My Mom died last year too and the virus was horrible to try and be close to any one. I had menopause 22 years ago thru hysterectomy. It happened in about 36 hours that I lost all my natural estrogen. I thought I was dying when the first hot flash hit. I wanted to ring for the nurse and ask what was happening! But it went away and I figured out what had happened. Over the next 2 years I tried but failed to keep all that crap under control. I would start crying about nothing. Couldn't sleep. I gave in and went to the dr and asked for help. Lorazapam was the solution. I got calm and life made sense again. I was on that for a while then found natural estrogen from plants. I used that but it was a Rx. So when my dr retired in 2010, I gradually weaned myself off all meno meds. I have the occasional hot flash but they are infrequent. I find that vitamin D3 helps with the moods. I do get weepy but it is not from meno. I have had some other things come up which cause that.
Menopause is a natural thing that I don't think the medical people really care how we feel. Just a fact of life for them.
Take care of yourself, eat well and healthy, try to sleep and rest when you can. You will get thru this.
Hugs
Mary

Hi, I've started having irregular periods a few years ago. I haven't had one for about 2 years now. I've felt what I thought were hot flashes. The lack of energy is frustrating. Worst part is waterfall of tears. I get depressed all of the sudden and cry and cry.

That's all I have about my experience. Big hugs.

I found the change to be challenging right up until I stopped having periods. Then the hot flashes were nothing at all like the heavy periods. I did find that hitting age 50 made me suddenly not willing to take the disrespect and emotional abuse of other people any longer. It felt like suddenly I have emotional power, emotional self esteem. I have found this wonderful and weird. I keep recommending Christiane Northrup, MD's books because they saved my life. I am in my 60's now and sweat at night but rarely hot flash. I just have many health problems. I will hot flash when my husband and I get physically close as he has a warmer body. He says he can feel it and I sure feel it. I am like get away from me, LOL! We women have such interesting bodies even when we don't appreciate them. I have also found the last year or two to be hard. I notice most people have this sort of cloud in their minds. The only ones who don't are the ones who are denying the disease and that makes me pause. We shall get through this together, we have each other.

O ladies I love this thread!! I find the sudden mood swings hard to deal with, and sometimes I don't realize the significance of my mood swings until after I say something I regret. Last evening I was in a deep meditative state of mind, and I chose to honor that by getting some quality me time. Also opening up to my husband helps. He really wants to help, even asked me the other day to let him know how he can help. I thanked him for asking and assured him I will let him know. It is so hard when you don't know from one day to the next how things will be. I especially appreciated urbangardener's post, "it makes me pause." I feel like my whole body is slowing down a bit and asking me to slow down, so I am trying to honor that. So grateful that I have found some excellent, knowledgeable people to help me eat healthy and cover all my bases, without them I would likely be an invalid!! So grateful I can be active and live a normal life, I just have to watch out for the mood swings and slow down and take care of me.
Peace and love, be gentle and good to yourself always.

Pixie, I am glad you mentioned the need to pause, as did Jaxkie. This is what many of Dr. Northrup's books mention. That women have an innate wisdom and if we listen to our hearts, minds, bodies, we will be happier. I do think there is a pause when we get to the end of the time of menstruating. I think perimenopause is trying to get us ready to shift direction in our hearts, minds, bodies. It's good to be older and to have let go of the mom role, the intense doing everything for others, the giving giving giving. It's nice to have slowed down a bit and be focused on making my life be a good one. I served everyone but myself before menopause.

I suffered those menopause symptoms PLUS the pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia. After two years, I'd had enough! I was barely making it through the day and would rather be dead! Seriously, life was not worth living if it had to be that way!

So my ob-gyn said many women are worrying needlessly of hormone replacement therapy for fear of breast cancer. That breast cancer correlation was from an incomplete study. There's a more recent study that found using bio-identical hormones do not pose that risk for women who take it within the first 5 years of menopause. So I took it and got my life back!

I highly recommend you explore that with your ob-gyn.