In the largest perimenopause community the thing that gets upvoted hardest is not a symptom. It is a confession.
I hate everyone
Eight hundred and fifty-three upvotes for a title. The post under it is specific: the friend who sends YouTube videos instead of sentences, the friend who says "hubby", the husband, every word out of his mouth. And then the line that gives the post its real subject:
Is this peri? Peri with grief mixed in? Am I doomed to live my life in solitude because I just can't stomach being around anyone?
She had lost her mother six weeks earlier. The top comment, at 88 upvotes, is not about grief. It is this:
Thirded, "hubby" and "kiddo" and "doggo" can all go die in a fire.
That is the register of the whole thread, and it tells you something. The women answering are not alarmed. They recognise it.
So this is the thing most upvoted and least said. Fifty-six posts in a year; thousands of upvotes. The gap between those numbers is the shame, and it is why the post that finally names it goes to the top every time.
I just want to be left alone
Eight hundred and six upvotes.
If any part of this has gone past not wanting people and into not wanting to be here at all, that is not a tolerance problem and it is not for an article. Contact a crisis line or a clinician today. The rest of this page is for the far more common version.
Why do I suddenly hate everyone and want to be left alone?
What women in these threads describe losing is not affection for people but tolerance for them, and the people being tolerated have not changed. The habit that now registers as a siren was there ten years ago and registered as nothing. What has gone is the capacity to not mind, and that capacity was doing more work than anyone knew.
The clearest description of it in the corpus is a 64-upvote comment under the 954-upvote post No one told me perimenopause would be so mental:
These aren't new things that annoy me, (other ppl being jerks, being ignored, being insulted when you just ask a question) I just suddenly can't find my "bitch switch" and it's always ON now. I just no longer tolerate what I've been trained to tolerate my whole life as a woman and I'm pissed I was asked to in the first place! I too am a delightful person, I enjoy many things but my tolerance has shifted..
Here is the reading women in these threads keep arriving at, and it deserves saying plainly: the people have not changed. The subsidy has ended. The friend was always sending videos instead of sentences. The conversation was always one-way. What is gone is whatever made it cost nothing to put up with, and nobody notices a subsidy until it stops. That is not a character change. It is an invoice arriving for things that were always being paid for.
Is this depression, or do I just not want people?
A tolerance drop and depression can look identical from outside and feel very different from inside, and the difference women describe is what being alone does for you. In a tolerance drop, solitude is a relief. In depression, being alone is no better than company.
The tolerance version has a particular shape. The irritation is specific: this person, this habit, this format. One or two chosen people are still fine, often better than fine. And there is a strong sense of the sociable self as a performance that now has to be paid for afterwards. One comment under the 1,114-upvote post All I want to do is bed rot, at 4 upvotes, is not evidence of anything, but it is the wording:
I miss being extroverted and social. I miss looking forward to things. The whole time I am out I am just thinking about when I can go home but when I'm home I rot in bed and feel anxious! I've dealt with anxiety and depression all my life. This is different.
There is a second reason to have the distinction in your own words before you walk into an appointment. Before anyone names it, she is most often sent toward therapy, then depression, then her thyroid. That order is not wrong, and nobody on a web page can tell you which you have. The two can also overlap, and perimenopause protects no one from depression.
The energy half of this, the not wanting to do anything at all, has its own page. This one is about the people.
What do I actually do about not wanting people?
The thing to do about not wanting people is to run an energy budget for a fortnight rather than pick a side. Forcing yourself out and resenting it, or retreating and feeling guilty, are both decisions made without data, and the budget supplies the data.
Run an energy budget for a fortnight
For two weeks, write down every social thing you do, from a phone call to a dinner, and give it two numbers out of five: how much it cost you before, and how much it cost you after. Not whether you enjoyed it. What it cost.
Two things show up almost immediately. Some things cost far less than you forecast, because your prediction of how an activity will feel is currently the broken instrument. And some things cost far more than their place in your life justifies, every time. Those are the two lists you need, and neither can be built from the sofa.
Keep the invitations that pass three tests
Once you have the fortnight, sort the standing invitations with three questions.
Did it cost less than I expected last time? Keep it. Your forecast was wrong about this one and will probably be wrong again.
Does it have an exit? A walk ends. A coffee ends. A dinner at someone's house that runs to midnight does not. Keep the things with a natural end and swap the format on the rest.
Is it the person or the format? This is the question that saves friendships. Try the friend you could not stand in a group of six one-to-one, and the friend who exhausts you on the phone by text, before you discard either. Change the container before you discard the contents.
Protect the alone time on purpose
If solitude is what refills the tank, schedule it like a meeting or it will be eaten. An evening a week with the door shut and nobody's needs in it is not a symptom. It is maintenance. The community's cottage in the bog is this, scaled up. Scale it down to a Tuesday and take it.
Send one honest sentence
Friends being cancelled on with no explanation draw their own conclusions, and most are worse than the truth. One sentence, sent once, does more than a year of "sorry, mad week":
I've got much less in the tank for people than I used to at the moment and it's not about you. I'd rather see you for a walk than a dinner for a while, and I'll say yes when I can.
Send it to the people you want to keep.
Mute, do not cut, and wait thirty days
The frenemy post, Perimenopause Made Me Unfollow My Frenemy in 30 Seconds Flat, has 1,124 upvotes and it is a liberation post, not a symptom post. The irritation is often accurate. The friendship often was one-sided.
But check the log before you act on it. If the worst weeks follow the worst nights, or land in the same week of the cycle, the irritation has a schedule, and a twenty-year friendship should not be ended at eleven at night inside it. So: mute, not block. Thirty days, a few decent nights, then decide in daylight. Some friendships will not survive the review, and that is allowed.
What do I tell my husband and kids about wanting to be alone?
Tell the people in the house three things, in a calm week: what is going on, that it is not about them, and what would help. From the outside, a woman who used to run the social calendar and now shuts the bedroom door looks like someone who has stopped loving them, and a household will write its own explanation if you do not supply one.
The 853-upvote post is blunt about where the irritation lands:
My husband. Just all the time, I hate every word that comes out of his mouth.
Two lines later: "I love my daughter though." Both are true at once, and the people in the house cannot tell which one they are living in unless you say. That conversation has its own page.
When is hating everyone more than perimenopause?
Hating everyone is more than perimenopause when being alone stops being a relief, and the signs below mean go now rather than log for a fortnight.
- Low mood that does not lift. Weeks of it, whoever is or is not in the room, with no relief from being alone.
- Worthlessness, hopelessness, or the feeling that people would be better off without you.
- Any thought of not wanting to be here. Contact a crisis line or a clinician now. Not after the next appointment, not after the log. Now.
- Being frightened of what you might do or say, to yourself or anyone in the house.
None of those is a tolerance problem, and none of them is for a coach or a web page.
Will I ever like people again?
What women in these threads describe losing is not the capacity for people but the capacity to perform being fine for people they never much liked, and the point of the fortnight is to find the few who were never costing anything. The post Living like a recluse, is this ok? I just hate everyone. has 591 upvotes, and under the 1,603-upvote post asking whether anyone else just does not want to go out and do things anymore, the writer is not asking for a fix. She wants to hang in her garden with her cats.
The We Don't Care Club put it best, in a comment with 84 upvotes:
We also do not care if you like us because we never liked you anyway and don't really like anyone anymore.
Read it twice. The last clause is the symptom. The first two are the information. Manage the symptom with sleep, a budget and a shut door; it is the kind of thing coaching works on. Then take the information seriously, in daylight, thirty days later, and keep the few people who were never costing you anything.