Is this anxiety, depression or peri? Extended low mood and overthinking.

[justanothermidlifecrisis]

For the past few weeks since about mid-August I have been quite out of sorts. I was already a bit exhausted mentally/socially after a busy summer with the lack of routine/everyone at home and a couple of family holidays which I found equal parts draining and enjoyable.

But once we were back home again I began feeling more and more flat, and emotionally distant but with a super-busy brain, constantly wrangling all kinds of negative thoughts and worries. DH and I had a row at one point, which very rarely happens, and that dragged me down further, I just felt emotionally shut down.

It feels like it's been weeks of overthinking, ruminating, negative thought spirals about work/home/relationship, and finding it really hard to communicate and connect, especially with DH. I have also been experiencing a lot of headaches, tension headaches I guess, round the back of my head, and feeling kind of 'hungover' when I woke up in the morning.

It's been really difficult to 'find the joy' and I've not even found much enjoyment in the things I would usually enjoy - even my garden which I love feels a bit overwhelming, and it's been a battle to restart writing, which is a passion of mine too.

For context, I'm 48, in perimenopause, on HRT (75mg patches + coil) and in a long-term marriage of 25 years this summer (which by the way also felt like a bit of an anticlimax rather than a celebration). My peri symptoms have always tended to be more mental than physical, but this has gone on longer than other low moods I've experienced which tend to lift after a week or so.

This is all lifting gradually now, I think, and I feel a bit better - my mind is calmer again, thankfully, and so now I'm wondering if this has been an extended episode of - what? Anxiety? Depression? I suppose I think of anxiety as a sense of dread and physically feeling it fluttering in your stomach - or depression feeling like you can't get out of bed, or spend a lot of time crying - and this isn't either of those things. So what is it? Am I still just in the throes of perimenopause and all of that instability? I want to try to put my finger on it, so that I can figure out how best to help myself recover, and prevent it happening again.

I want to talk to someone, but it can't be DH and I don't have close friends that I can confide in about all of this.

So I still feel pretty lonely and understimulated - I wfh and probably spend way too much time at home, and only see my immediate family day-to-day, probably not very healthy for our relationships or for my mental health. However I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to change that by arranging to meet people or joining a club or taking up a new hobby or a night class or something - that feels hard and I’m resistant to it. I'm not ready, maybe, but I know I need to do something... Where do I go from here?

Depression is generally characterised by an absence of emotion and motivation rather than crying constantly; it's very much as you describe the way you've been feeling.

Glad to hear you're coming out the other side. Make sure you eat well, exercise when you can and get good quality sleep. Don't push yourself too hard...

I feel you OP, I'm under this same fog of not feeling much joy in things I used to love doing either, in fact a lot of what you wrote I could also. I've been feeling like this for quite some time now, I try and do all the things right (food, exercise, therapy) but nothing has lifted it for very long. I have an appointment at the Drs and I'm going to ask about anti depressants. Depression doesn't have to be not being able to function, from what I've read and been advised a lot of the time it's just a general malaise and lacking joy for anything.

I'd make an GP appointment OP and just talk to them

I did go to the GP last week, feeling a bit desperate to just talk to someone about it or to see if she could offer any suggestions how to tackle this, maybe advice about adjusting HRT. She offered sertraline as an option but I don't really want to take anything else, I don't feel it's that acute either to need ADs (yet). I'd rather up the HRT again to see if that will help - though I've done that before and usually end up, ironically, with similar symptoms - headaches and a spacey, brain fog feeling.

She did sort me with an appointment with a mental health nurse who is available for talking through issues etc, that's in a couple of weeks and I'll probably go and speak to her unless I feel radically improved by then.

Like I say, I've had low moods before, they come and go, but the extent of this one really drained me. I know there's probably no one simple diagnosis or solution, apart from your good advice @Eyesopenwideawake - all of which I'm doing, I think, as well as journalling and meditation on a regular basis too. Like you @Thebutterflyslovemybush I feel like I'm doing all the 'right things' and yet still falling into this funk too regularly. I'm so tired of peri kicking my ass, I would like it to be done now, please 😣

Sorry that you have been going through this op. To me, although I have no medical qualifications whatsoever, this sounds like classic depression.

What you’ve described, and you have described it really well, is exactly how I have been feeling for quite a while. i can really identify with everything you have described except I am not on HRT.

I guess I was at the stage that you were at about six months ago. Sort of functioning but it all being really flat and not really looking forward to anything and every action however small being a huge effort.

I would urge you to think again about taking medication or talking therapy if you feel you may need it as these things can sometimes go away on their own, but sometimes they don’t.

I have phases of things getting slightly better but now I have gone even flatter which worries me a bit.

I do have supportive friends and family members that I can discuss this with but feel too embarrassed as to all intents and purposes, from the outside anyway, I live a reasonably privileged life.

Also I don’t want to worry my family and I want to keep my friends as my friends and not counsellors ifyswim as I always feel lifted by being around them, also, I want to protect my own privacy and dignity I suppose? I think I would find it much easier talking to a stranger.

Another thing that resonates Op, you mention your husband quite a few times and say you can’t confide in him and that you argued.

As someone who has been married 30 years and whose 30th wedding anniversary was definitely an anti climax, I really sympathise.

This is all really confusing to sort out bc I wonder sometimes if my depression is situational and if I would be better off single. But then I think of all the kind things my dh does and that it is my depression talking. Maybe some talking therapy would help?

Anyway, just posting to say I hope you find your way through all of this op as it is really unsettling to lose confidence in oneself. Please go to the mh nurse or reach out again to your doctor if you feel yourself falling flat again. You deserve to feel well and to be able to enjoy life or at least have things to look forward to 💐

Thanks @Shreddededges842 it sounds like we're in very similar frames of mind, unfortunately.

Even though I'm at that stage where I'm looking back at what I've posted and wondering if I've imagined it - did I really feel that bad, am I exaggerating? I think that's why I've written it all down and posted here - so that I have captured it, because too often when I begin to feel better I dismiss it and a sort of hope it's gone away. But then of course, the cycle begins again... 🫠

I do think probably talking to someone about it would help - I'm notorious for bottling things up, always have been, and yet it always feels better to let it out and stop going round and round in my own head. I will speak to the MH nurse and take it from there, even if I do continue to feel better.

As for DH, like you Shredded, I don't want to be single, I don't think that's the answer, even when I'm feeling low and not terribly rational. But I think it is really hard at this stage of life when you've been together for a long time, and you're changing as a person, but your partner maybe isn't, or maybe doesn't really 'get' what's going on with you? And that feeling of being out of alignment is very uncomfortable. I think that's draining me as much as anything else, perhaps it's the same for you. I'm clinging on to hope that it's a bumpy phase and will get better along with menopause/MH, because I don't enjoy the thought of feeling this way for the next 25 years...