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.

[Eagle Ray]

P.S. I think I may have found a good doctor who specialises in health issues I have and is trauma-informed. I'm booked in to see him in about 3 weeks. It kind of feels like a relief and I feel more hopeful.

[Croix]

Dear ER~

As I'm sure you are well aware that it is no use relying upon a clinician who does not know you or is not open to suggestions from the expert -you. If you did their report would be inaccurate and probably unhelpful, making subsequent applications more difficult.

So I guess the search goes on. Of course when you do find one then not only wil you have the author of a useful report, but also someone who can give ongoing intelligent treatment.

If you have not already done so I"d suggest telling the $500 GP you do not wish a report from him/her at this time.

It is not easy, not only the difficulties involved in explaining things to a stranger  (write them down?) but also the emotional ups and downs. Hope then disappointment.

There are decent GPs out there as you found for yourself, so I guess you are a modern Diogenes, but instead of searching for an honest man you are searching for a competent GP.

I guess the rejuvenating effect of nature and nature photography is something you can rely upon.

I think the professor would say you a are an extraordinarily strong person and will eventually get there..

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you so kindly Croix,

Yes, I’m not going to go with the GP who was going to charge $500 for the report. My gut instinct has already told me she’s not the right person to work with.

I’ve booked in now with a GP I found online last night. He has special interests in PTSD and fibromyalgia which are directly relevant to me. He is also interested in involving a range of therapies and approaches beyond standard GP-type things. So he would probably also be interested in the very constructive work I’ve been able to do with the naturopath in relation to the liver disease I have, which no other medical practitioners have shown any interest in. So it does sound promising. I will see him in 3 weeks. I feel a bit of a sense of relief as something tells me this might be the right path.

 I feel it is so important to go with my gut feeling. I actually listen to my body now and if my body doesn’t feel safe in the encounter it is telling me something about the situation I need to listen to. If I find I naturally start to relax in the presence of the other person it’s a really good sign. So much communication is non-verbal.

That’s a good thought about writing things down too. Unfortunately some doctors with a bias/prejudice against fibromyalgia patients view any recording of symptoms as evidence of the malingering hypochondriac stereotype they put on such patients. So I can be scared to do that as it seems almost anything you do or say elicits hostility from them once they see fibromyalgia in your record. But a good doctor will not think that way. I am only willing now to work with kind, empathetic, non-judgemental doctors with interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. Really those interpersonal skills are integral to any medical encounter going well where there are complex health issues. People with fibromyalgia commonly also have PTSD or CPTSD. War veterans get fibromyalgia at significant rates. So fibromyalgia patients are almost always very vulnerable on multiple fronts and profoundly need kind interactions. Their nervous systems have been chronically altered which can lead to epigenetic changes that can set off fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and other conditions. There’s a lot of clinical evidence about what is going on now, but many GPs still don’t get it and think fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue are made up nonsense.

Feeling very exhausted now but a bit less stressed. Think I might put a deckchair out on the iceberg and snooze under the moon.

Yes, photography is there for me too. I’m extremely grateful for it. Thanks again Croix 🙏

ER

[Eagle Ray]

Just need to write down how I’m feeling. I feel very vulnerable today. I’ve found dealing with medical encounters extremely stressful in the past week. I had strong suicidal ideation. My psychologist considered contacting the mental health emergency team on Wednesday. I said I knew I wouldn’t come back from that. Right now I’m reliving a lot of medical trauma, both my own and that of family members. So if I ended up in a hospital environment I know I would deteriorate rapidly. I’m more ok at the moment but still extremely depressed. I can go into a kind of shock after a bout of suicidality when you realise how bad you got. I’m just so exhausted and have such accumulated trauma over my lifetime. I have had to be in bed for most of today. I’m thinking of accessing a social worker through Centrelink which was suggested by my employment agency which I initially hesitated at because I have such trust issues with people. It’s so hard for me to feel safe with people. I’ve had my trust breached in serious ways by practitioners in the past in healthcare and therapy settings. My current psychologist is good and I’m hoping the new doctor I see is good. I’m just finding the DSP process is extremely triggering for me. I feel I have run out of all other options so if I don’t get it there is nothing left. I actually don’t know how to survive anymore otherwise. It’s like a feeling of being crushed when you were pushed beyond what you can cope with a long time ago. Trying to remind myself I will feel better at some point. Don’t really feel strong enough to verbalise on a helpline so just writing here.

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I've missed a few days and I'm sorry I haven't been in contact, just a bit overloaded with stuff that needs doing lately.

I see Croix has been filling the gap, and I know you have a good connection, so I don't feel so bad about missing a couple of days.

The doctor you have found sounds like the perfect fit for you, I will be interested to hear all about it after your visit in 3 weeks. I'm sorry you have been feeling suicidal again, I know all this is really triggering for you but as Croix said, it will be better for your application having the right person doing the report. If I recall correctly, you are also seeing someone regarding the hormones in March, so I have a feeling that March 2024 will be the beginning of a more positive journey to wellness for you, with the support of medical practitioners who understand your needs.

