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Perimenopause, Trauma and the Nervous System: What the Research Is Beginning to Reveal

If you're in the perimenopause or menopause years and finding it harder than you anticipated - more anxiety, more emotional reactivity, more of a sense that old feelings are resurfacing - there may be something important that nobody has told you.

I had been wondering for a while why my experience of these hormonal years seemed more intense than some friends or family who were going through - or who had been through - the same transition. I had heard inklings of a relationship between traumatic or negative experiences and perimenopause. This morning I came across some research, and it made a lot of sense, and I hope it can help some other women out there too.

For me, it helps me to see this phase as an opportunity, and the potential for positive shifts and changes that can impact the rest of our lives.

For many women, perimenopause brings far more than hot flushes and irregular periods. Some notice increased anxiety, emotional overwhelm, heightened sensitivity, or even the return of memories and feelings they thought had been resolved years ago.

If this sounds familiar, you are far from alone.

Researchers have begun exploring a question that trauma-informed therapists have long been hearing from clients: can hormonal changes during perimenopause affect the way unresolved trauma is experienced?

What the research is showing

A growing body of research is finding that trauma history and the menopausal transition are connected in ways that most women, and many healthcare providers, aren't yet aware of.

These are the important findings:

  • Women with a history of childhood trauma tend to experience more severe menopausal symptoms, not just emotionally, but physically too. Trauma is not simply causing emotional distress during menopause; it appears to be associated with the experience of physical symptoms as well

  • Perimenopause may be a period in which previously managed trauma symptoms become more active or more difficult to regulate. Symptoms that had been under control can resurface, because hormonal changes affect the very systems that help us manage them

  • Trauma-related patterns and reproductive ageing appear to influence one another; the relationship runs in both directions

  • Childhood trauma may amplify the cognitive difficulties like brain fog, memory issues, difficulty concentrating that many women experience during menopause

This is emerging research, and thankfully there is more and more focus on this important phase in women’s lives and the wide range of symptoms that we experience. Most women navigating these years don’t have information to help understand why their experience might be more intense than others, and more importantly, how they can feel better.

This is not permanent and you are not broken

Many women assume that the appearance or return of anxiety, overwhelm, emotional reactivity or difficult memories during perimenopause is a permanent change to their mental and emotional health. Research increasingly suggests that hormonal changes can temporarily make unresolved trauma more accessible, bringing old patterns and symptoms back into awareness.

So, it may actually be a window of opportunity.

Experiences that were pushed aside while raising children, building careers or simply surviving life's demands may become harder to ignore.

With the right support, this can be a powerful time for healing, integration and lasting change.

When old material comes closer to the surface it also becomes more reachable. The very thing that makes this period feel harder is also what makes it a positive time for doing something about it.

Where Brainspotting comes in

Brainspotting works directly with the nervous system and the body, which is precisely where trauma from earlier in life is held, and where hormonal change is felt. It works with whatever is present - the anxiety, the reactivity, the low mood, the physical symptoms - and supports the nervous system to process and integrate it.

Brainspotting is a trauma-informed approach that many people find helpful when difficult emotions, memories or nervous system responses become activated.

Rather than focusing on talking about what happened, Brainspotting works with the brain and nervous system's natural capacity to process unresolved experiences.

For women finding that old patterns are resurfacing during perimenopause, this can provide a way to work with what is coming up, rather than simply trying to suppress it again.

We are not alone.

Researchers are beginning to understand that there is nothing unusual about old wounds becoming more visible during major hormonal transitions. And there are effective ways to help us feel better.

Understanding the connection between trauma history and hormonal transition was, for me, both a relief and an opportunity. It might be for you too.

[Get in touch] if you'd like to explore this further.

Related reading: [What is Brainspotting?]

Louisa Collyns is a certified Brainspotting practitioner working with clients in person and online.

Research references:

 

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