Is This Menopause or Anxiety?

The other day at the grocery store, I found myself irrationally irritated with… everyone.

The cart in front of me was moving soooo slowly. The little old lady reaching for something on the shelf felt like an obstacle instead of a person. In my head, I was already five steps ahead of her, grabbing my cookies, throwing them dramatically into the cart, and moving on with a kind of urgency that didn’t match the situation at all.

I didn’t actually do it. Thankfully.

But I could feel it. That edge. That snap. That low-level agitation buzzing just under the surface. And if I’m being honest, it probably came out a little anyway. A shorter tone. Less patience. A look I didn’t mean to give.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, the thought came in,

What is this?

Anxiety?

Stress?

Or is this menopause?

Because it doesn’t always show up as sadness or obvious overwhelm. Sometimes it looks like irritability, restlessness, a shorter fuse than you’re used to. Your body feels activated, but there’s no clear reason why.

What many women don’t realize is how much hormones influence this experience. As estrogen and progesterone begin to fluctuate in midlife, they impact the systems that regulate mood and calm. Estrogen supports serotonin, which helps stabilize how we feel. Progesterone has a naturally soothing effect on the nervous system. When those levels shift, the buffer you didn’t even know you had starts to thin out.

So what feels like anxiety can actually be your nervous system working a little harder to find its footing.

And here’s the part I’m learning in real time. 

That feeling didn’t just disappear after the grocery store. It followed me home. It lingered in my body, like a low hum I couldn’t quite shake. Later, I was in the kitchen with my husband, trying to deal with one of those sticky honey… jars? dispensers? (and yes, the word-finding struggle is its own separate annoyance). The honey was getting everywhere, and I could feel myself ramping up fast.

I was about two seconds away from going ballistic over honey.

That’s when I paused.

Not perfectly, not calmly, just enough to notice… this again.The same edge. The same buildup. The same feeling of an internal vibrating storm.

“STICKY… It’s sticky everywhere!” I said in a high-pitched, exaggerated squeaky voice that felt slightly ridiculous.

It confused my husband. It definitely confused the dog. And it made it just obvious enough that I was not okay… but also not actually attacking anyone.

And somehow, it was funny, and that is when everything shifted. The tension broke. The moment softened. My husband laughed with me, thankfully handed me the honey jar, and then washed his sticky hands.

I was still edgy, but I wasn’t escalating.

That’s what I mean by paying attention to the signal.

Not fixing it instantly. Not analyzing it to death, and definitely not stuffing it down. Just noticing it early enough to respond a little differently.

Because that grocery store moment and the honey jar moment weren’t really about either of those things. They were my nervous system asking for something. Slowing down. Space. A reset. A little more care, and in this case, laughter, than I was giving myself. And when you start to see it that way, the question changes.

At that moment, it was no longer, "What is this?" It became, " What do I need?

Sometimes that looks like information and understanding.

Sometimes it looks like support.

And sometimes it looks like a squeaky voice in the kitchen that keeps you from losing it over a jar of honey.

If you’ve been asking, “Is this menopause or anxiety?” You’re not off track. You’re paying attention. 

And that’s where things begin to shift.