Your Perimenopause Alter Ego

Let loose the angry monster

A few weeks ago, I had a moment that I like to call “Family Rage.” It was not a good look for me, but I couldn’t help it. I was so completely and utterly upset over something one of my family members did to me that I thought was so terrible that I lashed out verbally at them (no names shall be mentioned 😋). What was my anger about? They left a dirty spoon on my nice clean kitchen counter. I felt completely triggered and disrespected at that moment.

After I calmed down, I immediately added this topic to my writing schedule for this week, and here we are. Now that I’ve written a lot about the facts of perimenopause and our hormonal changes over the past few months, I can shift gears and discuss the emotional impact of our fluctuating hormones.

I write humorously about perimenopause, hoping to make you smile. It’s such a weighted experience that it’s easy to forget to laugh during it. And it’s all fun and games until it isn’t. The fact remains that perimenopause can change our mood, our behavior, our personality, and our identity in unexpected and drastic ways.

It's become a running joke in my house that whenever I uncontrollably fly off the handle over something insignificant, one of my family members announces, “Release the Kraken!”

It’s their way to lighten up the mood and get me to laugh, which snaps me out of my rage.

The Kraken is an enormous Greek mythical creature of the sea. In the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans, it was Poseidon’s pet and Zeus’ weapon. In a famous scene, Zeus wants to take revenge and unleash this monster to destroy Argos, so he announces, “Let loose the Kraken.”

🎤 Fun fact: I LOVED this movie as a teen and still do. It was the first movie I remember seeing Harry Hamlin in. The original is much better than the 2010 remake with Liam Neeson, except the famous line was changed from “Let loose the Kraken” to the more popular phrase “Release the Kraken!”

The phrase “Release the Kraken!” is now part of pop culture and means “to unleash a greatly destructive force.”

There were times when I was definitely a Kraken.

Why Does Anger Seem to Appear Out of Nowhere?

If you’re familiar with my writing style, you know I never give the short answer, I even warned you about TMI. I’ll make an exception today so you don’t get mad at me.

Spikes and drops and fluctuating hormones freak out our bodies. It’s not your fault.

Now for the longer answer. There are many reasons why anger shows up during perimenopause, but many of the reasons can be linked back to your nervous system and your fluctuating hormones. If you remember from earlier articles, perimenopause affects your brain (your nervous system), as well as your endocrine system (your hormonal system).

Your body is used to a predictable pattern of hormonal release. When perimenopause begins, it knocks your body off what is usual and customary and makes things very unpredictable. I believe that this can cause your body to interpret what’s going on as a stressor/danger. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I can feel this happening in my body.

This type of anxiety often felt by perimenopause women is not so much based on worry, but it is a felt sense of unsafety – otherwise known as a stress response. You can learn more about this in my article, Just Not Feeling Like Myself.

Acute Stress vs. Chronic Stress

In an acute stress response (also called fight-or-flight), like a car swerving into our lane that misses us, our bodies know how to trigger chemicals and reactions to protect us in the moment—giving us quick reaction time, strength we didn’t know we had, sending blood flow to areas of the body that will help us flee, reducing pain, etc. When the stress is over, our bodies return to baseline, and we metabolize/process the stress chemicals so that they no longer affect us.

However, when under chronic stress, and let’s be honest, as women, by the time we reach perimenopause, we’re all under some degree of chronic stress; this is where things become a problem. A chronic stress response is going to continue to release stress chemicals and cause you to become hypervigilant, always looking for danger whether you realize it or not. Mostly not because we’re not taught about this. That danger you’re constantly scanning for could be a bear, an awful email from your boss, a potential fight with your loved one, or your child leaving his shoes out for you to trip on. You become overly sensitive to everything.

Suppose we don’t address our perimenopause anxiety. In that case, we end up with a chronic stress response situation more than before at a time when our stress resilience is going down because of the declining effects of estrogen, and our general life stress is going up. Our cortisol and adrenaline levels become elevated, crash, or released differently than their normal rhythm.

This is going to impact your personality, mood, and energy levels.

When we’re in a state of chronic stress, our bodies downregulate unessential functions (meaning it will lower the activity level by shifting blood and oxygen away to more essential body functions).

You may think that digestion is an essential function of your survival, but your body does not. Your body will downregulate your digestion if you’re being attacked or if your body detects danger. That danger could be ANYTHING that it thinks is dangerous to your survival - real or imagined. It doesn’t have to be an animal chasing you, which is what therapists usually use as an example.

Hence, digestion will slow way down. Think about a time when you were nervous about something. How was your stomach? Were you interested in eating?

What else goes offline or changes during a stress response?

• Your cognitive brain functions (your rational self) as blood and oxygen move to the amygdala (aka back brain) to access fight-or-flight. If you’d like to learn more about your cognitive brain functions and your “back brain” read That Thing on The Thing - Brain Fog is Reall inn Perimenopause.

• Reproduction

• Respiration

• Libido – You don’t need juices flowing when fighting danger. Could you imagine if a man had an erection while trying to run away from a tiger? Someone put that in my head once, and it stuck. It makes me laugh. Sharing is caring, you’re welcome.

• Immune System

• Growth Processes

• Hormones and neurotransmitters can also be affected, like dopamine and serotonin.

• And the list could go on!

Chronic, excessive stress is damaging to the body. We’ve known this for years. Stress chemicals are catabolic, meaning they break down the body. They are only intended for short periods of time.

