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[Lucoley]

You are right. I naively thought the menopause was about hot flushes. It's all I knew from my mum. She never talked to us about It, she didn't talk much about puberty either. I started with hot flushes in my mid 40s and thought that was all I had to deal with.

My mum had her last period aged 43.  2 years later she had what was described at the time as a breakdown. Panic attacks, severe anxiety etc. GP gave her Diazepam, no mention of menopause, no mention of HRT. This was 2000. Poor woman was so ill for a year until she started anti depressants. I remember prior to this she really struggled with bladder issues and all sorts of tests. Again no mention of menopause. Its only now looking back I know she was going through it. We never spoke about it. I often find myself wishing she was here to talk to her about it.

As someone else mentioned we do have higher expectations of life now, as we should! Seems barbaric we have to go through this. Honestly I developed such a bitterness towards men in the last few years. HRT has helped that 

[fiftyplus]

Yes, for decades all I thought was hot flushes = menopause and I thought I had escaped it as I never had a lot of hot flushes, although in my early 40s I remember my hair being soaking at times during the daytime and I did wonder why but had no clue I was probably peri then but again at that time I had never heard of peri never mind any symptoms. The worst symptom and shock by far for me has been va, I actually feel it has ruined my life at times along with other stuff.  Sad fact is menopause is for life.  My mother told me nothing about puberty or menopause either Jules, I remember asking her what age she "went through" menopause as I had stuff going on in my 40s to which she replied, I can't remember - not any help really ...

[Jules]

My mum had periods or bleeding well beyond an age you'd expect and was still flushing in her 70s. I remember chairing a meeting at work and an attendee blood red and dripping in sweat. I wanted to throw a bucket of water over her. It's horrible and embarrassing but there's so much more to it and as someone has said it's the VA that has been the hardest for me. I'm divorced and it happened just as I started having some fun with a man I met, I felt 18 again, looked in good shape for 59 but my essential bits weren't keeping up. It went so much worse 2 years ago, I wondered what had happened. The topical estrogen has been a godsend but of course it can't reverse atrophy that has already happened. Women have so much challenge with aging. It's not fair☹️