Whilst watching a documentary recently, there was a reference made to depression and perimenopause, and it got me thinking…I googled how many women take their life due hormone imbalances (peri/menopause & PMDD) and the statistics are incredibly saddening.

These hormonal imbalances can have a profound effect on our mental health.

It caused me to reflect on the journey I had taken over the past five years and I had almost forgotten how low the lows were for me and my family.

I remember talking to a relative at the time about my struggles and I remember them replying, nonchalantly, “well, we all go through it”.

Whilst I understand the sentiment that all women do go through hormonal changes later in life, our journeys through this phase are all very different, and there’s a lot of nuance to each individual woman’s story.

Some may only get the occasional physical symptom, like the classic night sweats, or itchy ears, and others, myself included, wind up with a page and a half of symptoms that can be so mentally and physically debilitating.

I remember going into a very dark place - where I saw no way out. I can see how from that place you could spiral deeply into a place of despair, and I can understand how, for women who don’t have or seek support, it can be a very different outcome.

I was lucky enough to have a clinic in my village specialising in women’s health, and a supportive family who pushed me, after years of struggling, to seek the help I needed so desperately.

Every day I see midlife women suffering with their mental health & anxiety, and not knowing that their neurodivergent brains are so massively impacted by our hormones fluctuations. Oestrogen plays an incredibly important role in many female bodily functions, but it’s also vital to the efficacy of dopamine, our ‘happy hormone’. Once our oestrogen levels drop, this can have catastrophic consequences for our dopamine, especially for women with ADHD who already struggle in this area.

Once I addressed the imbalance, it was amazing to see how quickly my mental health improved. I felt so low that I couldn’t imagine anything helping, but to my surprise and utter relief, I almost felt back to normal.

Within just a week of being on HRT I noticed a dramatic change. My day to day crippling anxiety started to melt away, my short term memory started to improve. I could link more than three words and I was able to finish sentences and conversations without people guessing the point, and no longer felt like someone else was in control of my mind and body. I was even remembering to turn the oven off, something I’d struggled with for a long time. I was able to see a clearing and make my way out into the sunshine, whereas before I just hid myself away!

My neurodivergence still presents daily challenges but it's like we were able to turn down the dial that perimenopause had previously whacked up to the maximum,  and make my struggles less extreme and made life easier to cope with.

Having a community I can share my journey with has been incredibly empowering. 

I have found several holistic practices helpful in addition to the HRT, many of which I will share in the coming months. The hope for this blog is that it might help to raise awareness to seek support early and not wait until things become overbearingly hard. It can be tricky, at first, to recognise the reasons for the low mood as being hormonal, because it creeps up on us. But if you know what to look for, or when to expect it, early treatment can be life changing.

I urge anyone suffering to seek medical or holistic advice, the sooner you seek advice & treatment, the sooner you can return to your old self. 

Seek hormone tests, health checks that include vitamin deficiencies, and track your symptoms over a period of months and don't take no for an answer.

You may not want to seek a medical route or you may not be able to, so know there is a wealth of holistic practitioners, women's wellbeing clinics, and treatments and products out there, but sometimes it is just trial and error until you find the right thing for you. 

However please don’t be bullied into taking anti-depressants. You will find that there are a host of perimenopausal symptoms that follow similar diagnostic criteria as depression/anxiety and quite often women get mis-diagnosed after spending decades masking their neurodivergent traits which often are made worse by perimenopause. 

Trust that you know your mind and body better than anyone. Take a friend or relative in for support if you need it.  I’m here if you need a listening ear, or want to ask advice and I will do my best to signpost you as best I can. If you don’t know where to turn to,  reach out to a family or friend, together that problem is shared and you can tackle it together not alone.