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]

Dear indigo (and wave to Croix),

From what you have previously described with the massive care roles you were in, it makes sense that you may have chronic fatigue. The 6 mugs of coffee and 50 cigarettes a day show how hard you were pushing yourself. I can see how your resources would have been so depleted and it can take time to build them up again. I think the important thing is to go gently. I am in that kind of situation too where I pushed myself beyond what is normal to endure and there is always going to be an equal and opposite reaction in the mind/body/spirit.

It may be worth trying to sense into whether the tapping is for you or not. I seem to have an aversion to it which I thought was primarily the first experience of it with the reiki person that wasn't right, but I wonder too if it is something about having to repeat back verbal phrases. For some reason that feels mechanical to me and makes me dissociate. I can't really feel it and connect, or something like that. I just know I find it disorienting.

I have found Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing approach especially helpful for me. When done correctly it is gently titrated so as not to overwhelm the nervous system. I feel very at home with it as it comes straight out of nature, of him observing how animals in the wild naturally recover from trauma. With tapping, and I suspect I may be the same with EMDR, something feels a bit too structured or mechanical or formulaic. I don't know if I can put it into words. For me the more simple, organic and naturalistic something is, as opposed to a "technique", the more comfortable I feel with it.

That is just my personal take on things though. It's important to sense and feel into what feels right for you. I do hope you start to lift out of the slump soon. I know it's corny, but this too shall pass. It's just a bummer things sometimes take a while to pass! We are here for you anytime you need a chat.

Big hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER and Croix,

I have been doing a lot of reading about various topics to make sense of what is happening with my body at the moment, I am getting there albeit slowly.

I recently happened upon something that is helping and wanted to to tell you both in case you find it helpful also. Believe it or not it is a brand of tea called Organic India which I found at IGA and there a number of different blends. I am not sure if you know about a herb named Tulsi (also known as Holy Basil), the teas have this herb as the base and it is adaptogenic. The one that is helping is called Tulsi Tummy which has additional herbs for settling the digestive tract. This has worked quite well in stopping the incessant griping pains I was having and is returning things to normal again. There is another blend that I am trying to find locally called Tulsi Wellness which is blend of Tulsi, Ashwaganda, Gotu Kola and Moringa (all adaptogens) that work to settle the nervous system. I don't know if this info will be helpful to either of you, but it certainly couldn't hurt to try the tea and see if it makes a difference.

I hope you are both feeling ok at the moment.

Take care,

indigo 

[Eagle Ray]

Hi indigo and Croix,

It is good you feel you are gradually getting there with the processes in your body. I find it is very incremental, both working out what is happening and the body going through its processing.

Thank you with regard to the tea. I have had Ashwagandha recommended to me in relation to menopausal issues. I will have a look into the options, including Tulsi. I have to be a little careful in relation to my liver disease and I'm also on a host of supplements already that are specifically tailored to treat the liver condition. I have to avoid teas with liquorice root in them. Several years ago I bought a tea with liquorice root and I found it really tasty and relaxing. However, I developed fluid retention and my ankles swelled to twice their normal size. I went to the doctor and the first thing she asked was have you been drinking liquorice tea? I said well, yes, I've been drinking tea with liquorice root in it. She had just recently learned it can cause swelling and heart failure in some people. Because of the swelling she sent me for an immediate chest x-wray to look at my heart. I stopped drinking the tea and my ankles went back to normal size and I lost the fluid retention. So for me I just need to avoid that particular ingredient! For some people it is fine but for others it can be harmful. But in general, yes, teas can be lovely and very calming. They can be forms of plant medicine with definite benefits.

I am not doing so well. My body just goes into trauma activations and they can persist for days or weeks. I went for a walk in nature yesterday. When I am like this I feel unsafe in all situations with people and can only start to calm my nervous system by getting as remote from people as possible. Even the sight of another person out on a walk can trigger a trauma response in my body, even though I really like people. I will still say hello to people I see, but I just want to curl up in a ball and shut all of the world out. The only antidote I have to being in the tight ball is to go out into nature which seems to be the only way to counter remaining tightly contracted. I have all sorts of complicated grief and trauma stuff flooding me at the moment and the only way to cope is to shutdown. So I may disappear for a while as I feel increasingly raw and exposed if I try to engage with people, so I have to do the opposite of that to feel safe. I have to trust that I will cycle back out of it at some point. With fear attacks I had last year I just got in my car and drove to remote places and stayed away for days at a time. It does actually work. I went to these semi-arid places where I felt safe and held. I actually found a camp for war veterans with ptsd in one of those areas. I totally get why they are there. For me it's like the more remote I am the more I feel my nervous system start to calm down and come back towards homeostasis.

Anyway, if you don't hear from me I am just in shutdown mode. It's like a kind of blank dissociation. Birds and animals help me come out of it to some extent.

