Archives for category: Hormone Hell
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Timing and Context

October 26, 2014 //
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I woke too early for a Sunday morning, and by that I mean, I’d have liked to sleep a bit longer, but I am awake. I woke with a sense of urgency, and a heart full of troubling emotions. The urgency turned out to be easily addressed by indoor plumbing; being human remains a very biological experience.

Have a flower

Living things, living.

The remaining emotions seem, even now, a hodge-podge of weirdness on the blue end of the emotional spectrum, and some anxiety thrown in there for added ‘fun’. When I faced the emotions head-on, with compassion for my experience, they mostly receded into the background. This is consistent with my experience of emotions that are not specifically tied to actual here-and-now events or experiences. So, I woke with linger emotions from dreams, perhaps, or simply with some built-in chemical cocktail coursing through my blood stream that my brain interprets as ’emotions’, but may not be. Last but certainly not most rare, I could be misinterpreting what I am feeling; anxiety and excitement have a lot of chemistry in common, and I am going on a date with my traveling partner today – very exciting, indeed. 🙂

Taking inventory of the experience I’m having right now, I feel rather breathless, as though it is actually difficult to take a deep breath; my diaphragm feels very tight and deep cleansing breaths require both focus and effort. I’m in pain, but less than has been so common recently, still, my back feels still and my muscles send me clear indications that the positions I took during the night may not have been ideal for later comfort; shoulder and neck pain in my muscles give that away. The snap and pop of joints that don’t hurt reminds me to be gentle with myself, to slow down, and to move with purpose; I’m still losing weight, and there’s some slack in joints, tendons, and connective tissue that puts me at risk of easy injury.

I’m still finding this breathless, rather anxious-feeling core, unmitigated by yoga or meditation. I take another deep breath and relax, feeling the ebb and flow of it. Although I did read “The Giver” before bed last night (perhaps not ideal nighttime reading for someone with sleep and nightmare challenges, honestly), my own dreams were not filled with it, they were filled with love and lust and sex and life…considering it in this now moment, the feeling of ‘anxiety’ and breathlessness suddenly spikes. Oh. I get it now. It’s the sex thing. lol. Damn it. Being 51, and post-menopause, has done not one thing to reduce my sex drive, or my interest in sex, or curb the maddening libido that is one of life’s gifts to me, if anything it seems more pronounced than ever – and now I needn’t worry about pregnancy. Younger me, back in the distance time of my 20s, would be so thrilled! lol. I mostly find the din of urgent sexual desire to be an impediment to contentment, because there really isn’t much chance at fulfilling the seething need; it’s too much to ask of another person, there are a lot of other things going on, and we all have so much to do… I love the feeling of being aroused, eager, excited, even yearning for sexual contact and satisfaction is largely a very positive and life-affirming experience…but I also have to take time out to work for living, get some things done around the house, take care of me… and my partner is  human, too, with his own needs, desires, limits, workload, time and lack of time, energy and lack of energy… in short; everyone at this party is human.  I have spent most of my adulthood feeling like my sexual needs are not needs that can actually be met in any sustained way, you’d think by now I’d be used to it. lol

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

A much younger me, a bubblebath, and possibly contemplating similar challenges at a different time in life.

51 is a funny time of life to be this horny, too. It seems unexpected to some people, as though there is some magic shut-off switch at 49, and sex tends to be a less comfortable subject once the conversation isn’t also about people 18-40-something. lol. That, however, is not my baggage. 😉  What is my baggage is learning to comfortably manage unmet needs; unaddressed these emotions potentially lurk in the background waiting to hijack my experience with some unexpected tantrum or moment of generalized pissed-off-ed-ness that can really mess up a lovely day. As ideal as it would be, sex itself is not always the solution available. This particular conundrum is still in the ‘more about questions than answers’ stage, too. So.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass... there's got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Autumn leaves, rainfall, green grass… there’s got to be a metaphor here, somewhere.

Today is a beautiful day to be so fortunate as to feel excited to be alive. Today is a good day to be able to feel profoundly excited by my partner, such that just living alongside him day after day is this exciting. Today is a good day to be human, to be a being of emotion and sensation. Today is a good day to feel and to love. Today is a good day to practice willfully treating others well, regardless of my emotional state. Today is a good day to respect my own experience, with love and kindness, and recognize I am not alone. Today is a good day to be human; every piece of the puzzle rich with meaning, and potential for growth. Today is a good to enjoy the moment, and appreciate my great capacity to love. Today is a good day to change the world.

 

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women

There Was This Other Time…

October 23, 2014 //
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This morning I woke to the alarm, and not that happy about it. I slept decently, and woke in a more or less ‘normal’ amount of pain, certainly nothing extraordinary. My coffee is hot, and tasty, though I don’t feel especially eager to drink it. I feel pre-occupied and vaguely distracted, by nothing I can put my finger on. My morning yoga sequence eased my stiff joints, and improved my range of motion. It seems, in general, a pleasant autumn morning…why is there this sense of something unsettling lurking in the background? I’m learning to let those things go, rather than continue to troubleshoot a vague fleeting emotion until it becomes something problematic and real; the change is an improvement, generally speaking.

