When Karen started to slide into depression in her midforties, she was afraid to tell anyone about it. “I have no reason to feel depressed,” she told me. “My marriage is good, my children are wonderful, and I live in a beautiful home. I have so much to be grateful for, and yet I can’t control how depressed I feel. I feel guilty, like I am being self-indulgent, and that I should just snap out of it. I also get very anxious about these feelings, like I’m brooding over inconsequential things. I start worrying that something bad will happen to me or someone in my family and that my nameless worries will become a reality. I can make myself almost crazy.”

Depression that hits us in midlife is rarely a matter of self-indulgence, and it’s not something we can will ourselves to snap out of. A host of factors can influence depression during perimenopause, and women who become depressed at the time of hormonal fluctuations may be experiencing combined effects. In our forties, physical hormone shifts often go hand in hand with major life events, they really are woven together.

Because she couldn’t identify anything going on in her life that could account for her depression, Karen hesitated to seek help. She was concerned that she would be viewed as histrionic, unstable, or a hypochondriac. It had been more than a year since she had a thorough physical exam, so I urged her to see her health care provider for a checkup. “Your emotional health is every bit as important as making sure your body is working properly,” I told her. I suggested that she and her provider might investigate the possibility that her depression could be related to hormonal changes. She needed to explore both physical and psychological reasons for her depression, I explained.

Meet Sharon, whose husband recently faced a very serious illness. Her depression and fatigue were very normal responses to an extremely stressful life event. She worried that if his health were to become much compromised; she wouldn’t be able to care for him and their children, the youngest of whom they had adopted from another country only a year and a half earlier.

Sharon confessed that in her low moments, she had begun to doubt the wisdom of adopting their youngest child. “We went through the long, complicated, and expensive process of adopting her because we thought we could provide a loving, stable environment for her,” she confided. “I think that we do, but there are days lately when I feel so distracted or depressed, I don’t think I do the best job of being her mother.”

Distracted, depressed, and overwhelmed in midlife by the demands of a toddler, it’s possible that Sharon would have had these feelings even if her situation were not compounded by her husband’s health scare. Considering the relationship between her hormonal patterns and what was going on in her world helped her to distinguish between her issues individually so that everything didn’t blend together and loom larger than life. Sharon and Karen had very different situations, one more turbulent and the other with an almost enviable stability. Yet both were battling feelings of depression. What’s important here is that hormonal variations may certainly be a factor in both cases, and that this component should be neither overlooked nor dismissed.

Related posts:

1. The Basics of Signs of Perimenopause – Depression and Loss of Libido

2. The Basics of Mood Swings During Perimenopause – Depression

3. The Basics of the Effects of Antidepressants In Perimenopause

4. Parkinson’s and Depression

5. Causes of Depression – Psychological Trauma

6. The Basics of Reversing the Downward Spiral of Depression

7. Depression in Adolescents – The Basics

8. The Basics of Masked Depression (Somatization Disorder)

9. Depression Tips – A Note to Family Members

10. The Basics of the Subtle Connections About Daily-Life Things When Going Through Perimenopause