I had my first psych appointment yesterday after she has been on 4 months leave. It all started out well until I had to go a bit deeper into the story I was relating, then things went pear shaped. If makes me aware that some of the things I believe I have come to terms with, are still very present within the body. She wanted to do some somatic work with me, but I just didn't feel ready yesterday to deal with the layers of pain that are likely to surface, so we agreed to work on it next session.

You have more experience with that, how have you found your emotional reactions to be when doing the somatic work. I am pretty sure I didn't want to work on it because I was unsure what reaction to expect from myself. I'd be interested in your experience in that area, but only when you are feeling up to talking about it, there is no rush.

I hope you are getting some rest and taking good care of yourself.

Always in my thoughts,

indigo 💜

[Croix]

Dear ER~

I guess the most important thing for you to remember is that you are indeed the expert on you and can judge your probable reactions with very a fine accuracy.

This of course means if you think a particular avenue, in this case a hospital ward, will do more harm than good then your only real difficult is to puruade the well-meaning that every individual is different and automatically pressing the alarm button can have the wrong effect.  Perhaps pointing out how many years you have been living wiht yourself might help.

All of this and your current state is indeed exhausting and venturing onto a call line where you have no idea the quality of the operator, and the prospect of explaining the complex in a few sentences is very daunting and I quite understand why it is not feasible at the moment.

Rest is good, nature is good, hope you will find a sensible GP is good too, though that does require pacience. DSP will come in its own good time. Ironically you my need to feel somewhat better to tackle it.

One of the larger penguins had a parasol which he 'donated', so I've rigged it up as a sun-shade for your deck-chair on the iceberg.  If you play your cards right you may be invited to imbibe by an inebriated kiwi (the trick is to keep saying how marvelous NZ is and how kiwis are the icing on the cake and the last word in evolution.)

Croix

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Dear indigo and Croix,

Yes, it will definitely be better having a doctor who understands my situation. It will totally stress me if I have a GP who doesn’t get it yet is the representative so to speak for my health issues to Centrelink. And, yes, I think it is a good thing I didn't go to the hospital, especially as the medical system is a trigger for me at the moment. I have been really depressed today but did call the BB helpline which was helpful. I am just exhausted from what feels like endless lifelong struggle. I sometimes feel my body will give out because it just can’t keep going. There are times I feel I want it to. But I try to remind myself of things I want to live for. It did help watching some YouTube videos on photography today.

Indigo, I think you made the right decision not to proceed with the somatic work if you weren't feeling ready in that moment. In my experience I have instinctively known when there is a specific issue I want to somatically process. The first thing I processed with my psychologist somatically had been stuck in my nervous system for a year and a half. I was desperate to get it out. It was incredibly successful. I had some other successful processing. However, there was one which was an assault I went through. In processing that there was another trauma underneath it that came up in my body after the session was over and beneath that another layer of trauma that went back to childhood. So that day I got really activated and couldn't come down from it. So I had to call a helpline that night and that worked to settle my nervous system down. So it is a sensitive process but it's important to know you can stop it at any time if you don't want to continue. I would also say it is good if your psych can do some grounding exercises with you at the end.

In my experience a lot of what has come up during the process are sensations even more than emotions. It works at such a deep level, though emotions are connected. I had a couple of assault type situations so rage came up which is the rage of self-defence I needed to use to defend myself at the time but couldn't because freeze was the only option (the body just goes into freeze automatically). So I had to move through the rage. I remember throwing my shoes down the stairs as I was processing with my psych (she is seeing this on FaceTime). It's funny now to think about but obviously not at the time. With the first thing I processed with her I was throwing a cushion into the couch (defending against attacker). Then she got me to repeat that in slow motion. It was during this slow motion that all my memory processing re-integrated in real time. It was incredible. It literally healed the trauma and integrated it back into my system in a healthy way, removing the charge from it. In the days that followed my extremely stuck breathing started to release. I have also found that other somatic processing has happened to me spontaneously on my own as my body has learned these processes and I can just allow it to happen.

The approach I have used with my psych is the Somatic Experiencing method. I really like it as it is directly based on how all mammals, not just humans, naturally recover in the wild. It is such a natural process but one us humans have become very disconnected from with our over complicated brains and our disconnect from our bodies. However, different things resonate for different people. Also, I have found my early childhood traumas are still somewhat stuck and I'm still working on these things. They are harder to shift as they were so early in my development and are profoundly ingrained. It is a journey and one that you can take at your own pace. So be gentle with yourself and follow your intuition as to what feels right.

Thank you Croix for the sun-shade. I will let the kiwis know they are supreme beings and they might give me a cocktail to sip while moon bathing. I'm going to run out of word space.

Thank you both kindly 🙏

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

Thank you so much for your advice on the somatic work.

You have worked through a fair bit by the sounds, albeit with more still to work on. The session where you had layers of trauma arise after the session, sounds like it was a difficult time for you, I'm glad you had someone good on the helpline to help you get through it.

