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,

Just want to let you know I have a bit on this week but will keep in touch as I can.

I will read through your last post as soon as I have the chance and send you a reply.

Hope you are continuing to feel better,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo,

Thank you but also don’t feel you have to keep responding to me here. If I write something it is often just to help myself cope rather than everything being locked inside.

 I wake up with intense anxiety every morning. I sometimes have milder anxiety for about one minute before it really kicks in. It then just perseveres. I cried most of this morning in desperation. Made myself go out at lunchtime as had run out of food and went for a pharmacy prescription. I do my best to interact with people normally despite the fact I am collapsing inside. My sleep is minimal and fractured. On the couch now for last couple of hours exhausted. But can feel a bit of a shift so distress levels are slightly lower. I felt relentlessly suicidal this morning, thinking about death every minute, and now I just feel worn out and partially numb but at least a bit rested. There is nothing I can do but continue to try to exist. I can’t control the attacks of distress but have to keep remembering everything is in flux and I am going to have this cycling which is really destabilised hormones. Speaking with other women on the online community they are the same, many crying non-stop for days in a kind of hell. It’s like my life is just going by and I have very little control and everything is a massive effort. While I got food to make dinner I am so weak and will probably just heat up a packet soup. I can only do the most basic tasks. At the moment I can hear the wind in the trees and the fridge running. Kind of just spaced out now and weary but that is better than how I was this morning. In two days I have to come off one of the hormones for 3 days (instead of 16 days as before). Hoping I don’t have the same severe crash as before but have to just accept whatever happens and go through it.

[Fiatlux]

Hi ER,

Hope you are feeling better this evening.

I don’t know why we wake up some mornings feeling absolutely terrible and then spend the rest of the day crying on and off and trying to feel better. I have been crying at just about everything the last couple of days. Duck hunting is going to be allowed in Victoria this year and I cry during the news. I avoid watching anything sad on television as this sends me to a dark place. 

It’s extremely difficult when you have nobody around you who can offer even a shoulder to cry on. My family think it’s just her again, going crazy in middle age. I know that a lot of it is of my own making. I allowed people close to me treat me poorly for to long and that’s what they got used to.

I am about to go to bed and struggle to sleep and wake up again tomorrow feeling like I am hung over.

Take Care, Fiatlux 🙏🏼

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you Fiatlux 🙏

I hope you can sleep ok. At the moment the only thing that seems to help me get to sleep is putting on a podcast. Somehow the sound of human voices helps me go to sleep. Maybe about 20 minutes in my brain waves start to shift so that I’m not really taking in what’s being said anymore, but just hearing human voices talking helps me to transition to the sleep stage. I guess it gives my brain something to focus on initially instead of being trapped in anxiety. Then as it progresses my already overtired brain actually starts to relax enough to get to sleep and fall asleep. Also, I think it’s just comforting hearing other human voices as I live alone and have no one to talk to or say goodnight to. It takes away some of the isolation I’m struggling with. I wake up very early though and usually cannot go back to sleep.

 I feel sad about duck hunting. I photograph water birds and have got to know many of the duck species. I think duck hunters could pick up a telephoto lens instead of a gun and they might find they still get a similar feeling of tracking an animal but shooting with a camera instead. I often feel like a hunter gatherer when out with my camera but I never stalk animals. In fact, if I see something like parrots feeding in the bushes along a path, I may take a few photos but will then even go back the way I came rather than disturb them where they’re feeding. I absolutely love birds and always try to respect their space and activities.

Fiatlux, I hope you can find some good people to confide in so you feel less alone. It is good you can chat here at the BB forum. It’s hard when people have got used to treating us a certain way isn’t it. I am gradually learning to put up boundaries. I think something in you just goes “enough”. I also think it’s possible to establish a boundary in a non-dramatic way. It doesn’t have to be a confrontation, sometimes just a kind of psychic disconnect where they can no longer impinge on you and cause the same harm. I am now doing that with some people in my life.

