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Is It Anxiety, Depression, or Your Hormones?
You've cried over something small and couldn't explain why. You feel irritable in a way that doesn't match your usual personality, or flat in a way that worries you. Maybe you've already been handed an antidepressant — and it either didn't help, or it helped a little but didn't touch what's actually going on.
You're not imagining this, and you're not "just stressed." Mood changes like this are one of the most common — and most commonly dismissed — symptoms of hormonal shift in your 40s and 50s.
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Do any of these sound like you?
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New or worsening anxiety with no clear external cause
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Irritability that feels disproportionate or out of character
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Low mood, flatness, or loss of interest in things you used to enjoy
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Crying more easily, or over things that wouldn't normally affect you
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Feeling like your emotional reactions are "too much" lately
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Prescribed an antidepressant without anyone checking your hormones first
Why this happens
Estrogen directly affects serotonin production and regulation in the brain — which is why its decline during perimenopause can produce anxiety and depressive symptoms that look identical to a primary mental health condition, but stem from a different cause. This is well-documented, and it's exactly why treating the mood symptom alone, without looking at the hormonal picture, so often falls short.
How Dr. Beckford approaches it
Dr. Beckford evaluates whether hormonal shifts are driving your mood changes before assuming a purely psychiatric cause. Where hormone therapy is appropriate, it's often the missing piece that other treatment didn't address. She works alongside — not in place of — any mental health care you already have in place.