Blocking Emotions in Perimenopause Made Simple

You've done everything right. You're using calming strategies. You're practicing distraction techniques when the anxiety spikes. You're maintaining your daily routines even when fatigue makes everything feel harder. You're trying to take care of your body while your mind feels like it's betraying you.

And yet, something still feels wrong. The emotions sit too close to the surface. You cry more easily. Irritation flares faster. It's like someone removed your emotional buffer and left you exposed to every feeling that passes through.

When you tried to do the trauma processing homework your therapist assigned, your whole system screamed "not now." The tension spiked. The stress multiplied. Instead of healing, it felt like you were making everything worse.

So you made a decision: pause the trauma work. Focus on hormonal balance first. Come back when you're stronger.

Part of you wonders if that was the right call. Part of you worries you're just being weak.

What if I told you there's a critical piece of information that changes everything about how you understand what you're experiencing right now?

The Perimenopause Advice That Misses This

When women struggle during perimenopause, most advice zeroes in on the obvious symptoms:

Hot flashes and night sweats
Sleep disruption and fatigue
Mood swings and irritability
Brain fog and concentration issues

The standard recommendations follow predictably: manage your stress, practice self-care, use distraction when you need a break, consider hormone therapy for the physical symptoms.

When trauma history enters the picture, the focus shifts to trauma processing techniques: exposure therapy, cognitive restructuring, EMDR, completing the homework assignments that help you face and process difficult memories.

And when you're using coping strategies like distraction and "burying" difficult emotions? Most people see that as a reasonable way to manage overwhelming feelings. Take a break from the pain. Give yourself space. Use your tools to calm down.

You've been doing all of this. And some of it helps-the distraction techniques have made it easier to control worry. The calming strategies give you moments of relief.

But something's still missing.

What Changes During Perimenopause

Here's what almost no one talks about:

Perimenopause isn't just a collection of uncomfortable symptoms to manage. It represents a specific, scientifically recognized window of biological vulnerability for depression and anxiety.

Not before. Not after. Specifically this transitional period.

Large-scale research tracking thousands of women shows that perimenopause is associated with the highest risk for depression compared to both pre-menopause and post-menopause. The evidence is strong enough that researchers have proposed "perimenopausal depression" as its own distinct subtype of depressive disorder.

This isn't about symptoms you need to push through. This is about your brain chemistry creating genuine vulnerability during a specific biological window.

When you said your system felt "maxed out"-that wasn't weakness. That was accurate biological assessment.

But here's the piece that makes this even more important: this vulnerability window doesn't just make you feel worse. It fundamentally changes how your brain processes emotional experiences and trauma memories. It affects your capacity to do the deep psychological work you were attempting.

And almost no one explains this connection.

You weren't failing at trauma work. You were trying to do intensive emotional processing during a time when your brain's capacity for that work was genuinely compromised by biological factors beyond your control.

The decision to pause wasn't giving up. It was wisdom.

Why Emotional Blocking Feels Like Strength

So why doesn't everyone know this?

Because when you're in the middle of it, the biological vulnerability feels like personal failing.

You look around and see other people handling stress. You remember times in your own life when you felt more resilient. You think: "I should be able to cope better than this. What's wrong with me?"

The symptoms show up as psychological distress-low interest in activities, feeling like a failure, fatigue, nervousness, irritability. When you look at that list, it reads like depression and anxiety. And it is depression and anxiety.

But what's hidden is the cause behind those symptoms.

You thought the cause was your inability to cope. Your lack of strength. Maybe past trauma catching up with you. Maybe just getting older and losing your edge.

What you couldn't see was the biological foundation underneath it all.

During perimenopause, hormonal fluctuations directly affect the brain systems that regulate mood and stress response. Your emotional sensitivity isn't a character flaw-it's your brain operating with different neurochemistry than it had before.

And here's the second hidden cause that makes everything worse:

That coping pattern of "burying and blocking" emotions? Research shows it doesn't make difficult feelings disappear. It makes them accumulate. And the more you suppress, the more sensitive you become.

Your therapist mentioned the "pink elephant" exercise-when you tried NOT to think about the pink elephant, what happened?

You thought about it more.

This isn't a coincidence or a cute therapy game. It's a documented phenomenon called ironic process theory. When you actively try to suppress a thought, your brain has to keep monitoring whether you're still thinking about it. That monitoring process paradoxically keeps bringing the thought back to awareness.

Apply this to emotions and trauma memories: every time you work to bury a difficult feeling, you're actually strengthening its capacity to intrude later.

So you've been dealing with two hidden causes simultaneously:

Biological vulnerability from perimenopause that genuinely reduces your emotional capacity
Avoidance strategies that paradoxically amplify the very distress you're trying to escape

No wonder you felt maxed out. You were fighting a two-front battle without even knowing it.

