Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

Every­one ex­pe­ri­ences sad­ness in his or her life­time, and this can be the cat­a­lyst for de­pres­sion. It can­not be over­stat­ed, how­ev­er, that not all de­pres­sion is a dis­or­der or chron­ic ail­ment. A school­mate who may have wit­nessed my ear­ly break­down is fol­low­ing my ex­cur­sion and was com­pli­men­ta­ry about a re­cent ra­dio in­ter­view, but im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed up with: "I think I have de­pres­sion." I've heard sev­er­al sim­i­lar ex­pres­sions and, nev­er dis­count­ing any­one's feel­ing, I've em­ployed sen­si­tiv­i­ty while try­ing for clar­i­fi­ca­tion and be­fore sug­gest­ing seek­ing care. To steer the con­ver­sa­tion along a prop­er, harm­less path, I'd in­quire whether one has sought a pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion. If so, I'd en­gage the per­son and point out my per­son­al ded­i­ca­tion to my well-be­ing and to feel­ing well-er­go, my com­mit­ment to med­ica­tion, coun­selling and the em­ploy­ment of a ther­a­peu­tic mix­ture of soli­tude, pets, plants, art, mu­sic, Scrab­ble, and my all-time heal­er, ex­per­i­men­tal cook­ing. If it's con­jec­ture, then I may pry to hear how the per­son came to that con­clu­sion. Of­ten there's no star­tling ba­sis, but I'd al­ways sug­gest seek­ing a pro­fes­sion­al opin­ion if they feel strong­ly about the sit­u­a­tion.

At oth­er times, these are some of what I've heard: "I'm go­ing through menopause and I've been feel­ing al­ter­nate­ly sad and an­gry. Some­times I can­not stand my hus­band and as soon as he says any­thing I be­gin to quar­rel." "Since ear­ly I've had a con­stant cy­cle of sad­ness and with­draw­al, es­pe­cial­ly around the time of the month­ly pe­ri­od. It's wors­ened as I got old­er." "I'm de­pressed and I don't even know why I am feel­ing de­pressed." "Just like that, I sat down on my bed and cried, and while I was do­ing laun­dry I broke down with a bout of sad­ness that I can­not de­scribe." "The dis­ap­point­ments with men have frus­trat­ed me-some­times I feel like I'm go­ing mad." These are not con­trived moan­ings; I can place a face to each one,. So I de­cid­ed to con­tem­plate these con­cerns, since most have af­fect­ed or will af­fect me. In every in­stance, the sis­ter was over 45 years old, so I thought to high­light the re­cur­ring vol­ley from the stand­point of midlife crises.

(Wo)menopause

For so many beau­ti­ful rea­sons, midlife should be a won­der­ful time. I've em­braced mine with no fear for my past or fu­ture and ac­cept gra­cious­ly all that it brings, and I've found that there are no ma­jor tran­si­tion­al emo­tions. Of­ten, though, midlife mem­oirs are of hor­mon­al changes, mood swings, ir­ri­tabil­i­ty, hot flash­es (a woman's pri­vate sum­mer in any sea­son) and more. Some women have con­fessed to go­ing through their midlife dra­ma with their spouse/part­ner hav­ing his/her own dra­ma se­ries-and it doesn't make for the finest years. Per­i­menopause and menopause are no­tably among the hor­mon­al fac­tors that cause de­pres­sion, along with men­stru­al cy­cle changes, preg­nan­cy/steril­i­ty, mis­car­riage, and post­par­tum-all that may pre­cip­i­tate men­tal ill­ness.

List­ed as cause for feel­ings of de­pres­sion and, or anx­i­ety dur­ing menopause/midlife ac­cord­ing to the US Gov­ern­ment's Web site for women's health (wom­en­shealth.gov), are the fol­low­ing:

• Hav­ing de­pres­sion be­fore menopause

• Feel­ing neg­a­tive about get­ting old­er

• In­creased work or fam­i­ly stress

• Se­vere menopausal symp­toms

• Smok­ing

• Not be­ing phys­i­cal­ly ac­tive

• Not be­ing hap­py in your re­la­tion­ship or not be­ing in a re­la­tion­ship

• Be­ing job­less or not hav­ing ad­e­quate mon­ey

• Low self-es­teem

• Not hav­ing the so­cial sup­port you need

• Feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed that you can't have chil­dren any more

The in­ci­dence of ill­ness­es like hy­per­ten­sion, stroke, di­a­betes, heart at­tack, or can­cer seem­ing­ly in­creas­es in midlife. It's al­so the pe­ri­od that brings the deaths of peers and loved ones as a more reg­u­lar oc­cur­rence. Trau­mat­ic events such as death, bad re­la­tion­ships, work stress, car­ing for chil­dren and ill/ag­ing par­ents, abuse and pover­ty all can make for de­pres­sive episodes.If you've been di­ag­nosed with de­pres­sion be­fore this time, you may be bet­ter pre­pared than those for whom men­tal-health chal­lenges are re­cent. But de­pres­sion dur­ing midlife is treat­ed much the same as at any oth­er stage. Re­mem­ber, de­pres­sion ranges from a pass­ing mood of sad­ness or dis­cour­age­ment to feel­ings of in­con­solable mis­ery, sui­ci­dal thoughts, and even delu­sions, as well as se­vere phys­i­cal symp­toms. It's re­gard­ed as a clin­i­cal dis­or­der when de­pressed mood and re­lat­ed symp­toms are se­ri­ous enough or last long enough to in­ter­fere with work, so­cial life, fam­i­ly life, or phys­i­cal health. If your mood is af­fect­ing your qual­i­ty of life, you're not alone. You should work with your doc­tor to find the best so­lu­tion, and, re­mem­ber, talk­ing open­ly about all oth­er fac­tors in your life that might be adding to your midlife blues is crit­i­cal.

ihavewrites@ya­hoo.com www.face­book.com/ MHIs Un­der­stood