I’ve been having some issues lately with my mother. This is quite unusual, as we’ve always been close. I was never a particularly rebellious teen, and having a protracted fight with my Mom is throwing me for a loop.
Over the last three months, we’ve been getting in fights. Mostly over stupid stuff - for example, she accused me of ruining my sister’s wedding. My sister’s wedding which hasn’t even occurred yet. Apparently, I have been insufficiently interested in wedding preparations and I’ve been complaining that the bridesmaids dresses are ugly (which is true and my Mom had admitted such in the past). I don’t know what to make of this - I’ve never been a “girly girl” so it’s not like my lack of interest in floral arrangements is a shock or out of character. But she says things like “I know you’re going to be sulky at the wedding.” I’m not quite sure how to respond to this…the wedding hasn’t even happened yet, damnit.
Anyway, she’ll then calm down and blame menopause. At which point I back down.
Tonight, the latest issue, as communicated by my father, is that I’m not calling enough. Since we fight every time I call, I’ve quit calling as much. I feel like I just can’t win.
So, dopers, advise me. What were your experiences with menopause in a loved one? How much latitude should someone get because of hormones?
I feel like, on one hand, menopause sounds like it sucks. On the other hand, this is getting somewhat abusive. It’s not like there aren’t stressful things going on in my life right now either, what with the first real job and moving to a new city situation.
My mother’s menopause was the worst two years of my life. Unfortunately, it coincided with my being a teenager and living with her, so much of it was my fault for being there and being a teenager. I envy you your distance.
Hormones, etc., it’s all apparently awful and terrible and physically and emotionally painful and boo-freaking-hoo. People need to take responsibility for their actions, which includes the words they say when they’re being drama-seeking shit stirrers.
Blech. If I were you, I would just write her.
Try and do a letter or postcard every three days, and avoid the drama stirring phone calls.
If she calls you on the one sided communication, tell her it’s because she’s been very hurtful when you call and while you know she doesn’t “mean it” it still hurts. You will always love her and want to keep her close and in touch (or whatever) so you’re writing when you can. Perhaps she will follow your lead and write back, and have the decency and control to leave out the drama. Writing things down makes it easier to see the whining piddliness, and toss it out and start afresh.
Anyway, my condolences. Menopause is agony. When my time is close approaching, I will probably stock a cabin in the remote woods with a two year supply of food and sundries, and just go there if I find myself somehow unable to stop myself from acting like my mother did.
Our relationship recovered, and as an adult she was one of my best friends and I miss her desperately now that she is gone, but holy crap, I never want to inflict that kind of atrocious irrational hysterical behavior on my family, ever. Ever.
Ugh, I ditto Tortuga. I was also a teenager at home when my mother was the worst. She still thinks that I was the worst kid ever, and never blamed anything on her hormones - just on me.
I don’t know if the letter thing will work, though. Email might be better, since we live in a time when letter writing has a higher level of formality associated with it.
My wife went through menopause about five or six years ago. I thought about writing a book called Menopause for Dummies at the time because there are several practical things you should be aware of when a loved one goes through the change.
Physically things are bad enough but the emotional side is a real roller coaster. It doesn’t help that the physical and the emotional are rarely individually isolated. So it’s a real mish-mash of symptoms in a confusing matrix.
I had a few years where patience was the central character of my personality. If she said it was too hot, I would agree and turn the air con down. If she thought she was growing a tail (yes, this happened) I would physically examine her and afterwards suggest we go see the GP to see what could be done.
In short, it just has to be endured with patience. Good luck but do keep lines of communication open.
My mom went through menopause when I was a teen and it was hell for everyone, but especially me, the only girl.
Mind you she was a newly widow, her four natural born kids had recently been diagnosed with a genetic disease that would slowly kill them, she reentered the work place after 30 years at home, was taking care of her aging parents at their own place at night, and dealing with her four adult grown sons who were all leeches in their own special way. And she suffers gladly from panic attacks, depression and codependency.
So, yeah. She had loads on her plate.
