Suicidality and perimenopause

[Eagle Ray]

Has anyone else experienced severe suicidality in relation to perimenopause? Did anything particular help? There is apparently a strong association for some women.

 I had a major drop in oestrogen a year ago resulting in severe anxiety/depression/suicidal ideation then. It’s re-occurring now. I have complicating factors of c-ptsd and complicated grief. Saturday was the anniversary of my mother’s sudden and distressing death. I was extremely bad on Friday and early Saturday.

I’ve been calling helplines and had some practical help. It helps regulate me for a few hours then I start to disintegrate again. It’s a feeling of totally failing apart. I do have a psych appointment on Thursday and I’ve booked a counselling appointment with the Australian menopause society as well.

HRT may help but I have to look at how it will interact with my liver disease which can be a complicating factor. It’s a rare disease and not well understood or even known about by most medical practitioners. I just feel totally overwhelmed.

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I have a lot going on at the moment so haven't had a chance to reply but I will do so as soon as able.

I just wanted to let you know I have made an appointment with a shamanic healer where I live on Dec 8, she is going on maternity leave at the end of December, so I contacted her just at the right time, pretty sure someone nudged me with that one.

Will be in touch again soon.

Hope you are doing ok,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo,

That’s great you are seeing the shamanic healer. I hope you have some insights, transformative healing or whatever it is that it brings for you. I find certain approaches, people etc intuitively speak to us at certain times, and it sounds like this is what you are drawn to at present. May you have a meaningful, healing session with her 🙏

I am ok. I had another bout of severe depression yesterday afternoon so I went to one of the areas of granite rock near the ocean for about 3 hours. It sometimes takes that long for my nervous system to settle a bit but it always helps so I stay there until I start to feel a bit of a shift. I was noticing the quartz in the granite and realising I think I’m doing a version of energetic healing every time I’m in such a place that relates a great deal to the energy of the rocks which does feel different in different locations. Ironstone ranges feel different to granite locations but I find both very healing. I’ve been learning a bit about the piezoelectric effect of crystalline structures.

I have just been to the gift shop I mentioned and bought a pendant. Some of them were labelled as quartz (e.g. rose quartz) but this one is labelled as earth stone and looks exactly like smoky quartz. I looked at their website which seems to confirm that the earth stone they have is smoky quartz. I really like it and chose the one I was most drawn to which is smoky grey with some lighter flecks in it. I’m already wearing it now and sitting on the ground in a forest. So about as earthed as I can get! I’m surrounded by small twittering birds and other birds are calling high up in the canopy. The sun is filtering through making the foliage of plants a luminescent green.

 I can feel my oestrogen levels have come up a little in the past 3 days but are still low. So I still have continuous anxiety and depression but not at such a debilitating level. I’m getting to the point I’m aware of very subtle shifts. I just have to take each day as it presents itself and work my way through it. I’m seeing the GP in a week. He’s one I’ve seen once before who has a kind, gentle, helpful manner and is also trained as a gynaecologist and delivers babies. So I think he’ll be a bit more attuned to hormonal issues than some. There are only a couple of female doctors who come to my town and they always seemed to be booked out, but I can also ask this GP if he or any of the others are specifically knowledgeable about mental health issues presenting in perimenopause.

Take care and thank you for your kind thoughtfulness,

Eagle Ray

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

Sorry I have not been in touch for a few days, it was a busy week, but I finally have some time to respond to your posts.

Firstly, I am so glad you have discovered a support group that has shared experience with what you are going through, I hope you are able to discover some helpful information there and support each other through the worst times.

I am sorry this natural part of a woman's life has turned out to be so complicated for you, did you end up admitting yourself to a hospital? I think that tears can be helpful in releasing some of the emotions and pain, I always feel better and worse after a session of tears, relieved from the release but also quite exhausted.

I think that you may be seeing crystals as something separate, but they are part of the rock and nature that you find so healing, they are just a part of it that you can carry with you.

I need to read your other post so will continue shortly🙂

[indigo22]

It's strange that I am feeling drawn to shamanic healing at present, I have not previously had a lot of interest in it but I definitely feel I have lost too many soul fragments over the years so my hope is that this healing will start the process of returning some and give me enough energy to do healing on myself moving forward. My therapist is on leave until February so I am filling the gap with these other healing modalities in the meantime.