What Actually Works Instead

Now that you understand what's actually happening, the path forward looks different than you might expect.

The conventional approach says: push through the difficult work, use your coping strategies to manage discomfort, and keep going until you process the trauma.

But what actually works during this vulnerable window is almost the opposite:

Stabilize first. Build capacity gradually. Address the biological foundation while learning to work with emotions rather than against them.

Here's what this looks like in practice:

1. Reframe your current strategies

Your calming techniques and body-focused self-care aren't avoidance-they're stabilization tools. You're not running away from healing. You're building the foundation that makes healing possible later.

Your daily routines aren't just "getting by"-they're resilience behaviors that research shows protect against perimenopause-related mood issues.

Keep doing these things. They're not holding you back. They're holding you up.

2. Make a critical distinction

There's a difference between strategic distraction (adaptive short-term coping) and chronic emotional avoidance (counterproductive long-term pattern).

Strategic distraction: "I'm overwhelmed right now, so I'm going to use my calming techniques and give myself a break."

Chronic avoidance: "I will never allow myself to feel this, so I immediately block every uncomfortable emotion the moment it appears."

The first is a tool you use intentionally. The second is a pattern that runs automatically and prevents you from building emotional tolerance.

3. Practice graduated exposure to everyday emotions

This isn't trauma processing. This is capacity building.

Instead of always immediately using distraction when any discomfort appears, experiment with small doses of just noticing feelings:

Spend 5-10 minutes allowing yourself to feel everyday sadness, frustration, or anxiety without immediately distracting
Name what you're feeling: "This is grief." "This is worry." "This is disappointment."
Then, after that small window, use your calming strategies

You're building the emotional tolerance muscle in manageable increments. Not processing trauma. Just practicing the foundational skill of being with feelings instead of reflexively blocking them.

4. Address the biological foundation simultaneously

While you're building emotional capacity, work on hormonal balance. Recent clinical guidelines suggest that hormone therapy may be beneficial for perimenopausal women experiencing depression, especially when started near the onset of menopause.

This isn't avoiding the psychological work-it's addressing the biological vulnerability that's making that work feel impossible right now.

Timing matters. Research on hormone therapy shows benefits occur when initiated near the onset of menopause, but may be less effective if started too late. You're in the window where addressing this could make a genuine difference.

5. Plan for trauma work when you're ready-differently

Your therapist mentioned EMDR as an alternative that requires less verbal processing than traditional talk therapy. When you've stabilized-both hormonally and in terms of emotional tolerance-this might be the approach that works for you.

You don't have to force yourself through homework that feels overwhelming. There are other evidence-based paths to trauma processing that might align better with your needs.

The key insight is this: You're not abandoning the healing work. You're sequencing it appropriately.

First: stabilize the biological foundation and build basic emotional tolerance.

Then: return to trauma processing when your system has the capacity for that intensive work.

This is the opposite of "powering through," and that's exactly why it works.

The Research Behind This

You might be thinking: "This sounds good in theory, but is there actual evidence this approach works?"

Yes. From multiple angles:

On the biological vulnerability:

A 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychiatry analyzing data from 9,141 women confirmed that perimenopause is associated with the most elevated risks of depression compared to pre- and post-menopause
A 2025 global epidemiological study projects that anxiety in perimenopausal women will rise over 40% by 2035 compared to current levels-this is a widespread biological phenomenon, not individual failing
Protective factors identified in research include social support, resilience behaviors, sleep guidance, and comprehensive interventions-exactly the kinds of stabilization strategies you're using

On emotional avoidance making things worse:

A 2020 study published in Psychiatry Research found that emotional avoidance predicts depression severity 12 months after traumatic exposure
Research shows that while suppression provides short-term relief, it leads to long-term negative consequences including heightened negative emotionality
A 2024 review in Frontiers in Psychology found that when emotions are suppressed, they don't disappear but accumulate, potentially leading to heightened stress and mental health challenges
Studies show that people with PTSD use emotion suppression more often and with more effort than those without PTSD, and the regularity of suppression use relates to symptom severity

On the pink elephant effect:

A 2020 meta-analysis in Perspectives on Psychological Science examined ironic process theory and found that attempting to suppress thoughts activates both an effortful conscious suppression process AND an automatic monitoring process that continuously searches for the thought you're trying to avoid
This monitoring process paradoxically sensitizes your mind to the very thought being avoided, explaining why your intrusive thoughts get stronger when you try to block them

On PTSD memories feeling different:

Research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology found that flashback memories involving a sense of reliving are distinctive of PTSD
The "nowness quality"-memories appearing to happen in the "here and now" rather than feeling safely in the past-explained an additional 43% of variance in predicting PTSD severity
This is why trauma memories feel so overwhelming during perimenopause: you're dealing with both biological vulnerability AND memories that your brain processes as happening right now