I’m at a stage I have no control over persistent anxiety so I am having to accept its ongoing presence. I’m distressed as I write this and I most likely will be as usual when I wake up. Really hoping specialist appointment in March will help. Struggling intensely but it seems a new normal for now so I have to adjust. It helps a bit focussing on my photography interest. I’m thinking of starting to write songs again which I feel can channel feelings and emotions. I have complicated grief that comes up daily and the pain of it is extreme. I have to find a way to transform that energy from destructive to healing. I become immobilised for long periods, cannot move or function. I have frequent flashbacks both awake and in dreams. I have to keep coming back to the things I love and try to hold onto them.

Hugs,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I am having a busy time this week, so just letting you know you are in my thoughts, as always.

I saw your latest post but will not answer that one as you need to hear from others who have similar experience. I will continue to post here with you. I am a bit swamped due to Croix being on leave for a couple of weeks and of course you know about Smallwolf, so trying to stay on top of new posts to cover them. We are low on Champion numbers in general at the moment but I promise to give you a proper rely as soon as things settle down a bit. I also really need to get out and do some shopping, the fridge is looking pretty empty at the moment.

I hope you are coping ok at present.

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo,

Please do not worry about responding to me. I am doing a bit better today, feeling not too bad. I’m in processing mode and feel a bit more stable. From tonight I stop taking one of the hormones for 3 nights which is a bit worrying after the crash I had when I did previously. But like you are doing now I’m going to stock my fridge later today, so if I go into a catatonic mess again I at least have food supplies and don’t have to go out and face the world 🙈

So, yes, please go and put the oxygen masks on others needing help, especially new people. I have my oxygen mask situation under control. I am ok 👍 And make sure you take care too 🙏💜

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I am checking in to ask how the last few days went, did you end up crashing again, or was it not so bad this time?

I am still putting masks on but it should slow down a bit over the next few days which will give me time to read your last couple of posts again and respond.

I hope you are ok.

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo 🙏

I am ok. I didn’t crash in the way I was concerned I might. I did feel ill and have no idea if it’s connected. The hormone I was off for 3 days has an important protective role in the liver disease I have, and the liver disease can produce flu-like symptoms at times which seems to be associated with toxins that get released as the bile ducts start to break down and don’t work as well. So there’s possibly a connection but I don’t know. That particular hormone helps the production of the biliary cells that the disease destroys. Certainly it seems the hormonal dysregulation, early life trauma and health issues are all interconnected.

But emotionally and mentally I’m a bit better. I slept soundly this afternoon on my couch as I did another day recently. That is actually a good sign that my nervous system is relaxing somewhat. I don’t feel suicidal anyway which is a good sign. I can feel greater self-care and less self-attack. I’m working on the complex ptsd side of things, reading articles and listening to podcasts, all of which have been helpful.

It’s all totally connected for me: mind-body-spirit. I’m finding a calmer and more caring inner parent at the moment, at least part of the time. It makes a profound difference when you can find that. I’m still habitually hard on myself but catching myself out with greater conscious awareness when I do it. Once I become aware of a self-attack it’s like kinder forces within me emerge with the awareness. Flaked out in the warm weather but just allowing myself to rest.

 I hope you are having a good week. Don’t feel you have to read my earlier posts. I know you are busy across the forums. I hope things are going well for you 🙏💖

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

Sorry it's been a while, things have settled down a bit so I have just been catching up on your posts and seeing what's been happening with you.

How is the car behaving, has it been starting ok? Those mechanical issues that don't have a simple explanation are really annoying aren't they. Each time you get in the car feels like a lucky dip.

I am glad to hear that the hormones have been gradually settling, how has it been the past couple of weeks? Also wanted to check how your DSP application is going?