She has said over the years that going nuts during menopause is a myth and it is all in a woman’s head. And she didn’t need anything to get through it.
Which is why I plan on medicating myself until I am certifiably zombied.
One of my BFF is starting it and she’s been on a buttload of meds for bipolar and stuff and I am telling you, hormones are stronger than fuckall pharmacueticals. She’s been off-kilter for the last few months and it ain’t from her meds being out of whack.
Drama-seeking shit stirrers? I hope your kids show you more understanding than that.
You don’t WANT to, your mother didn’t WANT to, and I don’t WANT to, but the diminishing and fluctuating hormones completely f**k up our brains, our emotions and our overall health. How happy can one be day after day while experiencing depression, anxiety, insomnia, nightsweats?
There are many hormones involved with ‘menopausal behaviour’, and each have different levels as we age. This means there is no one happy pill for most of us in menopause. What we have to do is get extensive testing and get prescriptions made at special formulating pharmacies.
incidental, patience and understanding is required. Don’t take the wigouts personally. Injecting humor helps after a meltdown/insanity: “Well, I know how Menopausal Mom feels. What does [Mom’s given name] have to say on the matter?” Then look at her with a big smile. Guaranteed she’ll snap out of it and laugh, too.
I asked my brother if he thought our mother was moodier while going through “the change.” He pointed out that it was hard to tell the difference. I did have the vacation situation from hell a couple of years ago when we unwittingly combined my parents, brother, husband, two very small children, a heatwave with average temps around 110F, many biting insects, menopausal hot flashes, at a campground with no electrical hookups to run even a fan. She flipped. completely. out.
Consider the fact that weddings are stressful on all family members involved. They make normally rational people turn loco.
Your recent (or is it upcoming?) move out of town may be hitting her hard, too.
If she’s blaming menopause, then she knows that her behavior is not kosher. I’d take that as an apology of sorts. In light of all the major changes in your family right now, I’d cut her a little slack. For now.
I agree completely with this part. I’m more easily irritated now than I was before, and less likely to keep my mouth shut about it. I think it’s got less to do with the hormones themselves, and more to do with the physical effects of the hormones. For example, I have always found it to fall back asleep after being awakened. The next day I am tired and irritable. This was of course a problem when my children didn’t sleep through the night, but since their sleep habits were predictable I could work around it, The night sweats which now wake me up are not predictable- I can wake up at 5 and lose only an hour’s sleep, or I can wake up at 1 am , fall back asleep around 3 and then be awakened again at 4am.The hormones are causing the interruptions in my sleep, but I’d be just as irritable if my sleep was being interrupted by a ringing telephone.
My testing consisted of a blood test once a week for three weeks, to determine that I actually was in menopause. Then they prescribed the hormone patch, which I took for around a year, I think.
If I can ask, how old are you and your sister and your parental units?
You have to remember that it isn’t your wedding. It really isn’t your sister’s wedding. It is your MOM’s wedding. Her mother probably went batshit control freak crazy during her own wedding eons ago. The cycle just keeps going.
Weddings ( and funerals) bring out the crazy in people.
The best thing you can do is take a step back and keep your sanity.
Are you being hyperbolic when you say “abusive”? I mean, she put up with the years when you couldn’t control your bladder or bowels. If she’s just being a tremendously needy pain in the ass after being supportive and reasonable your whole life, I think you need to cut her a whole lot of slack.
Unless she’s truly being “abusive,” cut her some slack. She’s feeling like a truck hit her, physically and mentally. Yes, she has to learn to deal with it and behave like a rational person. But try to be understanding, especially since they’ve told you what the reason is (as they see it). It should be over with in a few months.
Last year, I had a complete hysterectomy at the tender age of 40. I’m telling you, it was absolutely the best thing I’ve ever had in my life and if I’d known how my life would change, I would have convinced some GYN to do it 10 years ago.
With the hormonal mood swings every month when I got my period (made a bizillion times worse when I took the BCP), I felt that I was at the mercy of my hormones every month. (This became more apparent after said hormones were gone.) I don’t know what it’s like dragging out menopause over the course of a year or two (more, if you’re factoring in peri-menopause), but once one gets through it, I think it’s pretty smooth sailing.