I am so glad you found a pendant you were drawn to, that is the best way to choose a crystal. Unfortunately, there is no such crystal as earth stone, my guess is that it is a combination of minerals and inclusions that does not have a name so they called it earth stone. Because I don't know what it is comprised of, I can't give you good advice on how to care for it, some crystals can be cleansed with water and others can't. My best advice is to cleanse and recharge it in sunlight for an hour preferably lay it on the ground in sunshine when you are in one of your healing places to soak up the healing energy from that location. It should also be programmed to make it work for you personally. After you have cleansed and recharged in your location, hold it in your non dominant hand and send your intention into the crystal that you want it to hold the same healing energy for you when you are not there. You will need to recharge it regularly, perhaps once a week if possible but you don't need to programme again. You mentioned the iron rock that you felt healing from and Tiger Iron would be a good match to that healing energy so keep an eye out for a piece in your travels and programme in the same way, Tiger Iron is ok with water so you could cleanse it in the rock pool when you are there and lay in the sun to recharge.

That forest setting sounded lovely, I hope you felt better after spending time there with the birds. There are a lot of birds where I live, singing and chirping away all day long. There is one however with a very harsh voice that comes along regularly and sounds like he is screeching "wake up" no matter what time of day, I call back "I'm already awake". My favorite sound is the magpie's warble, so pleasing to the ears.

I'm glad to hear things have lightened up a bit in the past few days. Let me know how things turn out with your GP, if he can give you any more insight and advice on your situation.

I hope today is a good day,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo,

Thank you for your kind thoughts and info.

No I haven’t admitted myself to hospital even though I’ve considered it since early October because of the level of distress. It’s the first time in my life I’ve considered going to hospital on mental health grounds. But from everything I’ve read and listened to regarding women with extreme perimenopausal depression/anxiety/suicidality, they have said the hospital could not help them and psychiatrists who saw them had no understanding of the unique mental health issues some women face with perimenopause. They were no better once they left hospital on medications that were not helping and several followed through on suicide attempts even though prior to perimenopause they were happy in their life and had not experienced mental health issues. So it’s clearly a unique experience linked to hormonal changes and how that affects the brain. Several women have said once on hormonal therapy they quite quickly improved and have their life back. While not all women are affected this way, clearly for some women things go haywire.

I was looking into life expectancy in the past and it’s only pretty recently in human history that women have lived much past childbearing age. So the female body is having to adjust to longer term hormonal shifts that were less relevant in the past. It is the strangest, most disturbing thing I’ve experienced. At my worst I’ve gone to my favourite place by the ocean as I thought that is where I am likely to be safest. I had the most outstanding people on the Suicide Callback Service too. If I was unable to even speak, and I did get to that point, I went to the ocean and just stayed on a rock there for a few hours. It is an horrendous mix of terror, distress and involuntary, compulsive thoughts. The same thing happened Oct/Nov last year and both instances coincided with my cycle going completely out of whack.

 I’m a bit improved now and I can literally feel the hormone levels shifting but still being unstable. I still break down in tears daily, often quite suddenly. Someone told me of their friend who spent 10 years going through this while trying to only use natural supplements. Finally she went on hormone therapy and so much improved and she wished she’d done it sooner. So while it’s wonderful some women get through with diet and supplements, for others there is a very low quality of life with extremely high distress. For me, I need to just be able to feel even half way normal again.

Yes, you are most likely right about the crystal. If I try to source anything else I will look for ethical companies. I’m conscious of them being non-renewable resources but from what I’ve read there are fewer ethical issues with quartz compared with some others. I will follow your advice with regard to cleaning. I’m weirdly ambidextrous - write left handed, cut with scissors and knife right handed etc. Probably I’m a bit more left overall.

The GP I’m seeing had a good energy about him when I saw him once previously. I usually find if a person feels right they turn out to be genuinely helpful.

 I’m glad you’re finding other modalities while your therapist is on leave. Take care and have a lovely weekend!

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

It's been another one of those weeks, I don't know were the days went, it seems I blinked and missed it.

I hope you have been having a better week and getting somewhere with your research. Have you heard from your specialist whether or not you can use the patches?

I finished Sandra's book and also watched the video of Alberto that you suggested. He also has a book called Soul Journeying which have started and I think it might actually be better than Sandra's book.

I am having my healing tomorrow so I look forward to being able to share the experience with you when I next post.

