My wife and I (both women) were feeling the same way, until we weren’t. We, had great jobs, plenty of money, a nice home and were feeling pretty good about hitting our 50’s. However, over the past year, we have been dealing with her father’s dementia, had some financial setbacks ourselves, and suddenly life seemed so full of stress that there were days we could barely function.

In turns, we both became afraid of things that normally didn’t phase us — taking the riding lawn mower down our steep lawn, parking in unfamiliar places, driving on winding roads in the dark. It felt like our mental health was collapsing, which was even more frightening in light of my wife’s father’s dementia, and his mother’s before him. Like you, we both worry about what family history signals for our future.

We’ve recently realized that all of our symptoms appear to be related to menopause — probably exacerbated by stress. So, if you suddenly start feeling unusually depressed, stressed, or filled with anxiety, you may want to research perimenopause and menopause. I am trying to inform my friends and others who may be experiencing distressing symptoms as they reach middle age that the changes may not be permanent or a signal of any sort of deterioration. They might be menopausal symptoms that we rarely hear or read about because getting older is not a sexy topic.

Thanks for sharing your fears and struggles. It is always good to know that most of us have more in common than not.