Can HRT help emotional numbness?

[AmIimagining]

Sorry if this is a bit long. It helps just to write it all down.

I'm 51, no period since August last year (and one before that was six months previously). I'm having hot flushes, but it's the emotional side I'm really struggling with.

Last year my DH sat me down and asked if I was off with him as he'd noticed I was being less affectionate and caring.

We talked it through, and I tried to do better. But without the loving feeling that's the precursor to spontaneous affection it felt forced. TBH I had so much going on with caring for elderly parents and a full-time job, I'd often just forget to do it.

He's now sat me down for another tough conversation and basically said nothing's changed after a year and he can't live in a loveless marriage. He thinks I don't love him because I never show it, and feels lonely. He's noticed I'm less affectionate and caring with the kids, too.

The me of two years ago would have been devastated to hear that my family don't feel loved by me. But I feel... literally nothing! It's like I'm surrounded by an invisible box, and nothing can get in or out.

Intellectually, I know I love my husband and kids. I definitely like them a lot. And I can remember that I used to love them. But the FEELING of love that makes you want to care for people has been switched off. I'm also less bothered about my personal appearance so it's extending to the care I show myself.

It's the same with all emotions - I don't feel sad or happy or angry, either! I was pretty anxious before, and part of me wonders if the 'invisible box' feeling is a self-preservation mechanism to stop me from getting totally overwhelmed.

Thanks for reading if you made it that far. Does it sound like I need to ask the GP for anti-depressants? Or HRT? My worry with anti-depressants is that they may numb my emotions even more!

Also, would they even prescribe HRT for 'just' emotional symptoms? It seems trivial to say to a GP 'I can't feel emotions'. But it's not trivial to me. I could lose my previously happy marriage and my kids are suffering.

I honestly don’t know about the hrt but from experience, what you’re describing sounds like anhedonia (a symptom of depression) and you’ve also described some other symptoms too. Definitely go to your GP. They should be able to answer your questions about ADs and HRT.
From my experience of ADs, if you already have anhedonia (that kind of “numbness”), you have nothing to lose, they won’t make it worse.
I have lifelong depression and anhedonia is a particular problem for me. The things I find that make it worse are lack of sleep and the fall out from stress.
It is better to deal with it by going to the doctor now, the longer you wait it just gets harder to shift.
It also has a terrible effect on relationships. My advice there is to try to take time to connect with the important people in your life. Sometimes you can feel resistant at first but it can actually help you to feel closer. Even if that’s not possible, try to communicate as openly as you can about it.
Having said that, my heart goes out to you because I do think women often find themselves trying to split themselves in every direction, making sure everyone feels loved and emotionally looked after and that can get so difficult. I think your husband needs to be more understanding here. What you are going through is one of the worst feelings, you need help, not to be criticised or made to feel guilty.
I would recommend that you go to your gp and try antidepressants anyway. Sometimes it takes a while but it is possible to break through that glass box.
It really is more common than you might think but not talked about much. You’re definitely not alone in feeling this way.
Best of luck. I hope you get it sorted out and start to feel better very soon x

TBH it might be worth trying counselling or relationship coaching.
To me, this sounds like a behaviour change that you can 'undo' by creating changes in your behaviour and routine.

BUT if you're also having meno symptoms it's worth thinking of HRT too.

Sometimes, emotions come back by creating situations where you are 'forced' to behave the way you want to. So if he's saying you never cuddle up, can you literally make yourself do that even if you don't feel it in the moment?

Would you consider a 'date night' or a day out together where you can actually engage as a couple and start to communicate more?

It's easy to think 'Oh I don't feel the emotion so it's not worth bothering' but there is a lot of evidence that 'acting out' the emotion you want actually creates it.

Please don't try ADs at the moment. HRT is the first line treatment now for low mood and ADs have many side effects anyway.

I had this exact same symptom and HRT did fix it (and fairly quickly, back to "normal" within 3 months). I feel so much better now, the numbness was horrible.

Thank you so much for your incredibly kind response and for sharing your experience. I didn't think anyone would even understand what I meant about the 'invisible box'! I'd cry - if I could!

I'd kind of ruled out depression just because I don't feel the least bit sad - I just don't feel anything, apart from a strange kind of disassociation that's crept up on me gradually. I'll look up anhedonia and will make an appointment with my GP.

I do find it hard to talk about in real life, particularly with my DH. It feels so shameful. If it was just love for my DH it would be bad, but it's that it extends to me and the kids (and the dog and my parents) that makes me know it's not just a relationship issue. It's also the total opposite of how I used to be.