Think of you,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Indigo,

 I just saw my GP and he is supportive of trying the standard combination menopause hormone therapy, but just wants me to run it past the liver specialist who I see very soon. I expect he will give the go ahead. From everything I’ve researched I’ve learned the perceived breast cancer risks are much lower than previously thought and very minimal when taking the current recommended versions of hormones at the perimenopause stage, while also having quite a few health benefits. The dosages sometimes have to be tweaked. I keep reading stories of women whose mental health suddenly utterly collapsed in perimenopause and then just one week into hormone therapy they felt so, so much better. So will be interested to see what happens and really hopeful for a positive outcome.

 I have been distracted with perimenopause research so haven’t got back to Sandra’s book yet, but definitely want to read it all.  I find Alberto Villoldo so interesting. He talks quite a bit about the issues we now face as humans are now living much longer. I’ve been exploring this in relation to menopause and the human lifespan has doubled in the last century. So until extremely recently probably only a few women even went through it. Our species is about 100,000 years old so one century is a tiny blip in our existence. No wonder we are having to try and figure stuff out. I think of all the poor women who were put in mental hospitals mid last century because they were considered to have gone “strange” during “the change”. Obviously not all women are so affected but it’s really tumultuous for those who are.

 I have a book called The Woman in the Shaman’s Body by Barbara Tedlock. She learned shamanic stuff from her Objibwe grandmother, became an anthropologist then later a shaman herself. Her book has much discussion on menstruation but hardly anything on menopause. I’m thinking that the shamanic cultures that have persisted for millennia may not have had to deal with menopause much because of shorter lifespans until recently.

The nerd in me is finding this all really interesting. Ha ha!

 I wish you a meaningful and insightful healing tomorrow 🙏😊 It is such a beautiful thing to receive. I think I told you the story about the healing I had with a shaman trained in the Amazonian Shipibo tradition earlier this year. He sung a traditional icaro (healing song) to me. It was profound.

 I look forward to hearing how you go and send you blessings and good energy.

Thinking of you too,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I'm so sorry it's been so long, I needed to take a couple of weeks away from the forums but I'm back now and wanted to check on you and see how you are doing. How goes the research? Any news on the hormone therapy?

I had such an interesting talk went I had my healing done. It amazes me that another view point can see something completely different to what you see yourself. So we talked for a long time prior to the healing and she made notes about the things that have happened during my life, the idea was for her to be able to look into my energy field to see where the issues were. At the end of out talk I said that I am so confused about it all that I don't know how to move forward, she said she wasn't surprised as it is one to the most confusing cases she has dealt with because there are a lot of things intertwined.

She explained there is a connection between all of us having cancer that is in the ancestral line that dates back quite a few generations. There is also a history of loss and abandonment in the ancestral line that goes back a few generations and all of these things seem to be on both maternal and paternal sides of the ancestral line. Then there is a past life of mine that has caused a lot of what I have been going through that dates back to around 1100's. So everything has intersected in this lifetime, lucky me! I knew I had a lot of work to do, I just didn't realise how much.

I mentioned a few things that I have always felt and she confirmed everything. Such as I have always felt like I was dropped off on the wrong planet, she said that's because you are from another planet, probably Arcturus. I said I feel like I was here in the time of Atlantis as a healer working with crystals and during the time of King Arthur and Avalon, I have a fascination with both. She explained that many souls came from other planets during the time of Atlantis and when it sunk, the survivors made there way to other lands, many went to England and the priestesses continued there work in Avalon. Then when King Arthur was killed by the invading Christian Army, the priestesses were all killed off and in my case it was a brutal death where I lost a large part of my soul. It was very much like the witch trials where anyone who had any kind of healing or other ability was seen as a threat to the church and eliminated. She said that the smaller pieces I have lost in this lifetime will return once the effects of that lifetime have been healed.

She explained that the reason I have no energy is because there are blockages in the throat and sacral chakras from that lifetime that stop the energy from being able to flow. So my healing involves working first on those two chakras along with the base chakra which is also blocked (hence not feeling grounded), then I need to work on the solar plexus and heart chakras. With some concentrated work, I should be able to heal them and get my energy back to normal.

I have recently read a book on King Arthur and Camelot that was written from past life regressions of people who were Knights and others who lived in Camelot and it confirms a lot of what we talked about. 

I will leave it there for now but if you have questions, ask away.

