Hormone Hell

The menopause is something that has been hidden away and tucked out of sight for far too long - and although that is now changing, there is still a lack of knowledge and understanding around it. Over 85% of women experience symptoms when going through menopause, and while some can sail through it smoothly, many women struggle to maintain a ‘normal’ day-to-day life staying on top of it all. 

It is crucial to understand your body during this time, as menopause symptoms usually last around 4 years and can affect your health in the future. As well as this, many women who go through menopause will also be trying to raise a hormonal teen at the same time - so how can you tackle these two big tasks at the same time?

If your child was born when you were in your 30s, there is a large chance that you are both experiencing intense hormonal shifts that affect your identity and self image at the exact same time. The main menopause symptoms include hot flushes, chills, insomnia, mood fluctuations and weight gain, whereas the main teenage hormonal symptoms are anxiety, acne, muscle pain and bloating. 

This mixture of emotions and physical discomfort will undoubtedly create tension and stress in the home, but it is essential to remember that you are both changing and experiencing something unknown together - however, on the plus side, you can both relate to each other and understand what the other is going through! 

Unfortunately (and infuriatingly), there is still a lot of stigma surrounding menopause and women’s health in general, but why? It is a natural occurrence that happens to half the population of Earth, so why is it kept so quiet? For so many years, women’s health has been overlooked and not taken seriously by male doctors. Now that is finally changing, but there is still a long way to go - so reading and talking more about what is happening to your body is just one step closer to reaching medical equality and loosening the noose of stigma around reproductive health. 

When a woman goes through perimenopause, she is entering the final stage of her reproductive life, and her oestrogen levels plummet. This leads to sudden feelings awakening where you become aware of your own life as a woman and your own needs, similar to your adolescent teen who is growing and becoming more independent each day. 

Now that you and your teen are suddenly more aware of your own personal needs, there will be more clashes and raised voices - but what can you do to try and prevent these conflicts? 

• Be aware of your triggers and try your best to avoid them.
• Notice when your stress levels are rising and take a moment to pause and lower them down again.
• Take a step back and assess the severity of the situation - is it worth getting so worked up about? 
• Remember that both you and your teen are travelling through uncharted territory here; you are both experiencing these hormone changes for the first time and that it is normal to overreact sometimes! 
• Prioritise your own well-being and remember that teens regulate their emotions by watching how you regulate your own feelings. 
• Breathe. 

The most important factor to help maintain as much peace in your home is communication: it would seem like the best option is to just shut away your thoughts when something small is triggering you so you can just avoid another conflict - but this will simply just build up until you burst and end with both you and your teen being more upset and irritable than before. When you both calmly talk to each other about what is going on in your lives, it will greatly benefit the relationship with your teen and will help avoid arguments before they even begin! 

Ultimately it will seem like a long and challenging process for the both of you, but there is always help available if it seems like life while managing these fluctuating hormone levels is getting a bit too overwhelming. It is advised to take hormone supplements such as HRT to re-balance your hormone levels, which could help reduce your menopause symptoms and diffuse the tension and discomfort felt by both you and your teen. 

It is no easy task raising a child, and it definitely becomes harder when you are both thrown into the intense world of hormone imbalance and anxiety, but by taking the time to understand each other’s situation, you will soon find that it is much easier to manage than what people make it out to be.