The self awareness you talked about is really important I think when you are trying to turn your health around. Sometimes I would be really hard on myself when I was having a bad day with depression, but that just made me feel worse. These days, when I know I am not doing well, I just say to myself that I will just ride it out and only do what I am capable of doing today, maybe tomorrow will be a better day. It's a waste of energy being hard on yourself, it doesn't change anything, so much better to be kind to yourself (it did take some time to integrate that though).

I have a big personal project on the go at the moment which I will tell you all about another time. For some reason I have a headache at the moment and need to rest my eyes for a bit. I suspect I am due for updated lenses in my glasses.

I am sure you have already given this some thought, but was thinking that a nature friendly dog would be so good for you, the company and unconditional love would be a source of healing.

I hope today has been a good day for you,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Dear indigo,

My car has been behaving lately so it remains a mystery. It just decides to not start every so often. It is 24 years old so I do realise it may start heading towards car heaven in the not too distant future.

In the past week the hormonal issues have settled somewhat. With the DSP my psychologist has done her report which was helpful. I saw the GP for him to do his report today. Because it is involved and he still needed me to send the impairment tables which he couldn't find and was rushed, he is in the process of doing the report still to send to me. I found it distressing because he is attributing everything to fibromyalgia despite me doing my best to communicate. I have had fibromyalgia for 36 years and I know the difference between the liver disease symptoms and fibromyalgia. I know my own body. Unfortunately fibromyalgia patients are routinely gaslighted by doctors who commonly view fibromyalgia as a psychosomatic illness (in the most derogatory way) without a clear aetiology, despite clear evidence for some years now of the aetiological evidence in the clinical research. They are actually trained that way in medical school and some have told of the derogatory jokes they are told in training by their actual lecturers about fibromyalgia patients. I have had doctors treat me normally until I mention fibromyalgia then they completely change. I went to one for a second opinion about a medication once. He was friendly until I had to mention the "f" world in the context of what was being discussed. He then went to another room, got a packet of anti-inflammatories, literally threw them at me and said "get over it". I have had this treatment not just for years but decades. For 10 years I didn't even mention it to doctors because you are treated so derisively. I lived in total isolation with it. People with chronic fatigue syndrome have been treated the same way (my friend with it suicided for this very reason). Only now, because of long Covid, are some doctors beginning to think it may be real because they are basically the same kind of process in the body.

So today, when I realised this doctor who seemed friendly to begin with holds the same highly limiting view of what is actually going on with me, I just left utterly broken from it. I went straight to how to end my life and have played it over and over in my head. Doctors don't get the complex trauma background to it and the chronic autonomic dysregulation that drives the epigenetic changes that lead to the disease process. For me, like many with CPTSD, this process started from birth or earlier. I knew from today, after countless experiences like this, I have zero medical help and have given up all hope with it. I called The Blue Knot Foundation and the counsellor was extremely supportive. She said they get people with fibromyalgia ringing in a very high percentage of the time with similar experiences. She described it as medical gaslighting and it absolutely is. Basically medical encounters push me to the edge. I have no support in relation to the impacts of the liver disease, despite clinically having it, because everything is put down to fibromyalgia. If I get an unsympathetic doctor reviewing my application, I'm stuffed. I have been medically misrepresented and pigeon-holed my whole life. It just destroys me more and more over time. I have had to fight through and survive through experiences those medical people judging me have no understanding of. It just confirmed for me today how 100% alone I am in the medical world.

I'm glad you have a big personal project happening. Having something to work on is great. It gives direction and it's wonderful to exercise the creative part of ourselves.

Thank you re: a dog. Yes, I have thought much about it. I actually rung about a dog I felt strongly drawn to adopt about a year and a half ago but she had just been adopted by someone else. I am waiting to see what my future holds and if I can be a good dog parent. While in the waiting room at the GP today I was looking at photos of dogs at a dog rescue shelter. It was calming to look at dogs. I love them and they are 1000% safer to be around than people. My trust in people is extremely minimal. Sorry for my rant. I am basically trying to fight my way out of the feeling the only option I have is not being here anymore.

I hope your headache is better soon. Take care,

ER xx