What happens over time when chronic stress isn’t addressed?

When stress chemicals and frustrations build up in the body, it has to go somewhere. And that’s where the rage storm can come from. How cathartic does it feel initially when you release the Kraken? It feels amazing!

That is until your prefrontal cortex (the rational part of your brain) takes over again when the threat is over, and blood flow is redirected there from your emotional brain (the back part of your brain). That’s the moment when you realize the consequences of your actions. An upset and startled husband? ✔ Check! Scared children? ✔ Check!

If you’re constantly in a state of hypervigilance and stress sensitivity, it’s exhausting. Add that to not sleeping, and you have a recipe for a blow-up. This leads to issues with mental and physical fatigue. Either type of fatigue can predispose you to become triggered by something more intensely than you would normally have experienced.

Hot off the presses! From Hallmark’s new line of perimenopause cards 🤣

As it goes with perimenopause, there is more than one reason why anger can suddenly erupt.

Here of some other reasons for going radically ballistic:

Blood sugar regulation: Perimenopause affects how your body is able to regulate your blood sugar. Spikes and crashes can occur more frequently, especially if you don’t eat properly and regularly. This is where the term “hangry” comes from.

Pain: Muscle, joint, tendon, ligament, and fascia pain can arise as estrogen declines. Estrogen is anti-inflammatory and protects us, but when it starts declining, things start to hurt. Pain is exhausting to deal with.

Life: Perimenopause hits right about the age when your children are still young enough to be living with you or just heading off to college which is the same time that the adults in your life are aging and needing additional attention which is at the same time you’re starting to feel career burnout which is the same time you’re feeling unfilled and disillusioned with life. Yeah, it happens like that – all together.

Isolation Epidemic: We are in a crisis of isolation. We were before the pandemic, and we’ve been in it even more since then. I am an introvert, but I have since embraced the fact that people need people. Even an awkward social interaction is better for our body than no interaction at all. I have become quite the social butterfly lately and I’m feeling the positive effects. Even when embarrassing perimenopause symptoms show up unexpectedly.

Body Weight Image Issues: We often complain about weight gain. When we try to fix it by relying on weight loss practices that were successful in the past, we get frustrated when they don’t work. Carrying around extra weight and berating yourself for it is going to make you mad. How would you feel if your friend came up to you and said, “You’re so fat. I hate you.” Be careful of your self-talk.

Coping with Aging: It makes me mad that I have to age. I want to look like I’m perpetually 25. It’s been a lot to process that I’m not a spring chicken any longer.

Unexpected Surprises: Every morning, I wake up, and one of the first things I do is to look into the mirror to make sure everything still looks the same as yesterday. That’s not always the case in perimenopause. Women have complained that they developed jowls overnight because their faces dropped. It happens that fast. Constant surprises that you aren’t looking forward to are going to put you in a bad mood. Blood is another unexpected surprise that may catch you off-guard. I’ve had to wear a panty liner every day this entire past year because I don’t want Aunt Flo to show up and soak my pants.

🌊Emotional Tidal Waves: In a matter of minutes, I’ve gone from weeping and crying to feeling joy-filled and grateful. This is confusing when such a rollercoaster of emotions is happening and out of our control. It’s not something we’re used to at this extreme.

Trauma: It’s common for old traumas to be released during perimenopause. You may remember something that happened long ago that you thought you forgot or had gotten over. The book The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD, is accurately titled and is a groundbreaking look at how trauma is stored in the body. This is a tough book to get through, I will list one I enjoy more in my next article.

Critical self-talk: Wow, we can really do a number on our heads with how we speak to ourselves. I didn’t realize my self-talk was so mean until I really started to notice it. All of this rumination and negativity is exhausting. I’m much more mindful about how I speak to myself. I’m not Polly Perfect or rosy all of the time. I still have the thoughts, but I don’t focus on it or believe it at face value any longer.

Lack of hobbies: As adults, who has time for enjoyable hobbies or interests any longer?

Being stuck inside all day: Think about the amount of time we spend indoors and in temperature-controlled rooms. It’s staggering. We’re meant to be outside at least part of the time.

Think about your own life and what reasons could be causing you stress and overwhelm.

You can only hold in so much emotion and frustration for so long before it comes out and takes control. As women, we’re socially taught not to express anger. This impacts us greatly.

It’s Not Your Fault

Now that you understand there are multiple factors involved in any unexpected outbursts, you can begin to realize that it’s not your fault. Give yourself some space and time, notice cues when you start to feel like you’re going to erupt, and remove yourself from the situation when you can.

This is a lot of information to process. It’s taken me years of research to figure this all out and describe it succinctly for you. Once I learned about and understood the nervous system, I could connect it to perimenopause symptoms in a way I’ve never seen before.

Take your time with this article and think it over. Try to identify how this shows up in your life. Once you notice it, you’ll start seeing the patterns.

Remember, that reactions to triggers are biological body responses hardwired in us to keep us safe. We can’t control all of them, but we can minimize our response reactions to lessen the impact on our families and keep the consequences manageable. This is why even though I know about this stuff and have the tools in place to prevent it, sometimes it still gets the best of me. Luckily, it’s not as intense, frequent, or as long-lasting as it once was.

Read part two for resources and tips: There is Beauty in the Beast

I appreciate your time! I appreciate you being here! And, I’m grateful for my subscribers. Truly, from the bottom of my heart.

Be well, stay cool,

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