(Hand hold needed) Bad memories and perimenopause

[LooFairy]

I’m at a time of life when I’m reflecting a lot on what I’ve done, how it’s going and what I’m doing. Mostly I’m very content, although I used to cringe a lot at memories about my social skills and various faux pas in my youth. It took some time to get over that.

When perimenopause puts me in a negative frame of mind it almost feels like a trauma to remember how naive I was when I was young. My family loves reminiscing about that time in general.

I wish I had a mental trick to talk myself positive. I’m sure the past wasn’t as bad as all that. It’s probably hormones, hot flushes and disturbed sleep.

I don’t want to be a MN cliche and suggest you cure yourself with therapy but… I’ve found that ongoing, slow and gentle therapy (not CBD) has really helped me find my self compassion.

It’s so hard to face painful or humiliating memories alone, and it has helped being able to do it with a therapist, at my own pace, backing off if I need to because she trusts me to know my own limits.

Social rejection triggers a survival crisis because in our distant past, exclusion from the group literally hastened death. The trauma is real. And facing micro exclusions day after day as a person with NDs is deeply damaging. It’s hard to recognise this when our social group doesn’t. I mean I wouldn’t dare post this paragraph anywhere else on MN and the benefit of therapy is that I’m allowed define my experience on my own terms.