My psych mentioned tapping so I assume that is the method she uses and she also uses muscle testing on occasions. She also doesn't let me leave in an emotional state and talks me through a calming breathing exercise for a few minutes. I think I was really fortunate to find her. I will take your advice and listen to my instinct about the right timing to do the work.

How have you been the past few days, have you been feeling any better?

I feel like your car at the moment, like maybe the spark plugs need replacing or the fuel is not getting where it needs to go 😂. I am not getting restful sleep because my mattress needs to be updated and is no longer giving my body support. Hence waking up with aching hips or a pinched nerve but I can't afford a new mattress at present. I am just overall very tired and a bit run down (and as a result, a wee bit grumpy), but I have been through patches like this before and they always pass eventually.

I am going to try to force myself out the door to go to the supermarket now as the fridge is looking a bit bare again. I would much rather curl up and have a snooze, I am sure you can relate to that.

Hope you are having a good day,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo,

I think tapping can be very helpful and I've read that it's sometimes used in EMDR. My psychologist tried to do it with me some time ago. The only reason it didn't work for me was that it had a prior association that was a trigger. After a stressful event I went to a reiki practitioner someone recommended to me. She had this rather aggressive style of reiki where she would ask me questions sternly while doing reiki. I would answer them as best I could but my answer would always be wrong to her and then she'd give me a lecture. Then she started to do tapping with me in a similar abrupt, stern manner. So her approach was actually traumatising my already traumatised nervous system more. So when my current psych started to do tapping with me I got really triggered as I went back into the memory of the prior tapping. I couldn't initially figure out why I dissociated during it until the following day and I remembered the reiki practitioner. So I was then able to explain to my psych why it affected me that way. But you should be absolutely fine with it. I just have a hyper-reactive nervous system and I only need one bad experience of something and I'll keep reacting with a ptsd type of response. But basically I think like EMDR it helps to re-integrate memories that haven't properly integrated and alleviates suffering around those memories. I know a woman who swears by it as she had ptsd following a car accident and it was tapping that got her out of the ptsd. She now teaches it herself.

I am honestly not going well at all. I have been extremely dissociated today. I feel frightened, lost and confused. The GP I had been seeing has written a report now that I picked up today. I wasn't sure if he was even going to do it. The report is brief and concise. It is mostly accurate even though I don't agree with bits of it. It doesn't really follow the impairment tables format Centrelink say the GP is meant to follow, but my psych has followed those tables with her report. I will still see the new GP soon to try to sense how to go forward. My sense of trust is unclear. The whole process of the DSP application is triggering for me. I feel pushed into a corner where I am losing my agency and my sense of self as a competent human being. I have shut down to the point of being totally numbed out for most of today. However, I am actually safer the more numbed out I am. It is actually my self-protection. It is painful to come out of that place actually because then I have to feel intense fear and distress in my body again. I am finding it very hard to find any peace. I have been listening to Bruce Springsteen songs as so many of them speak to my experience and they do provide a bit of a calming effect. He has so many songs about trauma, loss, grief, fear etc - everything I am dealing with. It's like a form of empathy and understanding.

I really feel for you regarding the mattress. They are expensive and I know it is a very big decision buying a new one because of the cost. I think some places will let you trial a mattress. I can't remember which stores do that but I have heard of it. It is so difficult to tell just trying a mattress out in a store. I hope in the not too distant future you can afford one. I am fortunate to have a comfy mattress now plus a comfy couch. Both are good for sleeping on and I think it really does make a difference. I used to wake up with a back ache from a previous mattress I owned.

I hope you have had a good shopping expedition and your fridge is now full again. Mine is empty at the moment and I went to get a take-away from the local Chinese restaurant tonight as I wasn't up for shopping or cooking. I will do a shop tomorrow.

Take care,

ER 🤗

[Croix]

Dear ER~

I think the feeling you have of being pushed into a corner where you are losing my agency and your  sense of self as a competent human being comes about becuse hte system is designed htat way. Even insisting on a format your GP was not knowledgeable about is a sign they want you to basically give up. There is no thought of your welfare.

I hpe your psych can in fact place the right information in hte right boxes. If you get a decent GP it might be worth discussing if they know the right boxes.

I know little about tapping, I do know any type of treatment given in an aggressive manner is simply going to make things worse -not just for you but any other client they may have. As oyu have had so much to deal wiht in your life it is not surprising this had a lasting effect and made the next practitioner ineffective.

I think you are quite right and being numbed out or disassociated is a coping mechanism. I feel that way when one particular episode in the police that still sets me going and I retreat into somebody looking at me almost like though a pane of darkened glass.

Springsteen is good, I particularly like Streets of Philadelphia as for me it echoes a sense of  being alone in adverse circumstances.

You know you are going to have to at least look for that small stuffed kiwi buried away in your bits and pieces, I can hear murmurings of 'disrespect' from the corners of my igloo. I hope the stuffing was food and not shudder anything else🙄

Croix