u/so-bad-its-funny

Has anyone else found that despite their hrt being upped to a high dose it has stopped working?

My blood tests show I’m not even in peri-menopause yet (my gp didn’t do any tests, just started me on them, and I’ve just seen a hormone specialist who ran the tests and says that due to my symptoms she believes I’m in pm despite lack of serotology) but I’ve had extreme symptoms for 2 years and was on hrt for a year (which helped immediately but then started being less effective and I gave up after a high dose was useless)

I could fill a book with the amount of times a gp has listened to my explanation of why I am at the appointment, then said something that indicates they don’t remember me/aren’t aware of my health conditions (like type 1 diabetes).

Surely they are allowed 2 minutes before each appointment to read over the upcoming patients notes so they can have some context and knowledge so that the entire 10 minutes hasnt been a waste of time?

I’m going to come across as very bratty and entitled, but I don’t care, I just need to vent.

I’m debilitated with multiple chronic illnesses, as well as being a single mum to a 7 year old. Right now on top of my usual conditions I have a major flare up of hayfever, and am fighting off a virus (which is making me sleep all the time).

When it’s just the chronic illnesses, I can usually scrape by in life being a good mum and using the time my daughter is at school to rest and unmask, plus most weekends her dad has her for Saturday night so I get plenty of alone time.

But I’ve spent 5 days now absolutely SMASHED with everything, and what is frustrating me is that my family members have not wanted to help me.

For context, my parents recently retired and moved into my neighbourhood a few streets away, with the stated intention of being here to support me and my sister (she’s healthy but has 3 kids, a fulltime job, a busy and unhelpful husband who tends to go fishing on weekends…).

Said sister works at my daughters school and used to offer to pick her up to take her, and drop her home after, but now doesn’t want to and simply ghosts me completely even when I am just sending her a funny meme. Which I actually understand- her life is very very hard too, and even though it seems like a simple thing to take my daughter on the way to school, it is probably one step too far for her. But it doesn’t stop me feeling frustrated, because mornings are diabolical for me with arthritis making me too stiff to drive properly and the IBS requiring me to be glued to the toilet…..

When I asked my dad one morning if he could take my daughter to school because I was too sick, he complained….

Over this last few days, I’ve been absolutely at the END of my mental health, and told my mum i NEEDED her to have my daughter for a night or two so I could sleep and recover. But she has booked up her calendar soooooo much that she’s like “nah I’m to busy”

So I’m fuming…

Daughters dad works fulltime, and does nights, so he’s not an option, and also, he chose to live MILES away so can’t be called upon to help outside of the Saturdays/sundays.

I have an aunt in my neighbourhood who adores my daughter, but she will only help if she believes I’m literally too sick to care for her, and has said “I won’t be helping if you’ve just “had enough” - you’re her mum, she needs you”.. this aunt never had kids….

So I’m just absolutely raging.

This is just a vent, because I truly believe that these people are all just having healthy boundaries to enjoy their lives - it’s not their fault their 44 year old daughter/sister/niece is so debilitated.

But f#*kkkkk

Edited to add: my mum kept messaging me over the weekend VERY concerned thst my daughter might be watching too much tv while I rest in bed…. Then I got bombarded by links to probably bogus Facebook articles about how foods other than fruit and vegetables can cause bad health/toxins in water and canned food and Teflon pots and the air…. And also how if I just chant affirmations every morning I can convince my body I’m healthy….

I have in the past subtly cut my parents off for continued ableist shit, because it’s so painful to my mental health, even though they truly love me and are just trying to help.

But looks like I will have to put my walls up again

Anyone else who spent most of their adult life struggling with sex drive find that it has gone nuts (as in, horny on a daily basis, which I classify as a high sex drive, although I don’t know if that’s what is considered a high sex drive for others, all I know is that I was only turned on once every one or 2 months prior to perimenopause despite me and my husbands best efforts)?

I’m delighted because I’ve always wanted to have frequent hot sex, but couldn’t for the life of me physically desire it; but I’m also a bit confused, because I keep hearing that perimenopause and menopause reduces your sex drive.

