Perimenopause Support: Why Friendship and Community Matter When Your Hormones Shift

Honest is not the same as catastrophizing

When Rosie described this season to a woman in her early thirties, the response was that she was catastrophizing perimenopause and menopause. Rosie and Tessa take the comment seriously, look up what catastrophizing actually means, and disagree. Talking openly about something every woman will go through is not a distortion, they say. The goal is that you come away with tools and the knowledge that you are not alone, rather than terrified.

From there the episode becomes a conversation about friendship and community: why perimenopause can be so isolating, the comments that make it worse, how to show up for a friend going through it, and how to find your people if you feel like you have none.

What this episode covers

• Why being told you are “catastrophizing” or “hysterical” misses the point
• Pain is subjective: someone else’s two might be your ten
• Why perimenopause can involve real grief for the life you knew
• How to support a friend: check in, listen and skip the comparison
• Tessa’s best piece of advice: get your hormones checked, and see someone else if your doctor will not
• Why “but you’re so young” and “have you tried herbs?” deepen the isolation
• Rosie’s fear that she was being punished for living healthily, and how she let it go
• A short mindfulness practice for widening your view, and ways to build community

Your ten is still a ten

Tessa compares it to a toothache. If you tell someone it hurts, they have no way of knowing your pain tolerance; your seven might be their two, or their ten. Emotional pain is even more subjective. For Rosie, words like catastrophizing, hysterical and overreacting dismiss the experience instead of making room for it.

She is clear that she is not a doctor. Her focus is mindfulness, meditation and lived experience, and her message is that this is a journey, it is temporary, and it can involve real grief for the life you knew. Both hosts are equally clear that the answer is not to compare. Nobody needs to prove that their symptoms are worse than someone else’s.

What support from a friend actually looks like

Their advice is simple: check in with the women in your life, whether sisters, mothers, friends or partners, and ask where they are. Create a shared way of describing it so you understand each other, and listen without judgment. Tessa describes the friendships she most needs right now as ones with no competition, where someone who has been there might say, here is something that helped me, if you want it. Sometimes, she adds, the most helpful thing is simply letting someone talk.

Tessa’s own best advice came from Rosie: get your hormones checked. When she said her doctor would not test them, hearing herself say it out loud made her realize she needed to see someone else. The new doctor’s results confirmed she was in perimenopause, which led to treatment and, just as importantly, the relief of knowing she was not going crazy.

“But you’re so young”

Rosie describes what hurt most: telling other women she was in perimenopause and hearing “but you’re so young”, followed by questions about herbs, sugar, sleep and meat. Comments like that push women back into self-blame and isolation, which is exactly where the downward spiral of this transition tends to go. She wants no shame for anyone navigating it, including friends taking antidepressants.

She also shares a thought she calls controversial: wondering whether she was somehow being punished for living so healthily. She had been vegan for years, taught yoga and meditation, and cooked clean food, and still landed in the hardest stretch of her life. Letting that thought go, she says, came through acceptance: allowing herself to be sad, grieving the changes and then holding on to a vision of something better. They also flag that symptoms like a bad period are worth paying attention to and getting help for, not quietly enduring.

Broaden the aperture

Rosie guides Tessa through a short exercise: sensing, rather than seeing, the version of herself on the other side of this. Tessa describes it as rich, calm, warm, embodied, confident and unapologetic, and Rosie points out that part of her is already there. You can try the second exercise anywhere. Pick an object and stare at it like a laser beam. Notice how your breath holds. Then take a deep breath, exhale slowly and widen your view to take in the whole room. Notice the release.

Her point is that hyper-focusing on symptoms narrows everything; widening the aperture brings back perspective. The takeaways: reach out to someone who has been through it, whether a mother, grandmother, sister, friend or colleague. If nobody comes to mind, Tessa suggests building new community through a group exercise class, an affordable adult education course or simply sitting in a coffee shop among other people. You are not broken, and you are not alone.

This conversation is educational and is not medical advice. If low mood, anxiety or isolation are affecting your daily life, please reach out to a qualified healthcare or mental health professional.

Timestamps

Times refer to the YouTube video.

Explore the conversation

Questions explored in this episode

Related resources

• Perimenopause: start here
• Perimenopause mood swings and emotional changes
• Self-compassion: the practice underneath all of this
• Join Rosie’s community
• Perimenopause and menopause coaching with Rosie Acosta
• All episodes of The Radically Well Podcast