Yes, it is bad when out of sudden I feel like a furnace is heating up inside me, then I feel faint and miserable. Then I get as cold as Siberia. Sadly, we now have to have you, a horrible, judgmental, miserable person, telling me and others how to feel about menopause. I am going to feel the way I want about it, and that is none of your business.

Well I don’t have hot flashes, I’m sleeping mostly ok thanks to magnesium and THC, and I still look ok thanks to skincare. But I’m 49 and it makes my ADHD 1000x worse and I’m so depressed sometimes I get suicidal which I haven’t experienced in 20+ years.

People are different.

I get menstrual migraines, for example, and they are bad. If you don’t get migraines, do you also then just assume I’m a liar?

If you’re not suffering, great! Happy for you!

You can discuss with your doctor if you’re curious the pros and cons.

Yes, yes it is

We are living on separate planets.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok. Hear me out please. I get night sweats. I get hot flashes during the day. I can’t sleep though the night. I have facial hair. I have belly fat. I weigh about 10 lbs more lbs more than in my 20s. My hair is naturally grey. I have wrinkles.

Is this really all that bad? Can’t it be a normal part of aging?

I mean. I pluck my facial hair. I run to combat too much weight gain. I get facials. I dye my hair.

But I don’t feel devastated that I’m experiencing symptoms of older age because, well, that’s just life.

When I get night sweats I kick off my blankets. Is that really too much of an inconvenience? I mean when I had babies and they woke me up every 2 hours that was much much worse.

I just don’t really understand all the complaining about menopause?

People need something to complain about.

It gets them attention on social media.

I’m glad women are talking about it publicly. We shouldn’t suffer in silence.

Anonymous wrote:Ok. Hear me out please. I get night sweats. I get hot flashes during the day. I can’t sleep though the night. I have facial hair. I have belly fat. I weigh about 10 lbs more lbs more than in my 20s. My hair is naturally grey. I have wrinkles.

Is this really all that bad? Can’t it be a normal part of aging?

I mean. I pluck my facial hair. I run to combat too much weight gain. I get facials. I dye my hair.

But I don’t feel devastated that I’m experiencing symptoms of older age because, well, that’s just life.

When I get night sweats I kick off my blankets. Is that really too much of an inconvenience? I mean when I had babies and they woke me up every 2 hours that was much much worse.

I just don’t really understand all the complaining about menopause?

People need something to complain about.

It gets them attention on social media.

Anonymous wrote:Ok. Hear me out please. I get night sweats. I get hot flashes during the day. I can’t sleep though the night. I have facial hair. I have belly fat. I weigh about 10 lbs more lbs more than in my 20s. My hair is naturally grey. I have wrinkles.

Is this really all that bad? Can’t it be a normal part of aging?

I mean. I pluck my facial hair. I run to combat too much weight gain. I get facials. I dye my hair.

But I don’t feel devastated that I’m experiencing symptoms of older age because, well, that’s just life.

When I get night sweats I kick off my blankets. Is that really too much of an inconvenience? I mean when I had babies and they woke me up every 2 hours that was much much worse.

I just don’t really understand all the complaining about menopause?

HOT TAKE. I see what you did there.

I just read that melatonin can cause night sweats. Dang.

Yes, it was very bad until I started hrt. I feel like a human again. Insomnia and brain fog, mood swings were terrible. Sure I kick off the blanket now and then but soaked nightshirt is far bigger issue. If you feel like it’s not that bad either your tolerance is higher or it is really not that bad for you.

OP, I pretty much agree with you. Not judging anyone who takes HRT or is having a hard time -- women should do what they need to make being a woman work for them, I'm always going to back up other women on this, the world is unkind to women.

But yes a big part of me just wants to normalize the changes of menopause as being natural and inevitable and not something we automatically have to fight or fix.

These feelings are rooted in this idea that women are constantly being asked to hide, correct, or reverse our biology. Girls are often taught to fear or be ashamed of menstruation, to conceal it from men and each other and be embarrassed by any sign that they are on their period. Many girls and women even use the pill to avoid their period, which is viewed as a gross inconvenience because we've structured society so that it is. Women dealing with hormonal changes from pregnancy, childbirth, and pregnancy are often expected to conceal or treat those as well, and certainly never to allow them to impact their ability to work, care for other children, or have sex with their husbands. And then the current approach to perimenopause and menopause is to find medication that will eliminate symptoms, while also working hard to make sure the physical changes of menopause never show up on our bodies, or can be concealed somehow.

Like there's just a big part of me that wishes all of this was normalized and supported by society. That I could say "yes I didn't sleep well last night, I've been waking up with night sweats from the hot flashes this whole week," and the response would be "that sounds hard, go have a rest" instead of "why aren't you on HRT?"

Everyone experiences it differently.

For me, it had downsides and upsides. I had a run where where hot flashes made me miserable and wrecked my sleep, but that was the worst of it. I didn’t experience weight gain or big changes in my physique, and my skin is actually even better now that it’s less oily.

Ok but eventually the vag will atrophy and the labia dry and they all will get more fragile. Urinary symptoms will start. Be prepared for topical estrogen after your periods stop.

I am 51 and have been experiencing night sweats and hot flashes for about a year or two. I can't lose weight around my mid-section despite exercise and eating as little as possible. The sleeplessness is is tough but I work from home and can sleep in 20 extra minutes. I don't feel horrible but I don't feel great. I am thinking about HRT.

How much does HRT help?

I started HRT in my late 40s due to anxiety and night sweats (was waking up at 4 am consistently). After I hit menopause, I stopped HRT as I was curious what would happen now that peri was over. I made it two weeks. Then after I restarted, it took a few more weeks for the HRT to kick in.

During that month, I was waking up every hour with anxiety and night sweats. The hot flashes were worse. I was having them all day long. It felt like I had a fever. I kept taking off my sweatshirt and putting it back on over and over. When a hot flash started, I could look at my watch and see my heart rate go up. It was wild. I read some women have 20 hot flashes a day, and I felt I was having more than that. I was truly miserable all day and and night. There was no escape. I even found it hard to exercise since I was already burning up inside.

At this point, I thought, “maybe this is temporary,” so I called my sister, who is a few years older. She told me that she had finally scheduled an appointment for HRT, as she couldn’t take it anymore. Needless to say, I went back on it.

Everything is good now. I’m sleeping through the night. I’m exercising daily. I’m not anxious. I’m not angry. It’s been a lifeline and I’m not sure how I’ll cope if I have to stop.

If it isn’t that bad for you, don’t assume it’s not that bad for everyone. Just be thankful.