I will make an appointment with the GP and see what they say. But you've given me hope and I feel less alone.

Thank you so much. I think if it was just feelings towards DH I'd agree it was a relationship issue. But the fact I can't access any emotions at all, makes me feel like there's some fundamentally wrong with me. Also it's so out of character - I'm like a different person.

I have tried forcing myself to cuddle up. But somehow it slips off my radar and I just forget.

I think you should tell your DH you will duscuss this with your doctor and he also needs to support you during your menopause and realise it is outside of your control.

i don’t have any answers, sorry, but just wanted to say you’re not alone in the invisible box. It’s a great description of how I’ve felt for the past 5 years or so (I’m 51) - intellectually conscious of which emotions I should be feeling, but not actually feeling them. In that time I’ve had some pretty major upheaval and several close bereavements, so I guess it could be general emotional overload/burn out; I’ve also heard it cited as a sign of hormonal imbalance and depression (numbness, rather than active sadness) too. It does make me feel a bit fraudulent, like an actor playing me in a version of my life; saying the right lines, but only because I’ve learned them. Weirdly, this never extended to the dog. Make of that what you will.

I’ve been on HRT for 3 years, and I think it’s helped a bit; lately I’ve felt glimmers of old happiness that surprise me so much it’s almost bittersweet - I try to fan them as much as possible, and focus on which small things do spark joy (tweeness trigger warning) whether it’s taking a minute to really appreciate the blueness of a spring sky, or making myself really listen to music. Getting back inside my own body with regular exercise also helps. I hope it’s something that can be pushed through, but I also found a short course of coaching helped me identify a few slightly uncomfortable family issues that I need to address - just acknowledging them to myself seemed to lighten the load.

I can't give real advice, but can impart that when I started on HRT, I started to feel much more caring than I had before, really calm and quite blissful. It also didn't last forever, I'm now back to my stony/rational self, but there must be something in female hormones that is what generally makes us the more 'caring' gender in general, so it wouldn't suprise me if you found some benefit.

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. Sorry you're also in the invisible box crew. The way you've described it as an actor saying the lines is exactly right. I remember how I used to feel. I know how I should feel intellectually, but I just can't access the emotion.

You sound like you do it better than me. I can fake it til I make it up to a point, but find it quite tiring. Then some life stress comes along and I forget to do it.

I don't think I ever realised quite how useful emotions were until they'd gone. I will take your advice and try exercise and maybe explore counselling.

I also have this numbness to some extent. I think for me it's not just the lack of oestrogen, it's also due to years of stress and burnout from looking after everyone else. I've been on autopilot for so long it has become the default. So I'm trying as hard as possible to do lovely things for myself and give myself some time off without responsibilities, in the hope that I'll feel some simple joy and pleasure again, and then have more 'in the tank' for my family. I think it's working a bit. I can't comment on the DH part as I'm single and a lone parent, but maybe you need to be cared for too? Maybe he needs to know exactly what is going on for you and to be educated about the menopause so that he can make the choice to stick with you during a hard transition in your life which is, quite frankly, about you alone, and not about him?

I'm am also on hrt, but for me this has not been as important as the above.

From what little I know about brain chemistry and hormones, I think that oestrogen is closely associated and linked to the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin, so any lower levels of oestrogen will affect mood etc.

Hence, why I think it's a side effect of menopause that some of us unfortunately suffer lower motivation levels, and as others have mentioned, a flatness of moods etc. I'm not a doctor, though, so don't quote me on this 😉

I’m glad to help. Definitely go to your GP and if you’re not satisfied, try a different doctor.
These kinds of symptoms are lesser known generally but they are very common especially with mild to moderate depression (if that’s what you have, I’m not saying you do but it’s worth looking at).
The important thing is to try not to be hard on yourself about it or think you can change it through force of will. You didn’t choose to feel this way.
Pp is right as well, your husband needs to learn how to support you instead of being accusatory about it.

Because you have hot flushes and may have other meno symptoms that you don't actually link to menopause, you should ask your GP for HRT. A 3-month trial and see how you feel.

Yes!

you could try it for 3 months and find out - a GP will prob only start you on that anyway. Low mood is absolutely a symptom of low oestrogen.

Thanks so much to everyone who's posted. Doctor's appointment booked so I'll see what they say and update. I'm half tempted to show DH this thread so he can see that it might be menopause/mental health related.

