Midlife mental health crisis
The conversation surrounding menopause symptoms has gone from hushed up to headline news in recent years, but one aspect of this story remains under-reported. This period represents a staggering risk to mental health, with an estimated 70% of those who are menopausal experiencing psychiatric symptoms as a result of fluctuating hormones – from anxiety and depression through to psychosis and suicidal ideation. Devastatingly, some go on to act on those thoughts; suicide rates for women aged 45 to 54 have risen by 6% over the past two decades. These are shocking statistics, to which there are no easy answers. But as we’ve learned from the conversation that’s come before, honest disclosure can be a catalyst for change. On the following pages, you’ll hear from six women for whom menopause represented a terrifying departure from their typical temperament, disposition and emotional wellbeing. They’re opening up to help others feel less alone, while asking questions about who’s been left out of the conversation so far – and if the UK’s healthcare system is equipped to manage this psychological fallout. Here, they tell their stories, in their own words…
‘I don’t want to be here.’ I was sitting on my sofa, surrounded by Christmas decorations, when the words poured from my mouth. I didn’t know Jayne well; she was my neighbour, here with her husband for a festive drink. Perhaps it was the nightcap, or her easy, affable energy. But with those words, I found myself vocalising feelings that had haunted me for months; feelings made all the more painful by the fact that history was repeating itself. I was 46, the same age as my mum when she ended her life. In the year before her death in 1995, she was no longer the mum I knew. The generous, vital woman who taught yoga classes, radiated positive energy and thrived amid the motions of motherhood seemed to harden and fade. Her symptoms read like a diagnostic criteria for menopause: hot flushes, trouble sleeping, low mood. But despite that, doctors told her she was depressed, only offering her antidepressants that failed to help her.
I was 24 years old when I walked into her bedroom one morning and discovered that she’d taken an overdose. Once the shock of those first few weeks had subsided, anger set in. How could she leave me and my siblings? We were so young. The fact that I didn’t understand why made the grief all the more difficult to process, and I missed her desperately in the decades that followed. When I’d experience big life events, like marrying my husband and the arrival of our children, her absence was particularly painful.
Despite the weight of my grief, I built a life I loved. By my early forties, I was a gregarious mother-of-fo