Hot flashes and night sweats? Yeah, still. It’s hard to call it ‘hormone hell’, though, it’s just not that big a deal anymore. Menopause, so far, has been worth reaching. There’s a lot less turmoil and volatility.

This morning lacks the chill serene harmony of a typical quiet morning; I feel restless and unfulfilled. I wonder briefly what that’s about, and recommit to ‘now’ and let it go. Autumn is a season of change, and I can accept that a certain amount of restless unease may be part of that experience. My heart is filled with maybe’s and ‘I wonders’, and I yearn for something new, or more, or different, or… something. Maybe I’m just yearning for sexual contact, or romantic intimacy; pain is an impediment to every day adult fun, and the physical side of love that is part of my everyday struggle for balance, contentment, and sufficiency. (Certainly, menopause has done nothing to quash my ludicrous natural drive.)

My appointment time was interesting yesterday, insightful, worthwhile, cooperative, collaborative, and useful. I didn’t cry all the way home – or feel like I wanted to (I often do after particularly difficult discussions with my therapist). The evening was lovely, chill, and quiet.

We interrupt this program...

We interrupt this program…

My traveling partner interrupts to inquire if I am “going to be writing all morning, then doing a couple of chores and just taking off?” this morning. I feel irritated by the back-handed approach, and struggle not to react in the moment to what is essentially a request to hang out and enjoy my company. I’d find that desire so beautiful and loving if he’d actually just said “I’d love to hang out this morning, will you make time for that?” or something sweeter and more direct. It is what it is. These words here? I value them, and I value this morning time with me. I also value love.

Today is a good day to set other things aside for the sake of love.

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Categories autumn, Brain Injury, Free Will, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, women, Words

Highs and Lows

September 17, 2014 //
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Today I’m feeling pretty low, waking with a vicious headache, and memories of last night. I don’t care for drama so exploring the details isn’t on the agenda today. Is it enough to say I’m human? That I have moments of self-doubt, moments when things that made so much sense some other day don’t make sense right now? Times of struggle and heartache? I am, after all, grieving… that colors life somewhat, doesn’t it? I’m asking because, at 51, sometimes I don’t feel like I know the answers to some of these questions.

...There's still sky overhead...and possibilities.

…There’s still sky overhead…and possibilities.

Lonely in a crowd? Yeah, this has some of that feel to it. Uncertain about the future? Yep, I’ve got that, too. I feel sad. I feel challenged by life’s curriculum in a similar way to what I imagine it might be like to wander into a college physics class at some tender age, without any academic preparation, and being told my grade depends on the day’s pop quiz. My partners are good people. This morning the tears on my face and the splitting headache I woke with go hand in hand with my doubt that I qualify to make that team.

Death sometimes has an unexpectedly insistent way of making us look closely at our own life. What do I want out of mine, truly? Where am I headed? What is the trajectory of my choices, and where are they taking me? Is this what I what? Is it what will best meet my needs over time? I don’t have good answers to these questions either, and I feel adrift. Oddly, this does not make me eager to see my therapist, instead, a profound urge to ‘leave it all behind’ builds, but I don’t know what I really mean by that. I’m too old to ‘run away from home’ and the sorts of baggage I have are neatly chained to me, going along for the journey everywhere I go.

Each day dawns, entirely new, filled with potential and choices.

Each day dawns, entirely new, filled with potential and choices.

This one’s difficult. My skilled brain tries to tell me I will be okay, that “this too shall pass”. Mindfulness… well… yeah. It’s getting to be easier and more habitual. Mindfulness in moments like these doesn’t often do much to ‘make it stop hurting’. Opening my own heart to this experience of hurting and making room for it, and being compassionate with myself are not the simplest of tasks – particularly after an evening of being castigated for imperfect execution of practices that serve me so well other times, other days. So, I sit here allowing the tears with a certain irritated resignation, and doing what I can to be kind to myself, and understand that it’s all a lot to take, and that being human is the nature of my experience. I focus on me, my experience, what I need from me to feel nurtured and supported. There’s that emotional self-sufficiency piece rearing its head again, too. Would I cry less if I met more of my own needs? Maybe tears are what I have to count on? Where is the line between working through grief and trauma appropriately to heal, and ‘being a victim’ – is that a matter of perspective? I feel like I was headed for summer vacation and the teacher just handed me Moby Dick, War and Peace, and Atlas Shrugged and said “see you in two weeks”. Being a student of life and love doesn’t really end with ‘graduation’ – there’s always more to learn. I kind of wish I weren’t a ‘C student’, though, this shit is hard.

So. Today I am alone. In a sense, I always am; we are each having our own experience. That can be a very lonely thing, sometimes. It is, right now.

