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]

Hi Indigo,

Yes, lots of complexity in there and experiences of loss. The link with the cancers makes sense. I think a lot of epigenetic stuff goes on with the transmission of these patterns and the really positive thing about that is that it can be healed.

It sounds like freeing your voice with singing is really important in your healing. I’m so sorry you were discouraged from it by your husband and father. When I was working to heal myself from the extreme pain of interstitial cystitis which started when I was 30, I joined a singing group and later a choir. I also got back to playing my guitar and joined two songwriting groups. I can’t even put a value on it just how powerful a tool singing is. It helped me move and function again and restored hope. It is truly transformative in the body and spirit. Everything you describe with your healing tools sounds wonderful and that you are on the right track.

 I am having a peaceful day and just came back from a relaxing time at my neighbour’s place. Wishing you a lovely evening and it is good to hear about your healing journey.

Very best wishes,

Eagle Ray

[Eagle Ray]

Hi Indigo,

Just letting you know I replied to you a while ago today but it hasn’t appeared. If it doesn’t show up in the next day or so I’ll contact ModSupport. That happened another time recently and I had to email them and then it appeared so that might be the case again.

 I won’t try to rewrite the message but wishing you a good day tomorrow and over this festive time. Take good care and best wishes,

ER

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

I am glad to hear the words "peaceful" and "relaxing", words that have not been in your vocabulary in recent months.

Please let me know how it is going with the HRT when you are ready, whether you are gradually recovering from your recent nightmarish experiences. I will admit I was getting quite worried about you at times over the last few months.

My job for the day is to try and find the hole that a mouse has made in my dishwasher outlet hose that is causing leaking onto the kitchen floor, along with cleaning up the calling cards they love to leave. This is the second time this has happened. I have nothing against mice when they stay out in nature where they belong, but they are definitely not winning any brownie points with me at the moment.

Talk again soon,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Hello Indigo,

What a mischievous mouse! When I first moved where I am now I had a bit of a mousy problem. I read that they really dislike the smell of cloves. I tried a method I read about which is putting cotton wool with clove oil in it at strategic locations such as where you think they might be getting in and areas you want them to stay away from. It seemed to work and after a few weeks the mice seemed to have given up. Then my neighbour got a cat who likes to catch mice. She will eat half and give the other half to her owner as a present 😂 Anyway, since the clove oil and the cat I haven’t seen a mouse for well over a year.

As for HRT, my goodness it’s made a rapid difference. Every night I sleep well for 8 hours. Before I got 3 to 4 hours broken sleep and woke in acute distress. The distress was unrelenting and it was a horrible existence. I’ve now communicated with a number of women who’ve been through this. Some ended up in the psychiatric hospital and I honestly thought at times that might be necessary for me. The extreme, relentless suicidality is powerfully linked to the drop in oestrogen for some women.

I’m now also sleeping in the afternoons after lunch. I think my body is in recovery from the relentless stress. My body feels like it’s restoring itself at a cellular level. It’s like the oestrogen is playing a very important function and was a missing piece that’s been restored. I’m still getting occasional breakthrough distress for brief periods though it’s much less than before. I’m on a starter dose of the oestrogen and it can easily be increased if necessary. It’s necessary to take the progesterone too to protect against thickening of the womb lining.

So far everything about it is beneficial with no side effects. So it has given me some hope. The horrible bladder condition I’ve had, interstitial cystitis, I’ve also now learned is linked with low oestrogen and can be treated with an oestrogen cream that is far safer than the opioid painkillers I was put on. The condition is common in women who have trauma and apparently there is a link between early life trauma and low oestrogen. Oestrogen also acts as a fear regulator so when it drops out fear goes out of control, which I have been experiencing all my life and particularly severely in perimenopause.

So gradually it’s all making sense and I’m finding answers. It is just so nice to feel calmer and more balanced.

 I hope you are able to deal with the mice successfully. I guess you will need a new outlet house. Thanks for keeping in touch and all the best,

Eagle Ray

[indigo22]

Hi Eagle Ray,

Happy New Year, let's hope this will be a good year for all of us.

Sounds like HRT was part of the solution all along, is it also helping with the migraines? I am glad to hear that you are feeling better and getting good sleep, that can make a big difference on it's own. You are becoming quite the expert with all the research you have done. If only everyone did this instead of just taking their doctors word on everything, I believe we also need to take responsibility in what is happening with our health.

I am looking forward to hearing your progress, you have been through hell and survived on will alone, and found your solution to a complex issue. You are tougher than you think ER.

Talk again soon,

indigo

[Eagle Ray]

Awww, thank you indigo. Sending you a big thank you hug 🤗 Happy New Year to you too!

I continue to improve. It is like having a different mind and body. I still experience some daily fatigue but my mental health is profoundly better and my physical body feels better too. I’m on cyclical progesterone which may lead to a bit of a downturn in a few days when I come off it for two weeks, whereas the oestrogen is continuous. It’s all of a bit of an unknown, but so far my body has responded extremely well without side effects.

Even food tastes different. I’ll be eating a nectarine and it will taste like the yummiest one ever, or eggplant or whatever it is. It’s like my body is taking in nutrition better and just loving it. Like my cells are happy 🙂 It’s obviously exactly what my body needed.

 I have more physical motivation too. Before my mind wanted to do things but my body just said no. But now I am so enjoying cooking again and various other things. I’m a naturally enthusiastic person so the decline in my well-being has been very disheartening. But now I can feel parts of myself coming to life again that felt they were virtually dead.

