Inside the Mental Health Crisis Hitting Gen X Women
Almost two-thirds of women over 50 struggle with their mental health, with anxiety, sleep problems, and menopause being major factors. Suicide rates for women peak between ages 45-54, coinciding with perimenopause and menopause, yet many don't seek help.
Looking at the women in my own immediate friendship group, ranging in age from 50 to 63, we have lived through every flavour of chaos. Apart from the haywire hormones and feelings of invisibility, there are also the life-changing events that happen at this life stage – post-divorce relocation, caring for a parent with dementia, a breast cancer diagnosis, redundancy. Some of my friends are also supporting adult children with mental health problems, who are still living at home.
A survey by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) reported recently that almost two-thirds of women over 50 struggle with their mental health. Underlying factors included anxiety, sleep problems and bereavement, as well as menopause. Nine out of 10 of the 2,000 women surveyed had not sought any help.
So what is driving what looks suspiciously like a mental health crisis for women who identify as gen X, the cohort sandwiched between boomers and millennials? By rights, we should be running the world by now. The first cohort to have grown up with widespread working mother role models, we benefited from free university education and the morning-after-pill.
Menopause is a major contributor, yet three in four women are unaware it can trigger new mental illnesses. There is a lack of understanding regarding how hormones affect mental health. Medical training historically paid limited attention to menopause and HRT. Symptoms like low mood, fatigue, and anxiety are often misinterpreted as psychological rather than physiological manifestations of hormonal transition.
Research indicates that approximately one in six perimenopausal or menopausal women experience suicidal thoughts that are often not identified or treated effectively. Suicide rates for women peak between ages 45-54, coinciding with perimenopause and menopause.
Many women do not seek help due to the lack of affordable resources. NHS England's talking therapies can have long waiting times (two to five months in some regions), and private therapy is expensive, typically costing between £50 and £100 per session.
Therapist and author Stella Duffy notes that society values women by their fertility, leading to a loss of perceived value when women reach menopause. This is compounded by cultural pressures to control one's body, even when experiencing uncontrollable symptoms like hot flashes.
Professor Sally Chivers highlights that inequality is an overlooked factor in aging struggles. Advantage and disadvantage accumulate over a lifespan, making the experience of aging vastly different for individuals based on their socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and disability.
The BACP launched a campaign, "No More Stiff Upper Lip," to destigmatize poor mental health among this demographic.
