You’re only as stable as your hormones!
Welcome to “Ask Barbie,” where I answer all your raging questions about menopause and aging.
Today’s question is about your raging aging hormones.
The question is “Is meno-rage a real thing?”
So, let’s put this into perspective.
You know, humans are really just great big heaps of hormones. This is true for all animals. We’re all merely a function of our hormones; and your various hormones dictate everything about your behavior. This is true for insulin, thyroid hormone, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. And sex hormones dictate much of what constitutes your mood.
Think back to your puberty – a time when your sex hormones first entered your body. Your puberty lasted over a period of about three to five years, and during that period, you had what your parents would call “raging hormones.”
You can think of raging hormones as a rollercoaster of hormones. Any time a hormone is rapidly fluctuating at an unstable level (or roller-coastering), it causes you to feel and act moody.
Teenagers going through puberty are moody because of hormonal fluctuations due to sex hormones entering their body. Their sex hormones resemble a rollercoaster ride that is up and down, up and down, but heading higher and higher all the time. It’s jiggy jaggy … but up & up.
Well, jiggy jaggy hormones cause jiggy jaggy moods.
So as a teenager going through puberty, you had mood swings that ranged from irritability … to anger … to happiness … to sadness … to depression. Moodiness is one of the telltale signs of puberty, which is most notorious for its mood swings and raging range of behaviors.
Moods cover a wide range of emotions, and rage is just one extreme of this range.
When you were having your regular menstrual cycles, your sex hormones were on a predictable rollercoaster. They still fluctuated, but the fluctuations were coordinated to create your regular monthly menstrual cycles.
Think about the time just before each menstrual period. The three to four days just before bleeding begins is called the “pre-menstrual phase.” This is when both your estrogen and progesterone suddenly plummet if you don’t get pregnant.
You had “premenstrual syndrome” preceding menstrual cycles. Most women use the acronym, “PMS” for this. This spans just three to four days and is due to a rapid change from high levels of estrogen and progesterone to low levels of estrogen and progesterone.
Most women feel very moody at the time of PMS. It’s a time when they have massive moodiness, intense irritability, alienating aggression, deep depression, and alarming anger. But this premenstrual syndrome is for only a very short period of time, with long intervals during which you return to your normal, predictable, calm, nice, friendly self.
Not so with meno-rage.
Peri-menopause is “puberty in reverse.” It’s all the same roller-coastering of sex hormones. But, this time they resemble a rollercoaster ride that is up and down, up and down, but heading lower and lower all the time. This goes on for two to ten years!
So, when it comes to peri-menopause, it’s like PMS that lasts for two to ten years instead of just three to four days. All those emotions that go with hormones that are rapidly but chaotically falling persist. I’ve heard women say that they feel like they have a two to ten year period of PMS during peri-menopause. The telltale sign of “meno-rage” is lack of control. They can’t cage their rage.
Here are some of the comments I’ve heard from my menopause consultation clients:
“I just hate everybody!”
“I really want to hurt somebody!”
“I snap at my family, and then feel badly about it afterward.”
“I’m very aggressive with people.”
“I used to be a nice person, but I’ve become mean, mean, mean!”
“I just let people have it.”
Their level of rage is even surprising to them!
Their raging has many faces. They rage via speaking, writing, driving, and shopping. They yell, demean, shove, and scowl. They scare others (and sometimes, even themselves).
They just can’t cage their rage.
Back when you were a kid going through puberty, you didn’t have much power, so your rage was self-limited. Your family and society tolerated your moodiness. Everyone knew that you were going through puberty. And everyone was sympathetic to the fact that your hormones were causing you to behave unpredictably and irrationally.
The problem now is that your family and society will not tolerate your moodiness. Nobody knows you’re going through puberty in reverse. Your family and society don’t talk about it or teach about it.
So meno-rage is a real thing. And it typically takes the form of intense emotions of anger or aggression.
Have you ever noticed how men and women change as they age?
In their youth, men are routinely very aggressive. That is a function of their steady levels of testosterone. But as men age, their testosterone decreases slowly and gradually. It never reaches zero. But the decreasing testosterone has a softening effect on them. Men become less aggressive as they age.
For women, the opposite is true. In their youth, women are very calm. This is a function of estrogen and progesterone. But as women age, their estrogen and progesterone decrease slowly and gradually over a two to ten year period of time. Then, those two sex hormones hit rock bottom and go to zero. The decreasing estrogen and progesterone have a hardening effect on women. Women become more aggressive as they age.
Because estrogen and progesterone ultimately disappear (while testosterone does not) women end up being more aggressive as they age rather than less aggressive as they age.
Post-menopause is when your sex hormones are long gone.
Since meno-rage is due to the roller-coastering of sex hormones rather than to the absence of sex hormones, it’s possible that the rage will decrease.
But, we’re all different. And meno-rage covers a wide range.
It doesn’t matter when you have it. Meno-rage is real.
Any time your hormones are unstable, you will be unstable. You are a function of your hormones. So everything you feel, say, and do is a result of your hormones.
The key is to find a way to cage the rage.
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