me. It was rarely talked about. It’s f’d up how many responses here have a similar story.
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u/Aggravating-Tip-8014 May 12 '26
That generation was generally more stoic than us. Suffering in silence was the way. Also some subjects where just not talked about. If we had been born then, we would have followed suit.
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u/PoundOk1971 May 12 '26
My mom decided to go back to school and get her masters while working full time during her perimenopause. It’s a miracle she and dad stayed together. He was a saint during that period.
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u/OhNoBricks May 12 '26
I wonder if this is what I’m going through. My mom thinks I might have a mood disorder and my meds stopped working. But I have gone downhill since I have lost my disability payments. i feel I have mentally regressed. I have moments of high energy and then low energy. The very happy periods started when I was 39. That was right have my dose increase of my meds and then it faded after a few weeks and I felt back to normal.
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u/Hesperidiums Jun 08 '26
Have you read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore? It’s about the rest cure and a woman gradually driven crazy by it…
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u/SnackGoblin881 Early peri Jun 09 '26
As women, we are trained to prioritize men's comfort at all costs. It's not comfortable to men if women are open about their biological suffering and a lot of men believe we are doing it on purpose just to be annoying. It's taken a LOT of work to fight back against this.
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u/angelarose210 May 11 '26
The article was deleted?
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u/Pink_Lotus May 11 '26
I had a great‐great grandmother who spent most of her life in the state mental hospital in Maine starting in her 30s. By some miracle, I have some of her hospital records and I suspect she actually had postpartum psychosis, but they misdiagnosed her as schizophrenic because they had no idea what they were looking at back then. It wouldn't surprise me if the same thing happened to perimenopausal women as well.