I chose not to take hormones, simple because for the main reason the simple thought of having them in my body again Freaks. Me. Out. (There are other reasons, but that’s the main reason.) Plus, I don’t feel that need them–I rarely have hot flashes, which is the main reason I think a lot of women take them.
Guaranteed my “Menopausal Mom” would have ripped my head right off my shoulders and shat down my neckhole if I said something patronizingly playtherapy like that.
And I hope that should I choose to have children that I will raise them to be self aware, responsible, and with the conscience and confidence to call me on my behavior if I ever get all het up on teh crazy and forget that I am not an animal who doesn’t know why I’m in pain; that I can control the words I say, control my actions, and not inflict my invisible hormonal roller coaster body clock on others. Well, any more than necessary: being unbearably hot and trying to climb into a chest freezer is okay. Doesn’t hurt anybody, it’s just a little odd and not that great for the ice cream containers.
But.
Sudden irrational flipouts are not okay. Imprecations and epithets are not okay. Taking the pain you are feeling and making it somehow someone else’s fault is not okay.
Apologizing later and blaming the hormones doesn’t make it okay. Just makes it more easily identifiable as an abusive pattern.
We are not animals, biting helping hands because we are in pain. Menopause is a manageable, albeit terrible and unpredictable affliction, and it’s no excuse to indulge in infantile emotional behavior.
Also, a clarification to the writing thing–again, this is tainted by my own personal experience. I am a letter writer and a postcard sender, I love getting mail and I love writing letters to friends and family; I think it makes a nice switchup from bills, catalogs and magazines you never get around to reading. But I know that it’s a fading thing, reserved for thank you notes or customer service disputes, in the minds of many people. But I do urge the OP to try it out–e-mail is still too easy to send regrettable messages in the heat of the moment, and just isn’t the same. I think it’s less than a phone call, really. E-mail is just so forgettable and brief.
And again, despite the menopause experience, I loved my mother very much and wrote to her quite often. She saved every letter and every postcard, and given that she died quite suddenly and we never had a chance to say goodbye, it meant a lot to me that she had saved them, and that she had known how much I loved her and what she meant to me because I had told her so, fairly often and sometimes at length. Write about memories of good times and family trips taken, try to forget about the bad stuff that comes up in phone calls and just put down what’s going on, worries and concerns about all the new transitions, hope she’s feeling better, and don’t forget to say that you can’t wait to see them when you can.
My mom and her circle of friends were quite open about their various stages of menopause. I let it be known to her and them it that it was like having two different people in the same body. It was used when she had a few instances of outrageously over-the-top reactions, typically launching into me as soon as I got in the door. In other words, after she had ripped my head off and took a long steamy dump.
My mom’s reaction? First she shut up, got a blank look on her face which changed to an ‘oops’ look, then we’d both sigh. That was the limit of her apology, ever.
When I was in nursing school going through my psych rotation I couldn’t grasp how patients “allowed” themselves to behave in such bizarre ways, or completely check out from reality in some cases. That came back to bite me in the a** when I went through early menopause at age 35. I have never come so close to being mentally ill as when I experienced the roller coaster of hormone fluctuations and it scared the livin’ crap out of me. I would scream at my kids and immediately be remorseful, in tears and inconsolable as my ex lovingly shepherded the kids away from me, and then turn right around and do it again. Free floating anxiety was a way of life and the irrational outbursts were like an out of body experience that I truly could not control. After just a few months of this I consulted my ob-gyn and began an 8 yr journey to find the right combo of hormone replacement therapy, although with the initial BCP I was back to my non-psychotic self immediately. (The 8 yrs were to find a therapy with minimal side effects.)
This book may be helpful to menopausal women who at least recognize their behavior and seek solutions. http://www.amazon.com/Screaming-Heard-Hormonal-Connections-Suspect/dp/0871319144 If they don’t recognize their situation as problematic for others, they will very likely smash your head with it.
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