I really hope something works and this isn't just who I am now. But I will also try harder to fake it until I make it and hope that creates the right emotions as suggested upthread. I'm not sure this makes sense but after my conversation with DH I feel like a boss has put me on a performance review and if I can't demonstrate the correct emotions in the next three months I'll lose my job.

well he shouldn’t be putting pressure on you and making you feel worse. But then it’s a health issue like any other and if it’s making YOU feel subdued and disconnected from your kids and things you enjoy, then worth trying to find answers. Good luck

Menopause can cause emotional detachment due to hormonal changes.

www.avogel.co.uk/health/menopause/videos/can-menopause-cause-emotional-detachment/

100% menopause for me - HRT fixed it. Exactly as you describe - detached, flat, pointless. I was already on a very low dose of HRT but had gradually developed this mood; upping my dose got me my mojo back. My GP was fab, she was the one who recognised the link.

NICE guidance for menopause 1.5.20 specifically looks at “depressive symptoms” that occur at the same time as other menopause symptoms (changes in periods, hot flushes) and recommends considering HRT for these.

I think this could very well be a symptom of menopause.

Initially I went on to HRT just for emotional reasons. I didn't have one flush or sleepless nights at all. Yet when I went to my gynae for a check up, I could not even talk to him without bursting into tears. And I am not an emotional person usually.

I started a 3 month trial and I have stayed on ever since (a small gap and a change here and there for other reasons). Although I did feel better emotionally, I do have way less patience for other people these days, and I have just put it down to being older now, and I do not need to be running around after other people. I feel like I have raised my now adult children to the best of my ability, and now I want to do some things for me instead of everyone else all the time.

That might be easier for me in one sense, as I am divorced and single, but I totally get how you feel.

As others have said, your marriage is being affected now, so if I were in your position, I would have another sit down with your dh, and trial hrt, then take it from there.

I would be the first to tell him that sorry mate, I am different now, and I am tired! Things will have to change, your body is changing, your mind is changing and it is just okay to be fed up with life as usual (guessing you take the mental load at home).

Has he tried to help you more, or is he still just putting pressure on you to do things like you have always done?

I don't know all the answers, but I would trial the HRT before anti depressants (having been on those also for a while years ago).

If your dh still can't cope with feeling rejected, then cross that bridge then. Perhaps he should also do some research into menopause and maybe he might understand that he is most certainly not alone. His body isn't changing like yours and affecting you in ways we never will have expected years ago.

I feel quite cross about the pressure your husband is putting you under.

I'm making him sound awful - he's actually nice! It's just that I've always taken on the 'emotional load', particularly with the kids (and also his widowed mum). I was the loving one, he was strict, but it worked as we balanced each other out.

I worked part-time when they were small so was more focused on the home and taking care of everyone. He was the provider. He travelled a lot, and I supported him in his career by taking care of everything in the home. But we needed the money so I'm working full-time in a (mentally) demanding job. My parents are both elderly and ill so supporting them takes up more of my energy than they did before. My mental bandwith is limited - and currently being stretched in all directions, so that probably isn't helping with my emotions either.

I am not surprised that you are feeling how you are.

Your life has become more difficult, as well as having to deal with all the irks that life throws us at this age.

Something has to give here OP. He may be the nicest man on the planet, but is he helping you through this as best as he can? Instead of moaning about not having a hug.....

Honestly going part time has helped my emotional bandwith. Can you do 4 days or less?

That's just what DH suggested! If I'm being totally honest (which I can here, I haven't said this to DH), work has been a good cover-up for the lack of emotions situation.

It's busy and I have lots of deadlines. But I don't feel quite as lost at work. I know what I'm doing, I'm good at it and no one's asking anything of me emotionally - there's not that same pressure to perform. Basically, I've buried myself in work and being busy to cover up that I'm not feeling right emotionally because I feel ashamed of it. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it that well, but it is helping me make sense of it all to write it down!

It's like if I didn't have to work I'd have to fully face up to the fact that there's something wrong with me. But I've got the option to go down to part time, so I'm going to take it.

I get that. Work brings its own rewards for sure - we get praise/positive feedback and dopamine hits from completing tasks.

Had a small breakthrough this morning. I cried! It must be all the writing it down and trying to make sense of it.

Think I've been scared to admit how bad things have got, even to myself. At first I was desperate to do something because I was in fix-it mode after DH giving me a talking-to. But I can see that I need to get out of this invisible box for me, too. I hate the feelings of disconnection, but it definitely feels safe in here.

Hopefully being able to cry (and seeing the doctor and going part time) will be the first steps to getting better - genuinely better, not just surface level just to keep DH happy.

I really do appreciate everyone who's replied to me on this thread. xxx