Not Everything is Perimenopause

Recently, I was chatting with a few friends about how stressful this particular season of life has been. We’re all moms of multiple kids who are navigating the wild thing that is Maycemeber (iykyk), we all have parents who are aging and need some extra support, we all have busy careers…and we’re all feeling the strain of it all. One admitted that she asks herself every single day if what she’s experiencing is stress or perimenopause, and the rest of us all chimed in to say we do the exact same thing. 

But then, one friend added something. “Don’t you feel like perimenopause is becoming the go-to explanation for everything women are dealing with?”. We all agreed: Perimenopause went from being something we never discussed at all to something we’re chalking everything up to, especially for women aroung my age.

Here’s what is so complicated about all this: I recently interviewed Dr. Noor, a physician who treats many perimenopausal women, and she pointed out that there’s really no test to determine if someone is in perimenopause. She also explained that many women don’t notice that this is what is happening with their bodies: They assume that they’re dealing with the stress of carrying too many responsibilities and chalk up their symptoms (like mood changes, irregular periods, and sleep disturbances, per Mayo Clinic) to stress.

But maybe it works the other way around too: Maybe we collectively are hearing so much about perimenopause, we’re assuming that this is what we’re experiencing even if the reality is that we are tired, overwhelmed, anxious, and stressed out because we have too many responsibilities on our plate. 

This is what is so frustrating about being a woman: Our bodies are so complex, and there’s just so much overlap when it comes to symptoms. Some symptoms appear with multiple conditions, other are just related to lifestyle factors. Either way, it feels pretty much impossible to make sense of what we’re experiencing.

On top of that, there are so many trending topics in the world of women’s health — and I hate chalking any health issue up to a “trend”, but that’s really what this feels like: It feels like one women’s health issue gets its place in the spotlight at a time, and we all wonder if that could be the thing that explains what we’ve been feeling thanks to all this cultural attention it is receiving at any particular moment in time. 

So are you experiencing perimenopause? Am I? Who knows? A chat with your doctor is always a good idea if you feel like things are just…off, but the sad reality is, answers aren’t always promised.