It’s hit me from nowhere

[123cats]

Hi All

First time posting. Having a bad time at the moment. I have had major depression 25 years ago and have been on medication all these years ... during those years I’ve had some small blips here and there and a couple of bad times with anxiety that were eventually rectified with a med increase. Anyhow a couple of weeks ago I had two days out of the blue of quite profound depression and then it lifted but the last 3 days it’s back ... it’s come on quickly and not mildly but pretty bad with intrusive thoughts, waves of anxiety and this terrible feeling of wanting to cry but can’t ifykwim ... it’s awful and distressing. I’ve dropped everything (I work for myself) and pretty much just pushed through getting the basics covered. I’m so scared as havnt felt like this bad for years. I have no idea why this is happening ... maybe the medication is pooping out . All I can think to do is just try and get through the weekend and call my Psych on Monday and try and get an appointment (usually takes weeks to get in) I just really needed to share what’s going on with me to someone somewhere and this is where I landed.

[therising]

Hi 123cats

Sounds like you could be onto something, with the menopause and the HRT factors. As a 52yo female, I imagine I'm close to facing that change of life myself.

I've actually heard a couple of different takes on this stage of life. One involves the medical side and the other's the natural side.

The natural side tends to focus on the incredible energy required to reform the female body at this time. It can get pretty exhausting with this much energy in play. The energy spikes can become incredibly intense at times. I suppose you could compare this to what it feels like to generate enough energy running on a treadmill to the point of heating up and perspiring. The surges in menopause can reflect sudden overwhelming hyperactivity. It's also said we can become naturally sensitive to pretty much everything - Sensitive to our thoughts, internal dialogue, angering people, depressing people, stressful people, all 'round intolerable people whose behaviour we may have been tolerating for years, sensitive to feeling the sudden 'power surges' that can run through our nervous system, sensitive to little electrical glitches in the brain as it does its thing to re-calibrate the body. The list goes on. Basically, if sensitivity (the ability to sense) is a super power, get your cape and mask ready😁

From power surges through to complete exhaustion, while you're body's doing incredible things to reform itself, finding ways to exhaust the surges, ways to actively rest it through its exhaustion stages and ways to to say 'Thank you' to it for all the hard work its doing for you might require some added detective work.

It's strange to think that in our lifetime, we typically don't feel our nervous system hard at work when it functioning at basic levels. We don't feel our own energy and chemistry doing amazing things every second of the day, when there's no outstanding issue. We don't even feel our heart pumping away or our lungs doing their thing. There's so much we don't feel...until we do.

[123cats]

I’m 51 and was in perimenopause by 44 and looks like menopause just recently as the hormones dropped to almost nothing with the blood test. If you’ve not yet had any perimenopause or menopause symptoms your doing extraordinarily well and get some ladies barely blink an eye going through it. I totally hear you with the sensitivities ... I am actually avoiding even on the TV anything unpleasant or stressful

for the moment... usually it’s no problem.

Just sat out in the Sun for 15mins ... trying anything.

Dx