Menopause and Intrusive Thoughts
I have intrusive thoughts, do you? Are they mild or severe? Can you identify them when they occur? Suicide is an intrusive thought. I have those, as well as many others. Most of us never act on our intrusive thoughts but they can still affect us and those around us.
Intrusive thoughts do not allow you to live life in the moment. Intrusive thoughts contain a lot of “what if’s”.
I read a lot of CNN, and I find them mostly reliable and informative, so when this article popped up, I had to read it because something I have experienced finally has a name, again. Then I did more research, and my findings and thoughts are below.
Intrusive Thoughts
From CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/29/health/manage-intrusive-thoughts-meaning-wellness
“Have you ever been hiking with your partner when you suddenly imagine pushing them off a cliff? Or on your way home from work, you can’t shake the feeling that you hit someone with your car without realizing it? What about loving your colleague’s cologne and fretting it must mean you don’t love your husband?”
“These are intrusive thoughts, which are “repetitive and unwanted thoughts that can seemingly come out of nowhere.... Intrusive thoughts can be about anything, but oftentimes the content is violent, sexually inappropriate, disturbing or otherwise in opposition to the person’s values or character — causing the person experiencing them great anxiety, disgust or distress, experts said.”
That sent me along for more info, so I included the word menopause when searching intrusive thoughts. I googled this: intrusive thoughts and menopause.
This is what I got:
“Depression is common during perimenopause. Most studies agree that the risk of depression increases during the menopause transition. Symptoms of depression include crying a lot, feeling hopeless or worthless, feeling numb, and losing interest in your normal activities.”
While it does not tie intrusive thoughts to depression, the next article does.
I googled “Depression and Intrusive Thoughts” and found this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5519121/
“Intrusive thoughts are key features of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Such thoughts are also common in the general population, where their content is the same as found in those with a psychiatric disorder. Intrusive thoughts comprise unwanted negative thoughts and images that frequently intrude, are difficult to dismiss, and, when dismissed, recur. Furthermore, they lead to a narrowed focus of attention that, in turn, can impair a person’s ability to respond to the external world. They can play an important role in maintaining the disorders in which they occur.”
And finally, from the UK, which seems to care way more about menopause than the USA:
Here are some snippets:
“Are you second-guessing yourself now? Are you finding that you just can't make any decision? Are you worried about the worst-case scenario when everything can go wrong, and imagining everything that could go wrong?”
“So, we all go through phases of being a little bit indecisive and worrying about things. But in perimenopause and menopause, this can go to the extreme, so we can be completely caught up in our thoughts. We can overthink, which can make anxiety worse.”
“Everyone overthinks sometimes or has negative thought now and again, but when going through perimenopause and menopause some women can find that they become much more prone to this. It can also have a profound effect on other symptoms, including contributing to sleep problems, low mood, and fatigue.”
“So, what can cause this? In perimenopause and menopause, it seems to be that falling levels of oestrogen affect an area of our brain which is called the limbic brain, which is the ancient part of our brain that focuses on survival. It also focuses on and facilitates memory storage and retrieval. And this is very often where thoughts come in and you think, "I haven't thought about that or that person for years. Why has this popped up now?" So that ability to store memory and keep the lid on it decreases, and all sorts of things from the past can crop up.”
Now from me:
I have had intrusive thoughts for years. It started when my parents divorced because it was War of the Roses horrible, and I was caught in the middle. It got worse from there, so I have issues. Those issues contribute to the intrusive thoughts I get. Now, this last article suggests how to deal with intrusive thoughts, one of the options is writing them down. That is a personal choice between you and you.
Most of our intrusive thoughts may never lead to anything but they can cause problems even if you do not act on them. Intrusive thoughts can cause you to over-analyze things, overthink something that happened, or even bring in make believe scenarios that will never happen. But we think they can. We think they will. Intrusive thoughts can cause marital problems, divorces, problems with family and friends, issues at work.
Intrusive thoughts have a stigma attached to them because you see people with intrusive thoughts doing harm every day, physical harm, to others and without care. They write manifestos and commit mass killing sprees. They push defenseless people onto subway tracks.
Most of us are not that.
But we think and analyze worst case scenarios: When we can’t reach someone on the phone, when your spouse is late coming home from work. Natural and unnatural disasters cause us to overthink, over worry, bringing in intrusive thoughts.
But intrusive thoughts can also make you more prepared. Understanding and mitigating your intrusive thoughts can empower you to use your thoughts for something productive versus something that could do self-harm, or harm to others, mentally or physically.
Use your intrusive thoughts to make you a more prepared person not a more anxious one. No, it is not easy, yes, it is difficult, but we are on this Earth, in my opinion, to learn and we can learn to do this and do away with intrusive thoughts.
If you or someone you know is thinking about self-harm or harming others, there is help.
You can call 911 for an emergency or 988 for the National Suicide Hotline.