Dr Cobi

This is not you becoming more emotional. This is estrogen talking directly to the parts of your brain that regulate how you feel.
Estrogen receptors are present throughout the brain, including in the regions that regulate serotonin, your mood stabilizer, and dopamine, your sense of reward and contentment. When estrogen fluctuates, as it does throughout perimenopause, it directly affects how much of these neurotransmitters your brain produces and how efficiently it clears them.

This is why the mood instability in perimenopause often feels different from ordinary emotional responses. It is disproportionate to what is actually happening. It arrives without warning. It does not respond to reasoning or perspective shifts. Because it is not originating in your psychology. It is originating in your neurochemistry, driven by an estrogen pattern that is shifting week to week.
This is also distinct from cortisol-driven anxiety, which tends to be constant and all-encompassing. Estrogen-fluctuation mood instability tends to track the cycle, most pronounced in the weeks where estrogen swings sharply, and more stable in the windows where it holds.

The distinction matters because the investigation is different. And because every woman who has been told she is "just emotional" deserves to know there is a mechanism behind what she is experiencing.
Send this to someone who has been told their mood swings are just emotional.