![\"Menopause](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-1466993596.jpg\")
\n\t\tBecause I\u2019ve clicked on a couple of perimenopause ads on social media, the memes have multiplied like maggots (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tBecause I\u2019ve clicked on a couple of perimenopause ads on social media, the memes have multiplied like maggots (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
My friend sent me my first perimenopause meme about a year ago, when we were 41.<\/p>\n
I double-tapped it out of courtesy, not really knowing what it had to do with me. But after she sent three or four more, I finally asked herwhat she was talking about.<\/p>\n
\u2018Are we in perimenopause<\/a>??\u2019 I wrote. The last time I checked, I was a sprite young teenage woman, barely into the fifth decade of her life, easily passable for 37 and able to touch her toes.<\/p>\n \u2018We are!\u2019 she replied. \u2018It starts at 35-38.\u2019 <\/a> Slightly panicked, I typed back: \u2018Who said?\u2019<\/p>\n Her response: \u2018Everybody.\u2019<\/p>\n As someone being regularly tracked and monitored by Google Ad Services, of course I\u2019d heard of perimenopause<\/a>. My algorithm <\/a>basically got down on all fours and started panting like a dog the second I turned 40. Overnight, I was inundated with nonstop ads for pills and potions all promising to reinvigorate my newly decaying corporeal form.<\/p>\n But lately, maybe because I\u2019ve clicked on one or two of those ads or because those memes have multiplied like maggots, I can\u2019t get away from it: Big Perimenopause is here and it\u2019s dragging me with it.<\/p>\n How it started <\/p>\n According to Google, the perimenopause conversation exploded somewhere around late 2022, the same time several high-profile female celebrities were talking about (or investing in) its supercharged big sister, menopause.<\/p>\n Suddenly menopause <\/a>was trending (and trendy), so it was the perfect time for perimenopause <\/a>to tag along.<\/p>\n Perimenopause is the time leading up to menopause that often begins in your mid- to late-40s (though for some women it can begin in their mid-30s). Symptoms include irregular periods, hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, and mood changes, as well as other physical changes.<\/p>\n \t\t \t\t It\u2019s not a single event \u2013 it\u2019s a continuous process, one that doctors say can last several years. And even if a woman has experienced some or all of these symptoms, there\u2019s no one test or sign that will determine that she\u2019s officially entered perimenopause<\/a>.<\/p>\n So\u2026 clear as mud \u2013 it\u2019s a thing, for sure, but no one can tell you if you have it, you just sort of have to guess.<\/p>\n \t\t Which could explain why half of the strangers in my algorithm have been so quick to grab the diagnosis and slap it on all of their problems \u2013 to the point where it\u2019s starting to feel like an identity.<\/p>\n Weight gain? Perimenopause. Can\u2019t sleep? Perimenopause. Forgot your keys? Perimenopause. Suddenly bad at eyeliner? Perimenopause.<\/p>\n Obviously women<\/a>\u2019s health is important and chronically understudied.<\/a> Before 1993, we were rarely included in clinical trials. Women\u2019s health research is woefully underfunded, and physically, the world has been designed for and by men. Ask any woman under 5\u20195\u201d who\u2019s ever put on a seatbelt\u2014those car companies want us dead.<\/p>\n But I do think it\u2019s important to ask: what if your symptoms aren\u2019t perimenopause? Or at the very least, what if they\u2019re not only perimenopause?<\/p>\n The body changes for all of us after 40\u2014we gain weight, our skin sags, our vision changes, our joints get stiffer. Not to mention lifetime happiness reaches its low point in your 40s. The sting of nostalgia creeps in and your life starts to look like all the decisions you made along the way.<\/p>\n Your forties also place you in the \u201csandwich generation<\/a>,\u201d where you might be simultaneously taking care of young and\/or adult children as well as aging and\/or ailing parents<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a midlife<\/a> mess and sometimes it really sucks. (Or as Carl Jung put it, \u201cThe wine of youth does not always clear with advancing years; sometimes it grows turbid.\u201d)<\/p>\n Taking stock<\/p>\n As for me, it feels like a longer-than-usual rest stop where I\u2019m reflecting on the first 40 years of my life, looking out over the next 40, simultaneously sad, happy, joyous and grieving, and wondering who the f*** stole the compass.<\/p>\n Sometimes I lie awake wondering what I really want, if this is it, if I should be more grateful for what I have or more active in bracing for the sadness yet to come.<\/p>\n So yeah\u2014sometimes I toss and turn<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t But I am not only what is happening to my body. And as a semi-reformed former hypochondriac<\/a>, I have no interest in labelling every physical sensation sparking inside of me. I know Father Time will have his way with me when it\u2019s my turn, but I\u2019m not inviting him over before our appointment, are you crazy?<\/p>\n Maybe, like American talk show host Candace Cameron said about scary movies, the memes are a portal. So I rebuke them \u2013 get them away from me!<\/p>\n Maybe my refusal to laugh along with them is just delusion. Perhaps I\u2019m in denial about my age and terrified about the closing of a chapter. It could be I\u2019m just too scared to look it in the face.<\/p>\n But can\u2019t that be fine, too? Men famously go kicking and screaming into midlife. They cheat on their wives, buy Ferraris, get into MMA, and fly to Turkey for hair plugs. They buy presidential elections<\/a> and become obsessed with space. And for the most part, we let them.<\/p>\n Perhaps I\u2019m just asking for women to give themselves a little more room, to steal some from the men, and to not get attached onto any more labels we just spent a decade unlearning. Especially one with such bad PR.<\/p>\n And I guess while we\u2019re at it, I\u2019m at least asking for better memes. After all, we\u2019re millennials, we invented memes. We gotta do better than this.<\/p>\n You can read more from Nicole James here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow\n
commercial, this time about menopause \u201ceating you alive\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"Inc.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-2204219329.jpg\")
\n\t\tMultiple high profile female celebrities have invested in menopause products, including Naomi Watts, founder of Stripes (Picture: Robin Marchant\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/statistics-chart-0135.webp\")
\n\t\tThe rapid increase of \u2018perimenopause\u2019 across Google Trends from 2005-2025 as it began gaining traction online (Picture: Supplied)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/selfie-a12c.jpg\")
\n\t\tNicole\u2019s algorithm became flooded with content about perimenopause \u2018the second [she] turned 40\u2032(Picture: Supplied)
\nPeri mania<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/meme-1-4682.webp\")
\n\t\tAre memes the \u2018portal\u2019 into facing perimenopause head on? (Picture: Instagram\/whatthemenopause)<\/p>\n
\nMORE: Until I had one, I was ignorant about the reality of miscarriages<\/a><\/p>\n
\nMORE: I\u2019ve embraced free bleeding when I\u2019m on my period<\/a><\/p>\n