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I am in my late 40s so likely getting closed to menopause age. I have noticed recently that late in my cycle, my level of anxiety and worry goes insane. Like I spiral, bad. Have any other older women experienced this? I will talk to my doctor for sure, but it brings me down hard. I’m sitting in the car now waiting on my son, and just want to cry, stressing about anything I might have said wrong yesterday, getting upset over stupid stuff, etc., and honestly nothing happened to trigger any of it. It’s not really normal for me and not specific to infidelity, but of course that gets pulled in and I go down a rabbit hole.

My mom passed several years ago, so not sure if she went through something similar, and my sisters are younger. I guess I could ask older women in my husbands family.

I feel like I’m going crazy. Luckily it’s only a couple of days a month, but good freaking lord…….

Later 40's amd yes.

I do get overly worried a lot. More than usual. Typically wh says he can tell when ITS coming because im cranky the week before. Last few cycles not cranky just worry about everything.

Yes! I started experiencing this last fall. I have been in perimenopause for a few years, but this was new--and was cyclical. I did some research and found that there is a relationship between estrogen and serotonin. My annual exam with my gynecologist happened to be coming up, as well as my annual physical. I discussed what was going on with both. I didn't want to rush right to HRT, so my GYN suggested trying a black cohosh supplement. It has helped immensely! I definitely recommend talking to your provider to see what they suggest.

I was in peri menopause when DDAY hit, so it’s not clear whether it was the infidelity, age, or both, but I also experienced a big increase my anxiety. I also felt I was less able to cope/deal with it. In earlier years I could ignore it or just steam roll through it but it’s now a part of my daily.
IC helped.

I’m fully in menopause now, and no longer have the spikes that came with my cycle, so it did get better.

Talk to your doc, and good luck. Ain’t getting older grand ;-)

Landclark, sympathies. Yes. I started peri symptoms at 43, mostly raging adrenaline surges, surging heart rate and hot flashes; cue insomnia, cue crazy. It has been a long stressful road. I was prescribed over a dozen meds over the years, the only thing that has helped me at all is hormone therapy, not the gross vag cream, but the actual pills. Estrogen/progesterone if you have ovaries, estrogen only if you don't. However, data is mixed on breast cancer risk and HRT so discuss with Doctors.

I had everything inside removed and the mood swings and flashing cranked way up. I can't recommend anything for the stress other than the typical stress mgt stuff: deep breathing, sip water, meditate, happy mental imagery.... mine is floating in the ocean, seeing the waves of emotion rolling over me and diving under, holding my breath looking at the sun through the water until it's time to come up for air. The waves keep coming but I control how they affect me, and I really focus on the sunlight sparkling through the foam of the waves. I turn on ocean sounds, i breathe and i wait for it to pass. There are a ton of pics online to help with that image or your favorite beach or stream's edge. Maybe your safe place is a butterfly garden or a book nook, but whatever it is find a mental corner to fix that image and to go there when the fear hits. Like dealing with trauma here, it helps me to understand that the fear is a logical response to brain chemistry, and I work on figuring out what is triggering what. I had issues over the years with excess levels of anxiety, sadness/crying and anger in the shifting hormone landscape.

My anxiety specifically targeted the safety and well being of my kids. Having lost friends to drugs and car crashes in my youth, that became a fixation until they lost classmates and a neighborhood kid to suicide, and I found a new gear for my parental anxiety. My rabbit holes of fear and worry were everywhere. My hormones cranked the volume on that crap all the way up. And this was before world wide pandemic. Ugh.

Track your moods and your cycle, if it helps to anticipate and respond in healthy ways and to be kind to yourself and your ever changing body. There's a book I got called Menopause: What Nurses Know, and it helped me a lot. I was the oldest in my friend and mom group so I had no one to share stories with and actually got asked to stop telling one friend group what was up ahead in the midlife tunnel. Not so much friends after all, now. So I will ALWAYS jump in on an peri and menopause chat to say this shit is scary, annoying as hell and everchanging and nobody talks about it!! Normal is a huge bell curve that covers a lot of symptoms and these are hard changes to navigate.

Most important: you are not crazy. I had a young, smart wonder doctor argue with me that I was too young for menopause, my symptoms were stress related and she wanted me on more stupid SSRI's to manage my "stress". I was stressed because my body was in a biochemical and hormone cascade that was off kilter, and I had no idea what was going on. I almost went crazy. Just like with Infidelity, turns out my gut was right, I was not wrong, I didn't need meds to fix my brain, I needed hormones to stabilize the crazy stress cascade I was having.

Best to you, don't beat yourself up, seek out the best self care you can and try to find some older women friends to hold a lantern and talk you through. Just like infidelity, I found more online support than I ever did in real life.

[This message edited by whatisloveanyway at 5:56 PM, Friday, January 14th]

Yes. It happens to a lot of us.

Personally I had the mood swings, and power surges. It started in my early 40's and got bad enough to seek treatment in my late 40's. I was reluctant to use hormone therapy because my mom had breast cancer, and right about the time she had it the studies about how hormone therapy is dangerous and can cause breast cancer came out. So I assumed that I was never really going to be able to do it.
But it reached a point where I needed something or I was probably going to end up in jail. I would bounce from tearful at times, to extremely happy to all out blind rage, and it was over stupid stuff and directed at the people I loved.
I did research prior to my appt w/ a new OB and found that those studies had been proven wrong, and that estrogen was safe, but not estrogen and progesterone. I tried patches, and had bad skin reaction to that, so we switched to a daily cream that I put on in the morning. It truly was a lifesaver.

I used it for just over a year, and weaned myself off of it after. I rarely have hot flashes anymore, but when I do look out. I can keep the emotions in check, and no longer have the blind rage.

So yah what you are dealing with is normal. I also had a vag hyst (still had my ovaries) in my early 30's, and my OB also shared that when this is done you tend to go into menopause much earlier. So I was almost through the worst of it by the time I saw her, and got on the cream.
She also offered AD's that help with the mood swings, I said I would try it if, the cream didn't work, but it did.

I went through surgical menopause this past summer and my surgeon recommended reading "the menopause manifesto." The author goes through much of what’s going on with your body and all the treatments and gives a lot of evidence-based research.

Thank you all so much! I'm glad I am not alone, and you made me feel less insane. I will grab some books, and talk to my doctor. whatisloveanyway, I appreciate the tips on how to manage through it. I will definitely try some things you suggest.

Hope everybody is having a great weekend!