Whether you are female yourself or you love someone who is, there’s someone you need to be introduced to. Perry Menopause—or perimenopause in the real world—is a witch with a b who suddenly moves into your life sometime in your 40s, bringing with her all kinds of baggage and annoyances.
For some reason, no one fully prepares women for her arrival. Sure, we all hear about menopause itself all the time. You know about hot flashes. You know the hormonal changes and end of your menstruating years are coming sometime down the road, but that’s it. Nobody informs you ahead of time that for years and years before menopause your body is going to go through drastic changes that will leave you constantly saying WTF?! and wondering if you have some horrible, hidden disease or if it’s “just hormones” from perimenopause.
Let me tell you right now, there’s no such thing as “just hormones.” Hormones are potent and powerful, and they affect basically every single function in your body, as this Holderness Family skit about Perry Menopause illustrates.
Let’s run down a partial list of unwanted luggage this uninvited roommate brings with her, shall we? Perimenopause can cause upwards of 100 different symptoms, which include:
– heart palpitations
– hair loss
– joint pain
– forgetfulness
– foot cramps
– itching
– weight gain
– hot flashes
– cold flashes
– poor night vision
The really fun thing about this list is that a whole lot of these things can be indicators of something much more serious, so for years you get to play games like “Is it lymphoma/arthritis/a heart attack/dementia or is it perimenopause?”
And a lot of times your doctor is no help because they either have no idea that perimenopause is a thing or they pull the “just hormones” line as if the upheaval of your entire body is “just” something you’re supposed to live with.
Watch Kim Holderness meeting Perry Menopause officially for the first time:
Women in the comments were thrilled to see what they’ve experienced being validated in such a funny way.
“This is all spot on,” wrote one commenter. “I’m so glad that menopause and especially perimenopause is being highlighted more to help make us ladies not feel so crazy and gives men (and doctors) an idea that it actually exists!”
“I was just going to say that Perry is a B*$ch but you beat me to it,” shared another commenter. “The itching, weight is the same but have shift to different places, acne, mood swings, lack of sleep…yup, the pleasures that we go through. My poor husband and son have to deal with Perry as well.”
“So f-ing true. Perry’s been around me about 8 years. Getting pretty tired of her! Also, what about brain fog!!!” wrote another.
“I don’t know if I should laugh or cry because you guys NAILED it!!! (But that’s just Perry confusing my emotions again),” shared another. “The only thing I would add is the back and forth between hot & cold all night! 
kicking covers off, then to get cold, then to get warm, so you just let the one leg out of the covers. 
Finally finding a way to push covers away onto my husband and just end up with the top sheet! Go away Perry!!! 
“
Kim explained that her husband Penn was actually the one who wrote the skit, which is admirable because it means he’s been paying attention. Perry Menopause may be a fictitious person, but perimenopause is real, she’s the worst and we definitely need to talk about her more.
You can follow The Holderness Family on Facebook for more hilariously relatable skits like this.