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I'm sorry to hear you are having a difficult time with the trauma associated responses but I do know that nature helps you when you feel this way, so I hope you can get some relief in that regard and understand perfectly if you need to be distant for a while. I have needed that recently too.

With regard to the teas, I do know some people don't do well with liquorice root, so the Tummy blend is off the list for you but the Wellness blend only has the four herbs I mentioned and there is one that is just Tulsi and Ashwaganda which I have tried. I do feel the tea is helping with the nervous system also, I am not as irritable (or perhaps I should say as easily irritated) since I started on them and have only been having one per day for the past week or so. I understand too that you need to be cautious of what you have while on other meds due to interactions.

Please take care and we will be here when you need us. I may not be communicating as much, but I do check for messages.

Bug hugs to you too,

indigo 💜

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I hope you are feeling better, did you manage to get away for a while?

I have been reading "the body keeps the score", I wasn't ready to read it until recently, it's quite an eye opener.

I have got about a third of the way into "when the body says no" which also offers a lot of incite. One book I started reading (put aside temporarily to read the others) on nervous system dysregulation that you may be interested looking into is "heal your nervous system" by Linnea Passaler.

My therapist is away for a few weeks so I asked her to do a medium session beforehand to answer a few questions. Amongst the things that came up in that session was the confirmation that I am here to end the cycle in the family lines, as I had thought, to heal myself and therefore heal the ancestral lines. It felt so good to finally have that confirmation, even though I suspected it, I still was not certain. At least now I know what I need to put my energy into.

Would love to hear from you if and when you are up to it.

Big hugs,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Hello indigo,

Yes, thank you, I am feeling better. I didn’t go away on any remote trips but have been to the city a few times either for medical appointments or petsitting looking after a lovely, fluffy cat 🐱🥰 I also had success with my DSP application which is a relief and makes things much less stressful.

That is great having confirmation about healing the ancestral lines in the process of healing yourself. Life does become quite different I think once that is underway. It is already the path you are on and, as you say, you can really focus on directing your energy towards that healing.

I have The Body Keeps the Score and have read quite a bit of it though I haven’t read it properly from cover to cover. I think the key message is how important it is to work through the body and not leave it out of the equation. The part of that book that struck me from memory is where he describes how he was part of the psych team set up to help people after 9/11. It wasn’t his preference, but the consensus at the time was to offer people psychoanalysis and CBT. Almost no one turned up. They researched where people did go for help and it was things like yoga and meditation. Very few traumatised people were opting for talk therapy. So I think people often intuitively know what they need and often it is that whole body processing, healing and calming that is the most beneficial. Talk therapy can help, but it can really fall short on its own in many cases.

When the Body Says No was a particularly relevant book to me. I could profoundly relate to it. I’m beginning to undo the patterns he describes in the book, especially negating myself while responding to everyone else’s needs. It makes so much sense how autoimmunity develops in people who chronically have that pattern. I am trying to heal my own autoimmune disease or, at the very least, prevent it from progressing even though it is described as progressive and incurable. I know my life experiences have a huge amount to do with my health challenges over the years.

Thank you for recommending the Linnea Passaler book. I will have a look at it. I had started reading Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start With You but then got distracted with other things but really want to get back to it. It is such an excellent book on breaking the patterns of ancestral trauma which he has been doing in his own life and is also a key focus in his work with clients. I can’t remember if you said you read that one? I can certainly recommend it and will try to get on to finishing it soon.

Whenever I post on this thread my post is always delayed because of the thread’s title, so if you don’t get a reply for a bit that is why. I am no longer at risk as I was when I first started this thread, so if you wanted to start another thread somewhere else I am very happy to chat with you there. I’m glad you are feeling a sense of direction and I hope you are feeling like you have some more energy now as I know your body was a bit down there for a bit.

Take good care and warm hugs 🤗 

ER

[indigo22]

I am so glad to hear you are feeling better ER, and so pleased your DSP nightmare is over, I could tell it was taking a big toll on you. Also extremely glad you are no longer at risk, you are one of the strongest people on earth, I hope you know that.

I read the body keeps the score in its entirety but it is one of those books I think I will need to read again and bookmark the pages that I want to refer back to. I do recall that part in the book about 9/11, I don't know about you, but CBT is not something I have any interest in.

