From Ananya M., community member:

I went through exactly this at 42 and felt so ashamed of it. I cried at a biscuit advertisement once — a biscuit advertisement — and sat there wondering what was wrong with me. I cried in the car on the way to school drop-off. I cried when a song I’d heard a hundred times came on the radio. I felt completely out of control of my own emotions.

What helped me first was understanding that this is a recognised symptom of perimenopause — it is oestrogen doing this, not weakness, not “going mad,” not some indication that I was deeply unhappy with my life. When oestrogen fluctuates, it directly affects serotonin, the brain’s mood-regulating chemical. The tearfulness is a neurological side effect of hormonal turbulence, not a referendum on who you are.

When I finally spoke honestly to a gynaecologist and she started me on low-dose HRT, the emotional flooding reduced noticeably within about six weeks. The crying didn’t disappear completely — I still feel things deeply, which I think is actually just who I am — but the uncontrollable quality of it went away.

I also started speaking to a counsellor, not because I was mentally unwell, but because I found it helpful to process the identity piece — the feeling that something in me was shifting, that the person I had been was changing. That was worth sitting with properly, with help.

You are not silly. You are navigating a real hormonal transition with very little societal support. Please talk to someone — either a doctor or through our chat [/chat].