Talking MENOPAUSE RANGE UNMASKED POINT

Are you fearful, tearful and always flying off

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It was when mum of three Jackie* threw her favourite ceramic platter across the kitchen and watched it shatter into pieces on the floor that she knew she had to do something about the constant anger that was threatening to swamp her.

“I really loved that platter - it was a wedding present,” says Jackie, whose rage was ignited on that occasion by her teenagers’ bickering. “But I was having a total meltdown and, unfortunately, I was holding it at the time.”

Then in her late forties, she had noticed for months that she seemed to be grumpy much of the time. “Everything p***ed me off, even stupid little stuff,” she recalls. “I was so annoyed with my kids all the time, and my husband, some of my workmates, every other driver on the road... Pretty much everyone, really.”

She put her irritability down to work stress and a lack of sleep, and hoped it would get better. But the full-on bout of fury that led to the demise of the platter and seemed to erupt out of nowhere left her seriously concerned.

“I remember picking up all the broken pieces and thinking, ‘What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I so mad at the world?’”

“I mentioned it to a friend, and she said, ‘Have you talked to your doctor? It could be perimenopause,’” shares Jackie. “That was like a lightbulb going on - it hadn't dawned on me that it could be down to that because I had no other menopause symptoms.”

Jackie, 57, initially put off seeing her GP because of the lack of symptoms, but once her periods became erratic, she booked an appointment.

“My doctor said it was perimenopause and put me on HRT,” she tells. “What a difference it made. The anger went away. I felt human again.” Mood swings are a well-known symptom of peri-menopause, which is the time leading up to your periods finishing. They're due to hormonal fluctuations and affect many women.

Yet sometimes, those seesawing hormones don't just leave women mildly irritable - but feeling fury.