I do have It didn't start with you, but like you, got part way into it and got sidetracked and haven't got back to it yet. I think sometimes with me that happens because it is not the right book at that time, that I will have a better grasp of it at a later time. I try to just go with those feelings and know that I will eventually read it. I think it may be because I need to have a better understanding of what is happening with my own body at this time, before looking at the ancestral side of things. I have also found that I need to intersperse the psychology with something of a more spiritual nature from time to time. There is only so much my brain can take before it needs a break 😉

During that session, the person I most wanted to be present was my brother and he was front and center before she even got started. After a while my dad edged his way in and mum was there also. One thing that they said was that I was so different from the rest of the family, they weren't sure how to deal with me. That does make sense in many ways because I was very sensitive and somewhat introverted. Even my brother, who was the most like me, was gregarious and made friends easily. My older siblings were nothing like us. It seems dad has learned quite a bit but mum is still hiding her head in the sand. It was an interesting session though. One of the other things I asked about is whether or not I have done any of the work I came here to do yet. The answer was yes, but there is also work going on beneath the surface on a dna level that I am not aware of and when more of the body work has been done, I will begin to notice a shift.

I may start a new thread at some point, I have been thinking about it because of the experiences over the past few months. In the meantime I am happy to chat here, even if the replies are held up for a while.

Enjoy your evening,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo,

I found The Body Keeps the Score quite dense to read and think that’s why I still haven’t fully read it cover to cover yet. I have not been drawn to CBT either and when one psychologist tried to do it with me I could feel straight away it did not fit. It’s a top-down cognitive restructuring approach but I profoundly needed a bottom-up somatic approach. CBT may have some value in much later stages of trauma processing, and I think I can even apply some of its logic now as I am moving in a healing direction. But it absolutely could not reach me at all earlier on and was even kind of harmful as it took me further from where I needed to be to heal.

I understand what you mean about certain books being right or not at certain times. I’ve just got to the part in Chapter 5 of It Didn’t Start With You where he has some practical exercises. I think they will be really good ones for me to do and I am at a point where I am about ready to do them. I’m just going to wait a couple more days as I still have a cold and want to feel better and more clear-headed. As you say, I think immersion in spiritual things can be really important. I think for me my connection to the world through photography has a spiritual component as I go into a kind of flow state and it’s like communing with the elements of life. Actually, the exercises I’m about to do in Mark Wolynn’s book are to do with the flow state and connecting to ancestors, so I think his book does have a spiritual part embedded in it. The work I’ve read from Jeremy Narby and Joseph Tafur specifically consider the relationship between biology/epigenetics and spiritual practices. Mark Wolynn is exploring the shifting of epigentics as well. So I think it all flows together.

It sounds like a meaningful connection you have with your brother and you were able to sense the dynamics of your mum and dad’s presence also. That is actually like the exercise I’m about to do in the Mark Wolynn book which starts with feeling into the presence of parents. So it feels like you are doing something similar and that it also links to underlying epigenetic shifts. It is so meaningful the role of the body in that shift. It has been feeling through my body that all meaningful change has occurred and it’s really helped that my psychologist has exactly that approach. It sounds like your therapist is similar and can work with you from a place that meets with what works for your mind/body/spirit. In my experience the body has been the vessel/conduit for spiritual healing and I’m imagining this is your experience as well.

Part of my reason for suggesting a new thread was I get a visceral distress response every time I see this thread now because I was at my absolute worst when I started it and for some months after that. I am just so acutely sensitive that even seeing it sends me into hypervigilance. It’s the ptsd in me from multiple factors. But I’m working through that and maybe that is part of my process. I find Croix’s thread on Happy Memories really helpful because it is an antidote to trauma triggers and does the exact opposite in the body. I am finding immersing myself in good memories creates feelings of warmth and safety. It helps talking with you about the deep layers of healing too so I am using that to cushion myself against any trauma activation. I am also developing a stronger inner protector now to take care of myself. The protector part was very undeveloped in me before.

I hope you have a lovely weekend indigo. I’m not sure if this will publish today as it is often delayed if after business hours over east and may stay in moderation until Monday. In any case, I’m glad you are finding some answers to your questions in your healing work. It sounds like you are making progress and working with a therapist on the same page as you as well.

Take care and hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I'm sorry, it had not occurred to me that this thread would feel triggering for you, but I understand why it does.

I have just started a new thread in the depression section that we can post on, and you can put this thread to rest. Sorry for the delay in responding, the last few days have been pretty busy and the time has flown by so quickly.

Big hugs to you ER, I will not post here again.

indigo 💜

[Croix]

Dear ER (with a wave to all)~

I would think starting a new thread (How to give walruses a hard time? ) is an excellent idea. It is true that a thread one creates can have a bad effect whenever you come back to it, so go for it.

(Don't forget to put an entry here saying where it is if oyu decide to go ahead)

I have a thread I wrote a lot of years ago when going though a particularly bad patch. Although responds were universally supportive I'm afraid that on the few occasions I've gone back to  it the imagery returns. I never go there now.

That is not to say someone may read it and find assistance in the subject matter and responses, just it is no longer good for me.

I look forward to more of your 'Happy Memories' contributions 🙂

Croix