When You Know What Will Help, But You Cannot Make Yourself Do It
As I moved through menopause, my whole hormonal system seemed to be up in the air. There were the changes of menopause itself, then problems with my thyroid, and for a while it felt as though everything that had once kept me steady had been thrown out of order.
I had plenty of physical symptoms, but the hardest part for me was emotional.
There was depression and anxiety, but there was also something more difficult to describe, a constant sadness that wasn’t quite depression, accompanied by a sense of lack, loss, fear and loneliness. Sometimes those feelings would swamp me to the point where I could barely function. I felt stuck inside them, frozen, unable to find the movement required to get myself out.
One of the strange things about being in that state is that we may know perfectly well what would help us. We know we should go outside, move our bodies, eat something, call somebody, take a shower, do whatever it is that could help us feel better. Yet the emotional state we are trying to change can swallow us to the point where we become numb and almost paralysed, unable to act on what we know would help us.