The other things that have happened to me that are the opposite to what are common side effects of perimenopause are that my lifelong sweet-tooth disappeared overnight (yet I am putting on weight rapidly despite not eating anything sugary aside from starchy carbs, and even then I’m only eating tiny portions), and I have the opposite of being “bunged up” (I’m trying very hard to be vague in case anyone reading this is squeamish about toileting issues hahahaha).

However, one extremely hard downside to pm is that my temper is over the top - I never used to be an angry person, I was always so laid back and nothing bothered me, but now I have to use allllll my energy not to RAGE at people

So I am a bit of a cynic. For the first time since that NZ competition opened where you can win an instant discount off your shop at the till, I shopped at Woolworths. When I had scanned all my items, I went to open my app for the digital card, and it said it had signed me out.
But there was no option to sign in; the only option was to sign up all over again….
I’m guessing they have done this on purpose to put people off going through the kerfuffle of sorting it out on the spot (and anyway, the terms and conditions of the comp say you are ineligible for prizes until you have been signed up for 48 hours)….
Anyone else experienced this highly suspiciously-times issue?
Jokes on them, because I remembered I had taken a screenshot of my digi-card.

Today is my 3rd day of waking up so stiff and sore all over (with a special emphasis on my fingers, wrists, and arms) that I can barely move. And on top of that, I can’t stop clearing my throat, everything I eat and drink hurts my tummy (even water), and I have developed toothache in the last 30 seconds (when I go to the dentist with this, I end up paying the fee only to be told there’s literally nothing wrong).

Unlike some other flares, the pain and stiffness didn’t fade after a couple of hours, so I’ve actually spent over 50 hours straight feeling like I’m paralysed and have been beaten with a bat…

Thank goodness my child is spending the weekend with her father, because I can no longer sustain the mask of calm happy positive person; the number of swears coming out of me must be a world record hahahahahaha

I’m a 44F married to a 52M (we met 2 years ago and married 9 months ago).
Since we married he has shown no interest in my sexual pleasure - despite me raising this topic in a respectful non-judgemental but candid manner, and sharing my desire for a mutually satisfying sexual relationship, he refuses to participate in anything other than the very specific way he likes to have sex (which involves me being woken up some mornings to him just putting it in from behind and thrusting until he comes - there is no interaction other than me being used as a receptacle).

I was happy for this to happen initially as I wanted him to have a good time, and in terms of consent i implicitly gave it (if I didn’t want to have sex like that I would have just said no and got out of bed, so while I do understand that there are people out there who would call it rape, in my case it wasn’t because I was fine for it to happen).

But as time went on and he basically ignored my attempts to initiate anything, in fact he began to visibly sneer at my attempts and pointedly turned to playing Xbox or scrolling YouTube when I wore lingerie, I was no longer happy to indulge him in his morning escapades as it was obvious that that was all he wanted. And yes I raised the subject, but got complete silence.

Now I fantasise about him and masturbate imagining him making love to me. I’ve done all I can to advocate for mutual pleasure but it’s a no from him ( this is completely contrary to what he indicated before we were married. It feels so unfair.) He also refuses to go to marriage counselling.

I know the gold standard of godly marital relations is mutual pleasure as well as some “gift” activities, and not 100% one-sided using-your-spouses-body-as-a-tool-of-self-pleasure, but if I’ve done all I can to advocate for myself, I don’t believe I’m doing anything wrong if I indulge in fantasies so deep that after pleasuring myself to the thought of my husband the chemicals released by that actually make me feel like we have been making love together and make me feel bonded to him.

I know there are some out there who would argue that this is not within the boundaries of what is ok within a marital sexual relationship. But what else am I supposed to do? Repress my libido forevermore even though I thought I could finally set it free because I married?

This isn’t an issue that fits the biblical reasons for acceptable divorce (and I don’t want to divorce even if he never changes because despite this being disrespectful towards me he is great company and a very close friend and honestly there’s more to life than sex) even though I personally have a liberal view of what constitutes a divorce that God gives his (sad) blessing to.