A woman whose mother committed suicide urged people to be aware of the link between menopause and mental health. Her comments come as Veronica O’Keane, a professor of psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin, has warned that suicide in women is a real concern at the age of menopause.
The problem has been highlighted in a new documentary on RTÉ called The Change: Ireland’s Menopause Story.
Shirley Powell said her mother Mary Killian’s problems began with a lack of sleep. She described how the link between her mother’s mood swings and menopause was never made. She “she was 51 years old when she started noticing changes in her sleep. She was tired, things weren’t working right, so she decided to visit a GP. She put him on a sleeping pill and that didn’t work. It was going on for a couple of weeks, so she made a second visit and then she said ‘she told me I have depression’.
“In those days, we’re talking about 14 years ago, people would have said that depression is a ‘crazy disease’ or ‘put ’em in, treat ’em,’ and she wasn’t a woman for that. She would have died of embarrassment for people to know that she had to go somewhere to get help.
“We went to another doctor, to a psychologist, then to A&E. So between the templates and the reels seeing them all, nothing really worked and unfortunately she died by suicide.”
Studies have found that a drop in progesterone, which often occurs during menopause, can cause sleep disturbances, anxiety, and depression.
Shirley said, “With my mum, the red flag was never raised to say ‘we’ll take a look at hormones and menopause’, and then it just shot up to the point where there was no going back.”
Dr. O’Keane says there is a worrying oversight surrounding the mental health of middle-aged women. “This is probably reflected in the fact that there is very little awareness that 52 is the median age for a woman to die by suicide and this raises the question of the dearth of research on mental health and menopause.”
Describing how menopause can affect mental well-being on a biological level, he said that sex hormones attach to specific receptors in the brain and modify behavior. “They change your mood, and women are not prepared and society is not prepared for the changes that they experience. The changes literally happen at the genetic level.”
The documentary comes as the shortage of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) products is becoming a growing concern. Health authorities both in Ireland and internationally have been pressuring manufacturers to speed up production to ensure patients’ needs are met.
Elsewhere in the documentary, Kathy Haskins said a GP initially gave her anxiety medication when she was having trouble sleeping.
“I was 27 or 28 years old when my severe symptoms started. I didn’t sleep from 28 to 30 and then when I did, it was only for about three hours. The sweats were absolutely violent, my anxiety skyrocketed and I had suicidal thoughts. Menopause never crossed my mind.
When she sought help, Kathy says her GP “set her up” with Valium.
It was only when her partner mentioned her problems to her own GP that she was called in for further evaluation. “He prescribed an estrogen patch for me Thursday morning and I slept 10 hours. After almost 20 months of almost no sleep at all. Three weeks later, my symptoms completely stopped.”
Meanwhile, Shirley says she wants to make sure her mother’s death wasn’t in vain: “If I can save one person who feels bad [and tell them] they don’t have to accept the first answer given because they feel depressed. I would encourage them to seek a second opinion.”
‘The Change: Ireland’s Menopause Story’ airs tomorrow at 9:35pm on RTÉ One