 I’m having thoughts about doing the Self Employment Assistance Scheme now where you receive Centrelink support for starting a business. For me it would be photography-related. But also trying to not get ahead of myself and monitor how I go in the coming weeks. But the fact that actually seems like a possibility now is amazing.

 I’m just on a more even keel. I still have challenging emotions around grief and trauma issues that come up, but they are much less debilitating and it’s going to make them easier to work on and heal.

And, yes, it seems to be helping with migraines. For the first few days I had what was like very mild migraine symptoms in the background as if my hormones were doing readjustments. But the last few days that‘s gone now too.

So it’s a positive start to the year for me and I will just keep moving forward and see how things go. I wish a wonderful 2024 for you indigo and thank you so much for your kind support 🙏

[Fiatlux]

Hi Eagle Ray,

I saw this post when I logged in just over a week ago and thought wow… I am not alone here.

It has taken me a week to find this post again.

Everything you have written about perimenopause is so true for a lot of us but we don’t talk about and only last year did I start researching and reading about it.

At 55, I hit full blown menopause mid last year and I often thought that if this doesn’t pass or ease up, that’s it for me. I was desperate to get better.

After suffering in silence I demanded that my GP start me on HRT. The relief was almost instant. Within days I was feeling almost normal. It’s only my 8th week of HRT and I am not stopping until I feel like I am ready. I don’t want to return to my old menopausal self. To get a good nights sleep is bliss. Not to mention that I am almost normal during the day. 

The myths, misinformation, misconceptions and silence around menopause has to end. 

Keep us posted on your progress and experience. Thank you, Fiatlux 🙏🏼

[Eagle Ray]

Wow Fiatlux! That's awesome!

It has been the same with me. Basically an instant improvement. The first night I slept beautifully and have ever since. I just feel amazing and yet a few weeks ago I was struggling not to give up on life. Food tastes delicious, my body moves much more easily, my bones and muscles feel stronger, and I feel calm, optimistic and have much less fear. One of the things I learned is that oestrogen helps regulate fear, so if we lack it we can feel truly horrible and riddled with fear and anxiety. Obviously not all women are affected the same, but for some it is a truly debilitating time.

I am so, so glad you have that vast improvement. I could not agree with you more regarding the myths, misinformation, misconceptions and silence around menopause. So many women suffer horrendously in silence and feel they can't talk about it. The perimenopause to menopause age has the highest suicide rate for women. There is a massive issue here that just isn't discussed when it's a very real thing.

My life is turning around and transforming at the moment and I feel clarity and happiness 🙂

Would love to know how you go too. I'm wondering whether to start a thread, maybe other than here, such as the Staying Well section on this topic. Anyway, will think about that.

Take good care and so happy for you 😊🙏

[indigo22]

Hi ER,

You sound like you are improving in leaps and bounds, I am so happy to hear you are enjoying cooking again and that food has a renewed enjoyment for you. It's so lovely to hear positivity returning to your conversations.

Just read your post above and wanted to say that when I was going to move my post Fragmented, I was advised not to because the section I was going to move it to was not indexed so would not come up in an internet search. I would suggest perhaps checking with Croix about which sections are not indexed before deciding where to post a new thread (should you decide to) as this is important information that needs to be out there for women to find.

Talk again soon,

indigo 💜

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you indigo,

 Yes, I can find out which section is best. I would start a new thread rather than try to transfer this one. I am learning more on the topic as I go and today have been talking to other women with trauma histories who’ve had a horror perimenopause with involuntary intrusive thoughts as well. I now have bits of breakthrough distress but they are much more minor and for much shorter times before something in me rebalances again.

Today I come off the cyclical progesterone (won’t go into specifics as I know I’m not meant to talk about meds). But basically it means I’m in a usual premenstrual state where oestrogen drops and I can feel it is happening with some rising agitation/stress in my body. But that’s about as bad as it gets whereas in other months recently I’d be bedridden in a tight ball sobbing uncontrollably and fighting intense suicidality. So it’s a big improvement and further tweaks may be able to reduce this as well.

 I have a challenging friend coming to town in a couple of days. I’m wishing I’d cut ties. I’m recognising some narcissistic traits in her that it’s taken me a long time to wake up to. But I can so clearly see the difference now between my healthy friendships and those that aren’t. From the way she treats her partner and myself I've come to realise it's like a kind of covert narcissism, because she manipulates others into getting them to do things for her while acting vulnerable and innocent. They are often the hardest to detect and it is quite disillusioning when you realise you've been used a lot by the person. The empath in me doesn't want to tell her not to see me when she's in town and I worry about upsetting her. Yet I find each encounter stressful and exhausting. Maybe I will see how the day goes (at least this time she is not staying at my place) and if I still have a really bad feeling I know it's time to call that friendship quits. I know with the healthy friendships I have none of these bad feelings come up and the energy between us is open, kind, caring and easy. With this friend, however, it doesn't feel easy. It's very draining. I can often see the person's background and how they ended up that way, so again the empath in me feels for them, but that's exactly what narcissistic people rely on to have control over you.

The good thing though is as I get more hormonally balanced I feel stronger and calmer in myself. So perhaps I will see how I go and test myself to see how I handle any challenging behaviour that arises. I'll practise being assertive! Something in me won't take any rubbish from people anymore. I also feel it's possible to handle these things in non-confrontational ways, so I'll see how it goes and practise keeping my boundaries clear and strong. Sorry for writing that all out! It just helps me to do so.

Yes, talk soon,

ER 😊🙏