Making peace with the trolls
Hormones, intuition and the wisdom hiding in the chaos.
Long time no chat. I haven’t written for a while; my brain has been focused on other things. One of them being the angry hormone trolls in my head that, for the first time in a while, seem to have gotten loose this month.
It’s been a while since I have felt this out of alignment and, honestly, it caught me off guard. I was becoming complacent about the need to nourish my body and make sure I listened to what was going on inside. I had forgotten how out of control I feel when things are working at far less than optimal. The irritation turns to anger and then to a sadness that feels so deep and quite unshakeable. My body feels puffy and weak, my skin breaks out and my hair becomes brittle. All the while, it’s almost unnoticeable from the outside, but my head is spinning these thoughts around in loud revolutions.
I was on one form or another of hormonal contraception from the age of 12 until 20, trying to combat periods that left me non-functioning in the nurse’s office at school every month. Paired with savage hormonal acne and the desire to do high-contact sport and train hard, this seemed like the only solution at the time.
However, it wasn’t a solution. It masked the symptoms and left me out of touch with my body. It wasn’t until about the age of 22, once the artificial hormones had left my system, that I started to feel like I could recognise the phases of my cycle.
For the last four years, I have made an effort to read and acknowledge what is going on in my body hormonally while also trying to give it the optimal conditions to work smoothly. It’s only this last month, when I feel like my hormones are running ravage circles around me, that I realise I was doing a pretty good job of it.
They say that the way you feel in your cycle is a direct representation of the input from three months prior, which I think adds up. February was the thick of winter and I struggled mentally. I was working 60-hour weeks and trying to hide from the feelings. Consequently, things like my nutrition suffered and my stress levels were through the roof. I wasn’t sleeping well at all and refused to recognise why.
Now, three months down the line, my body repays me the price of those decisions in the form of hormonal haywire.
It’s really important that this isn’t a sob story but rather an attempt at an educational anecdote. I want other people in the same boat to feel the hope that it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming whirlpool of supplements and rules. Women have a divine instinct and an uncompromised ability to listen; you just have to apply that to your own vessel and take notes on trends and patterns.
It’s safe to say I have learnt my lesson. I hate the feeling that the hormones are stronger than my ability to overcome them. For the people who have been blessed to never feel this way (guys!), I describe it as a troll in your head that tells you when something will make you mad or upset, regardless of what you actually want. It dictates the fact that you crave chocolate and salt and vinegar chips and, if you don’t listen to it, you will likely end up in tears or raging.
Every day I count my blessings that I decided to stop taking contraception and can now feel the chemical and physical shifts my body goes through each month. It makes me feel powerful and in tune with the vessel that I get to call home.
Long may it be a journey of empowerment and learning that reinforces when I am making a decision that is good for me versus one that isn’t. A woman’s body is truly special; we are able to physically communicate with ourselves and create feedback loops based on whether we respected our intuition and did what was right for us or pushed things in the wrong direction.
Take time, tune in and work out what your body and hormones are trying to communicate. Remember, it’s a long game, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Question whether that is really how you wanted to react to something or whether it felt like the trolls had taken over. Record the small acknowledgements and be patient. It really does take years of listening and feeling to pick up the small shifts in the way that you feel from week to week.