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Showing posts from November, 2013

When a Mood Swing isn't a Mood Swing

What if I told you one day, around 50-ish, you would start to feel like your mental world was falling apart, you would have no control over events consuming your body, and your body would – literally – have a mind of its own? Think you might feel a little depressed? A little down? Weepy? Well, duh! Mood Swings are not uncommon during menopause. Hormones fluctuating, sleep evasion, weight gain in odd places, a general feeling of yuckiness, all contribute to a woman being a little more irritable than during a normal day. But when is a mood swing NOT a mood swing?   When do you start to worry about the labile alterations in your affect being more than a little hormone flux? More than just the need for some extra Zzzzz’s? When do you start to worry that it’s really depression? Everyone who watches television or reads a magazine knows that depression is a hot button topic right now. There are a dozen new medications to treat all kinds of depression, and for all age groups – c

I'm in the mood...to NOT be moody!

One of the worst stops I’ve come across so far on this menopause journey, is   Mood Swing Street. One minute I’m baking a pecan pie, as happy as a pig in slop, the next I am crying like I just lost my entire family in a sharknado! (Don’t get the reference? Check out the SyFy network!) Happy go lucky and without a care or bad thought in my mind at 10:00a.m., and by 10:05 I am thinking about sticking pins in my neighbor because her barking dogs are driving me to distraction. Sound familiar? The Mood Swings we experience in menopause are as devastating and soul killing as the ones we went through in puberty, pre-menstrually, and post-baby. Only this time, they come fast, furious, and nothing we do can help them or stop them. Chocolate, which usually works on any bad mood, does no good; taking a breath and a walk will get you nowhere but down the block. Distracting yourself through baking, reading, watching tv, will do nothing but pass time and make your hips bigger. You’ll still