Perimenopause hits when a woman is at peak busyness. Is it a survival mechanism?

Some works of fiction have been written under the influence of drugs, alcohol, nicotine or caffeine. I think I wrote the first draft of a novel under the influence of an oestrogen low.

I was experiencing bursts of rage. Trump was trumping on in the US, COVID-19 was reminding women that martyrdom is obligatory, my plate had too much on it and my ovaries were faltering. The words “vaginal atrophy” were being directed at women my age.

I had hot-flushed my way into the Zeitgeist, and it became clear why I’d drafted a burning pile of rage, masquerading as a manuscript. Credit: Stocksy

I was furious, on fire with conviction, productivity, and all the imagining how things could be better. The work felt urgent, my heart was in my mouth.

The signs of hormonal upheaval akin to adolescence crept up on me; a slow burn until I realised there was only a week in every month when I felt totally fine. That leaves much of the year when I was feeling anything from sore in the boob department to hating the world.

Then the word “perimenopause” was tendered by a friend, and suddenly it was everywhere: on podcasts, in articles, on the telly, in conversations. Friends showed me their oestrogen patches, my neighbour threw her clothes off as we chatted over the fence. I had hot-flushed my way into the Zeitgeist, and it became clear why I’d drafted a burning pile of rage, masquerading as a manuscript.

Biologically speaking, the symptoms of perimenopause make sense to me. The average prehistoric 40-something woman would be a grandmother many times over. She may no longer have the physicality for extreme hunting and gathering, but she has the wisdom and empathy to nurture, heal and love all the little ones, the vulnerable, the needy.

She sleeps lightly and little, her sense of smell is acute. She’s snarly when someone she loves needs protection or when they’re being a dick. She has a reduced sexual desire (and sore boobs), which is self-protecting as childbirth at her age is high risk, potentially fatal. She has an extra layer of padding even though she shares her elk shank with the growing children. Her inner heater flares fiercely and allows her to share the fireside. Her brain doesn’t bother holding on to certain trivial facts as she is too busy being indispensable.

Today, perimenopause hits when a woman is at peak busyness. She’s a hunter-gatherer, warrior, teacher and carer. She needs her sleep to recall names, to not burst into tears in the shops because George Michael comes on the sound system. She’s meant to have a vigorous sex-life, not fixate on the smelly fridge and definitely not go bald. But just as she masters her craft or profession she’s brain-foggy, sleepless, bloated, hot, wrinkly, pimply, moody, not-in-the-moody, sweaty, headachey, anxious and itchy. Her kids don’t like her and her father’s broken his hip.

I’m told perimenopause treatments have come a long way, that when you’re emotionally wounded and intermittently bleeding, you can get help. This is good news, and essential for women and those assigned female at birth who are struggling with debilitating symptoms or conditions such as premenstrual dysmorphia, anaemia, depression or anxiety. I am trialling a common treatment and it seems to be doing its job. I am more even-tempered, not so shouty. I can’t smell the fridge from the front door. I let things slide more. My 16-year-old recently observed, “You haven’t gone off your head lately, Mum.”

“Today, perimenopause hits when a woman is at peak busyness. She’s a hunter-gatherer, warrior, teacher and carer.”

But I can’t help wondering, what am I missing? Am I placidly doing too much for my husband and kids? Not calling them out enough? Am I not concerned about the things that deserve my concern? Are my instincts dulled?

If we lived in a cave, would I hear the sabre-toothed tiger before it was too late? Was it an apogee of all the Baby Boomers’ girl babies’ depleted oestrogen that voted in a government promising to do better for women? I’ll bet Emmeline Pankhurst didn’t take the mini-pill.

“They mocked the presumption of even-tempered beings,” Terry Tempest Williams wrote in her 1992 work The Clan of One-Breasted Women, “and made promises that they would never fear the witch inside themselves.” Jeanette Winterson hints at a similar respect for the menstrual cycle in her novel Written on the Body: “There is iron in her soul on those days. She smells like a gun.”
I am an “even-tempered being” now, and my manuscript is a moderated – but still fiery – finished novel. Sometimes I can’t hear my own voice in its passages. The words startle me. I believe in my work, but my heart doesn’t pound with it. The book’s publication scares me; its launch is in my lighter, uncertain hands. I can talk about my belief that anger can be productive, bonding, beautiful and kind. I just can’t feel it any more.

I also can’t help wondering: what if perimenopause happened to men? They’d be encouraged to embrace their fire and emotional upheavals. Research dollars would be spent on treatments that ease symptoms without erasing instinct. Workplaces might provide emotional retreats, in-house counsellors, cool rooms and roster flexibility.

“Peri leave” would be legislated and middle-aged pimples considered a rite of passage. Crunchy things and carbs would always be on special.

Okay, I’m being silly now. Or am I? Are perimenopause treatments helping women a little bit and men a lot? Are oestrogen patches working for the patriarchy?

The Angry Women’s Choir (Penguin Random House) by Meg Bignell is out now.

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