On therapy readiness and timing:

A 2024 review in Clinical Psychology Review found that readiness for trauma-focused therapy has emerged as an important factor in therapy initiation and completion
The review notes that "there are no formalized methods for evaluating readiness," but treatment developers consistently suggest patients require a certain level of stabilization
Lack of therapeutic readiness, ongoing trauma exposure, or insufficient support systems make trauma processing unsuitable

On EMDR as an alternative:

A 2025 systematic review in the British Journal of Psychology found EMDR to be the most cost-effective intervention for PTSD compared to 10 other approaches
Both the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the European Society recommend EMDR as a first-line treatment
A 2023 meta-analysis examining 18 studies with 1,213 participants found EMDR effective at reducing PTSD, anxiety, and depression symptoms with effects maintained at follow-up

The evidence isn't subtle. Your instinct to pause trauma work during this vulnerable window aligns with what research tells us about readiness and biological timing.

How to Test This Yourself

You don't have to take my word for any of this. You can verify it yourself.

Here's how:

Test #1: Track the rebound effect

For three days, notice what happens when you actively try to suppress an intrusive thought or memory. Don't change your behavior-just observe.

Does the thought:

Come back more frequently?
Feel more intense when it returns?
Show up at unexpected moments?

Then for the next three days, try something different: when an intrusive thought appears (not a trauma memory-just an everyday worry or uncomfortable thought), acknowledge it briefly: "There's that thought about [X]." Then let it pass without either engaging with it OR trying to push it away.

Notice the difference.

If ironic process theory is right, you'll find that the thoughts you acknowledge and release fade more naturally than the thoughts you actively fight.

Test #2: Graduated exposure to safe emotions

Pick a low-intensity emotion-not trauma-related. Maybe disappointment about a cancelled plan. Frustration with a minor inconvenience. Mild sadness about something small.

Set a timer for five minutes. Allow yourself to just feel it without:

Analyzing why you feel this way
Trying to fix it
Distracting yourself
Blocking it

Just notice: "This is what disappointment feels like in my body. This is what frustration feels like."

After five minutes, use your calming strategies.

Do this a few times with different safe, low-intensity emotions.

What you're testing: Can you build tolerance for sitting with feelings in small doses? Does your capacity increase slightly with practice?

If the graduated exposure principle is accurate, you'll find that short, intentional exposure to manageable emotions doesn't overwhelm you-it actually builds your capacity over time.

Test #3: The biological pattern

Track your emotional rawness over the next month. Note:

Days when you feel like you have "no buffer"
Days when emotions feel more manageable
Any correlation with other perimenopause symptoms (hot flashes, sleep quality, etc.)

What you're testing: Is there a pattern to when you feel most vulnerable? Does it align with other symptoms of hormonal fluctuation?

If the biological vulnerability window is real, you'll likely find that your emotional sensitivity waxes and wanes in patterns that don't match your psychological circumstances-they match your hormonal patterns.

These tests don't require you to trust me. They let you see the mechanisms at work in your own experience.

What Opens Up Next

Once you verify these patterns for yourself, something shifts.

You stop asking: "What's wrong with me?"

You start asking: "What does my system need right now?"

You stop seeing the decision to pause trauma work as failure.

You start seeing it as sophisticated self-assessment and wise timing.

You stop fighting every uncomfortable emotion with immediate suppression.

You start building the capacity to be with feelings in graduated doses, which strengthens your foundation for the deeper work ahead.

And here's what opens up when you make these shifts:

You can address the biological vulnerability without shame. Pursuing hormonal balance isn't avoiding psychological work-it's addressing a genuine biological factor that affects your capacity for that work.

You can practice emotional tolerance in safe, small increments. You're not forcing yourself into trauma processing before you're ready. You're building the foundational skill that will make that processing more effective when you return to it.

You can plan for trauma work differently. EMDR or other approaches that require less verbal processing might align better with your needs than traditional talk therapy. You have options you haven't explored yet.

You can stop beating yourself up for being "weak." Global research shows millions of women face this same biological window of vulnerability. Your struggle isn't personal failing-it's a predictable response to neurobiological changes during a specific life stage.

The question isn't whether you'll return to healing work. The question is: how will you build the foundation that makes that healing possible?

You already have the self-awareness to recognize when your system is maxed out. You already have the wisdom to prioritize timing over powering through. You already have effective stabilization tools.

What you needed was the missing piece: understanding that this is a biological window of vulnerability, not a personal weakness. And understanding that emotional avoidance, while tempting, paradoxically strengthens the very distress you're trying to escape.

Now you have that piece.

What will you do with it?