Menopause, Trauma & Psychosis: Holistic Approaches in Midlife & Undoing Patriarchal Conditioning with Leah Harris, Lynda Wisdo & Marie Brown

One of the most overlooked experiences is menopause and perimenopause and its impact on mental health. Menopausal people are bombarded by messages about the ‘right’ ways to go through menopause, and societally we treat it like a disease or an ‘untapped market’ to sell more products. Many people feel isolated and alone in their mind-life experiences, and for some this can have extreme consequences. Today we have three experts by experience and profession talking about how the system fails menopausal people and sharing their lived experiences in approaching this time of life as an incredibly transformative experience. Leah Harris speaks to why trauma re-emerges in perimenopause, Linda Wisdo shares her lived experience with a spiritual emergency and psychosis during menopause, and Marie Brown shares her analysis as a feminist psychologist.

Trauma Resurgence in Midlife

Resurgence of trauma can hit at any age, but it seems to come back around in unexpected ways in midlife. In the episode, Dr. Marie Brown discusses how many of her clients in a midlife transition, seemed to go through a deeper layer of trauma processing. For some, this was coupled with feelings of isolation and grappling with the identities society had put on them. Additionally, there seems to be a ‘second wave’ of experiences of psychosis around this time (while the more primary focus of scientific literature and clinical intervention is the ‘first episode’ usually around young adulthood). This was the case for Lynda, a childhood trauma survivor and survivor of a spiritual emergency, who has done a lot of healing over the years, but found that her usual tools no longer worked once she hit perimenopause and menopause.

“Dr. Northrup calls it the mother of all wake up calls...She says “grow, or die” and that was really a crossroad that I had come to.”
— Lynda Wisdo

Redefining the Elder: Cultivating New Archetypes for Midlife

Ultimately, we need for redefine "elderhood" in our society. Menopause, both heavily medicalized and seen as an ‘untapped market’ by capitalism, as Leah Harris so poignantly states, instead could be understood as a potent moment for transformation. Leah, Marie, and Lynda advocate for a cultural shift towards embracing the wisdom that such midlife experiences can bring to the table.

“What I love about transitioning into what is known as ‘elderhood’ is there’s just less of giving a fuck and really stepping into who we truly are. I think society is really, really threatened by women, by people of any age who, go against the conditioning, the expectation that’s placed on us. Menopause is a real threat to the patriarchy if we really allow ourselves to lean into it. ”
— Leah Harris

Also In This Episode

  • menopause and perimenopause and the impact on mental health

  • how early trauma and sexual abuse can re-emerge during perimenopause and menopause

  • the “second peak” of psychosis during midlife

  • spiritual emergency in midlife

  • methods for holistic healing

  • social alienation & reproducive identity

  • dealing with mortality and fear of dying

  • sacred rage and smashing the patriarchy in menopause

  • developing new archetypes for the elder in society

  • the medicalization of pms and menopause

  • hormone replacement therapies, estradial, etc.

  • diagnostic overshadowing

  • capitalism and the menopause “market”

  • why there’s no one size fits all approach

About Leah Harris:

Leah Harris is a psychiatric survivor, activist, and independent journalist. Their work examines mental health and disability policy, with a focus on deinstitutionalization and involuntary psychiatric intervention. Leah's writing appears in Truthout, the Disability Visibility Project, The Progressive, and Mad in America; and in the anthologies We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health (North Atlantic Books) and the forthcoming Mad Studies Reader (Routledge). Their memoir-in-progress, NONCOMPLIANT, traces two generations of psychiatric survivorship and resistance in their family, alongside in-depth reporting and analysis of America's failed mental health policies. https://www.leahiharris.com/
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About Lynda Wisdo

Lynda Wisdo, MA, CYT: Lynda is a survivor of childhood trauma and a menopause/trauma-related Spiritual Emergency.  After several years of mind/body healing, she went on to earn an MA degree in Transpersonal Studies and Spiritual Guidance along with certifications in Trauma-Informed Yoga, Transpersonal Hypnosis, Reiki, and Tarot for Women.  She has written a memoir about her experience with spiritual emergency titled Menopause in Crisis—When Spiritual Emergency Meets the Feminine Midlife Passage her hope being to offer insights and support to women who may be undergoing similar experiences.  She can be reached through her websites at https://lyndawisdo.weebly.com  or by email at lyndawisdo@gmail.com

About Marie Brown

Marie Brown, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist working in private practice and the public mental health system in New York City. She is the current President of the US Chapter of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis and an original co-founder of Hearing Voices Network NYC. She is co-editor of Women & Psychosis: Multidisciplinary Perspectives (with Marilyn Charles) and Emancipatory Perspectives on Madness (with Robin Brown). Website: https://mariebrownphd.com/ Twitter: @BrownMarieC

Books:

Resources

DEPTH Work - A Holistic Mental Health Podcast

This is a space for those who love to dive into the underbelly, to revel in the mystery, question assumptions about what is normal, play in both/and, and honour the wide range of human emotions.

As a complex trauma survivor, holistic counsellor and co-founder of a mental health institute, I learned that there is immense wisdom in our pain and what we call crazy is just what we are yet not willing to understand and explore. Let’s dive in!

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