I hope you have a peaceful day tomorrow and get to spend time in your church 🐦🦎

I will be here if you want to talk,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Wow! Indigo, that sounds like an amazing journey of discovery with the shaman. Things definitely seem to get passed down the ancestral line. It takes someone along the way to change the intergenerational pattern and it seems you are that person in your family line. It’s incredibly tough to do but also incredibly rewarding. I feel I’m in a similar position, trying to shift the patterns that have come down through both my parents and their ancestors.

What a rich and interesting discovery about all those details. I had never heard of Arcturus so had to look it up. I read it’s the fourth brightest star in the sky and it has mythological meaning associated with being the ‘guardian or keeper of the bear’. It is good to explore the things you are drawn to, such as the time of Atlantis and King Arthur. I know you have spoken about the feeling of fragmentation, so exploring these things and healing the various components will hopefully give you an integrated feeling of wholeness and peace. What a journey!

The chakra work is a fascinating thing. During a reiki session years ago and more recently after being sung to by a shaman I had profound physiological responses in my body at chakra locations. I could feel the wheels or spirals of the chakras literally spinning. It’s another whole world of experience that is much more available in other cultures that are open to it. But chakra healing is not a readily accepted thing in Western medical perspectives. Chakra is the Sanskrit word for what is known and understood throughout many cultures with regard to energy centres in the body. In the last few months before I left the city I did some yin/restorative yoga with a wonderful teacher. I felt it was really helping at a chakra level. I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned yoga, but a gentle form of yoga like that with a good teacher might be really beneficial for you in terms of rebalancing the chakras and energy in the body.

 I have started doing HRT and I’m doing better as I mentioned in my other post.

Wishing you a lovely day today too 🙏🌟

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I am so glad you are seeing an improvement with HRT, with all your research, you probably know more than the doctors anyway. Well done with going with your intuition on that decision. I hope you see improvement in your overall health as a result and have an opportunity to get back to healing yourself again.

I'm also glad you are getting help from your psych with the DSP application, all that paperwork can get a bit overwhelming when you are not feeling well.

A couple of things I didn't mention yet about the conversation with the shaman. My father had prostate cancer, mum had breast cancer and I had vulval cancer. I didn't see the connection, but she did, they were all cancers of the sexual organs that were passed down ancestrally. She said in brothers case, the lung cancer related to the abandonment and betrayal aspect of the ancestral line. This make total sense as he is my half brother, dad's son from a previous marriage. My  brothers mother left him and dad when he was one year old and never tried to contact him. When my brother looked for her in his 50s, he contacted her but got a very detached response and she was not interested in further contact. My dad also had a lot of loss, his father had also married twice, due to the death of his first wife at about 35yo. They had 3 children, 2 of which died during childhood, so he also had a half brother. There were another 3 children from the second marriage, my dad being one of them. His sister died young giving birth to twins (who were traumatised during the war and committed suicide in their 40s), his brother was a volunteer in the army and was killed in action at a young age. His father died in his 50s of throat cancer and he had a very tumultuous relationship with his mother and broke ties with her. It all makes so much more sense now seeing the patterns from the new perspective. On my mothers side there was also something traumatic a few generations ago (possibly a rape) that was still in the ancestral line. Here is where it gets even more interesting. Both my father and my husband tried to stop me from singing (which I felt I was born to do), my husband was sexually manipulative and I had cancer in that area. There were signs telling me what needed to be healed from that previous life because that brutal death had involved sexual abuse and either strangulation or hanging. Not sure how I was ever going to figure that one out on my own. Clearly I was meant to see this shaman, and I definitely feel I was nudged.

During the healing itself, my eyes were covered as she uses crystal body layouts during her work, she drummed, sang, used rattle, rain stick, bells, singing bowls, and a few other tools. When she finished, I asked her it there was anything particular that she wanted to tell me from the healing. She said there was a very long chord with several (roots for want of a better word) that were entangled in my lower chakras that she had to remove. She felt this was very much connected to the ancestral line and after removing it she felt something positive as a result (could not explain further, was just felt).

Sorry to bombard you with so much, it has just been such an enlightening experience, and there are few others who could appreciate what I am talking about.

Healing the chakras will be a task that I can do with my crystals, colour, chakra singing bowls and Reiki (I am attuned to Reiki level 2). Just didn't have a clue where to start until now.

Hope you are having a peaceful day 💜