Feeling a huge sense of grief/loss (menopause related?)

[batkeeper]

Don't want to be too specific here because it could be outing. I'm definitely in the depths of peri-menopause and feeling utterly awful. This isn't bereavement related though I have experienced this type of loss and been floored by it.

Yes, I take HRT including testosterone (due to be reviewed next month) but one of the aspects I am struggling with is a sense of loss at various points in life.

Hard to explain but the loss of missed decisions of having lifelong anxiety which has dictated many decisions/choices...inaccurate choices including the completely wrong degree (not that I know what the completely right one would have been). Relationship choices everything...I now see have been largely dictated by the trauma I experienced in my early years.

And only recently beginning to identify what my actual interests are (and still work in progress at the age of 50). Only recently learning the art of self care. Unfulfilling career in spite of degree but with no particular skillset.

Secondary school being horrific where I was relentlessly bullied/ostricized and home situation too but where there was no way out = no choice.

Of course I am grateful too, not least for my dc. But I feel grief around that - they are getting older/time passing the prospect of empty nest in the future.

This isn't meant to be a pity post...more along the lines of...can anyone relate to assessing their lives all of a sudden and feeling a sense of sadness/regret around grief/loss of control/decisions made. I guess most people have this about some aspect(s) of their lives but it is like I'm facing a huge wall of grief all of a sudden.

I am enquiring about medication shortly as I have most likely entered the realms of depression but just wondered if anyone has experienced this too?