The Emotional Rollercoaster of Perimenopause (And Why You’re Not Losing Your Mind)

You’re not broken. You’re not “too sensitive.” And no, you’re not losing your mind.

But you are going from zero to ten in about four seconds flat — and what used to feel like a five-out-of-ten inconvenience now feels like a five-alarm emergency. Sound familiar? If you’re somewhere in the perimenopause or menopause transition, the emotional intensity you’re feeling isn’t a personal failing. It’s biology. And in Episode 2 of Shifting Our Sh!t, therapists Megan Bayles Bartley and Elizabeth McCormack are pulling back the curtain on what’s actually happening in your body, your brain, and your relationships — and more importantly, what you can do about it.

Why Your Emotions Feel Like They’re Running the Show

Let’s start with the basics: hormones don’t just affect your body. They run your whole operation — including your nervous system, your neurotransmitters, your mood, and your ability to tolerate the sound of someone chewing.

As estrogen dips and fluctuates during perimenopause, it takes a lot of other things down with it — including your natural anxiety regulation. So when your body’s sweatiness has you wondering am I anxious or am I just hot? — the answer might honestly be both. And neither of those things is your fault.

Megan puts it plainly: this is a 20-year transition. Just like adolescence reshaped everything from 0 to 20, perimenopause and menopause reshape everything from roughly 35 to 55. The physical changes are dramatic enough on their own. The emotional ones? They deserve just as much attention — and just as much grace.

What Emotional Dysregulation Actually Looks Like at Midlife

It doesn’t always look like crying in the car (though, same). Sometimes it looks like:

Walking into a room and having absolutely no idea why you’re there. Knowing every detail of a person’s life — their kids, their career, their grandmother’s maiden name — but being completely unable to recall their name. Wanting to jump out of a moving car just to get some space. Feeling simultaneous joy and grief at your kid’s high school graduation. Recognizing that your frustration tolerance is basically at zero, and that the dishwasher being loaded wrong is somehow the worst thing that has happened all year.

All of this is normal. All of it has a physiological basis. And all of it is manageable — with the right tools.

The Practice: Name It to Tame It

One of the most powerful frameworks Megan uses — with her clients and with her own kids — is deceptively simple: name the feeling.

Happy. Sad. Mad. Scared. If you’ve seen Inside Out, you already have the vocabulary. The act of identifying what you’re feeling slows your nervous system down just enough to interrupt the spiral. It doesn’t make the feeling disappear, but it changes your relationship to it.

Think of it like sitting on the bank of a river, watching a barge float by. The barge (the feeling, the thought, the flaming dumpster fire of anxiety about one of your kids) doesn’t have to capsize you. You can see it. You can name it. And you can let it keep moving.

Emotions, Megan reminds us, are “watery” — they move when we allow them to. And when you move (walk into another room, step outside, grab a glass of water, go to the bathroom), you help that process along. Emotions are meant to be in-motion so they don’t get stuck or backed up. Move them out of you in some way…talking, writing, moving your body, etc. It works.

The Thermostat Problem

Here’s something most of us don’t realize we’re doing: acting as the emotional thermostat for everyone around us.

Not only do we read the temperature of the room, we feel responsible for controlling it. If someone’s in a bad mood, we try to fix it. If our teenager is dysregulated, we absorb it. If our partner is struggling, we manage it. On top of our own hormonal upheaval, this invisible labor is genuinely exhausting.

The invitation here is to put down the thermostat.

You can notice that someone else is uncomfortable without becoming responsible for solving it. You can let your teenager be in a mood without making it mean something about you. And you can remove yourself from a situation that’s escalating your own dysregulation — not as abandonment, but as self-regulation.

As Megan says: it’s your responsibility to emotionally regulate yourself. Not other people’s moods. Yours.

Practical Tools for the Trenches

So what does this actually look like in real life? A few things Megan swears by:

Earplugs! (Especially Loop earplugs) She carries them everywhere — both foam and the Loop brand — because managing sensory input is a legitimate emotional regulation strategy. Less stimulation coming in through the ears = better mood management overall.

Owning it out loud. When she’s with clients and a hot flash hits, she just says it: “Having a hot flash — turning on the fan.” With her kids: “I’ve hit a wall. I’m taking an hour.” No apology. No permission requested. Just stating what’s true and what she needs.

Hydration and protein (not negotiable). Skipping water all day and then guzzling it at 6pm leads to a rough night. Skipping breakfast protein while intermittent fasting means your blood sugar is playing catch-up all day while your hormones are already stressed. These aren’t small things. They’re foundational.

Making friends with discomfort. This is the big one. Not liking the discomfort — just being willing to be in it. Because the second half of life, as Megan and Elizabeth discuss candidly, is not going to get more comfortable. There will be grief. There will be loss. There will be physical changes we didn’t ask for. Learning to sit with discomfort now is one of the most important things we can do to prepare.

You Are Not Failing. You Are Adapting.

One of the most beautiful moments of this episode is the reminder that women’s bodies are extraordinary at adaptation. The same capacity that allows a nursing mother’s body to detect illness in her infant through their saliva and adjust her milk composition accordingly — that is the same adaptive intelligence running your system right now.

You are not broken. You are in transition.

And this transition — messy and frustrating and sweaty and sometimes hysterical as it may be — is also an invitation. To slow down. To listen to your body. To stop avoiding the feelings that have been chasing you for decades and finally let them move through.

What’s Coming in Part Two

In Episode 2, Part 2, Megan and Elizabeth are diving into the mental load — the invisible, relentless, mostly female burden of tracking every need, every appointment, every toilet paper roll in every household. (Yes, Megan already replaced it before anyone else noticed it needed replacing. And yes, they’re going to talk about it.)

If your partner, your kids, or honestly you yourself need to understand what the mental load is and why it matters, that’s the episode to send to someone you love.

Megan  Bartley is a licensed therapist and founder of The Mindfulness Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The SOS Podcast — Shifting Our Sh!t — is available wherever you listen to podcasts.