I’ll spend the weekend out in the trees, in the stillness, breathing, safe, content; I may not ‘figure it all out’, but I’ll get a break from everything that hurts except the stuff I carry with me. That I just have to deal with. It’ll be a few days, maybe, before I write here again. I won’t have access to the internet – the trees don’t use Facebook, they simply stand in stillness, content. Or something poetic like that. Anyway. I guess I’ve ‘run out of words’ for now.

What is there to say about a sunrise? It is, in a sense, the only 'do over' we get; a new day.

What is there to say about a sunrise? It is, in a sense, the only ‘do over’ we get; a new day.

No affirmations, today, they would feel hollow to me this morning – and if nothing else, I am genuine. Today I hurt.

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Categories Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, The Big 5, Uncategorized, women

Your Results May Vary

August 16, 2014 //
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I got home from work last night numb from the neck up, figuratively speaking, although the sensation of it wasn’t far off. I was exhausted, having slept only about 22 hours in the number of days I’d typically sleep 40, and frequently interrupted, however briefly, throughout the week. By Thursday night I wasn’t really sleeping at all. I did manage a 90 minute nap, in the wee hours immediately preceding my alarm going off. Last night it was no effort to do some yoga, manage appropriate calories, have a shower and go to bed; I was on auto pilot at that point, and just following steps that had been planned and mentally rehearsed much earlier in the day. I slept deeply, and woke early – 4:00 am. I don’t know what woke me, perhaps I’d simply had sufficient rest. I tried to go back to sleep, but my brain was having none of that, and I found myself doing what I have so often found myself doing, awake in the darkness; I started thinking about what I want and don’t have, and what I loved that I now lack, the long-yearned-for unreachables, the wonders snatched from me by circumstance, the emotional hurts and betrayals large and small that are part of my (the) human experience – both those I have felt, and those I have delivered… and it’s probably no surprise that I started feeling anxious, discontent, sad, frustrated and near tears. There are still choices.

It isn’t easy. I just keep at it, though, because practicing meditation is changing my experience in a positive way over time; so I gave up on more sleep, and meditated. It helps. While I’m calm and centered and just being, there in the stillness before dawn, I become aware of how much physical pain I am in, too. I get up and do some yoga, slowly easing myself through the sequence that helps me loosen up each morning, and then on to some favorite poses that just feel good to me, and keep me present and engaged in the moment. That helps, too. Still finding myself feeling moody, and vaguely discontent and resentful, I take a couple deep calming breaths and instead of squashing down my feelings, I relaxed and let them evolve, and listened to what my heart might have to say about things. Just giving myself a moment to be okay with my experience, and my emotions helps, too, although this one is still more challenging as new practices go. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it, so I practice rather carefully, and sometimes it feels a bit formulaic, as though I take each step quite separately, reading off a check list in my head.

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Practice results in incremental changes over time, each moment building our experience.

I realize that I’m carrying around some hurt over something small. I consider the importance I have chosen to place on emotional self-sufficiency, and ask myself different questions that I might once have asked. Instead of the frustrated angry ‘why me?’ sorts of questions, I take a moment to ask myself ‘what is the underlying value involved here?’ and ‘what is the unmet need seeking fulfillment in this moment?’ and ‘how can I reinforce good practices to ensure this need is well met, without relying on any emotional resources but my own?’ It’s proving to be a useful and effective approach for me.

It takes a change of perspective.

It takes a change of perspective.

 

In this case, the underlying value seemed to be one of The Big 5, Respect. Feeling disrespected, in this particular instance over the way I use language in conversation was more ‘disrespect’ with a small ‘d’, rather than ‘Disrespect’ with a big ‘D’; it just wasn’t ‘a deal breaker’, because it was over an aesthetic matter – and those are entirely unarguably personal preferences that no one can take from us. I needed, however, to feel appreciated with regard to the way I use language.  I made an espresso, sat down at my desk and caught up on my email, checked in with early bird friends, and friends in far away time zones. I chatted with people I hadn’t taken time for in a while, and savored the varied conversational styles of each. I didn’t start writing, here, until later in my morning than is typical, and by the time I did I was in a completely different head space.  I suspect I am writing very differently than I might had I simply begun to write in the minutes sometime after I woke at 4:00 am.

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I have no relevant caption for this, I just like this picture.

I’ll be honest, I do feel better  – but there are things in my life I’m not satisfied with, and I’ve got things to work on as a human being. I struggle with some baggage, and I make mistakes that hurt people I love. Sometimes I’m unpleasant to be around when I’m in pain, or my hormones are messing with me. Sometimes I don’t treat people as well as I mean to, or as well as I want to. I’m not as strong as I may appear. I feel sad and disappointed with myself when I ‘don’t get things right’ – and some of my expectations and demands of myself are clearly not reasonable.

Sometimes finding my way is as simple as a good night’s sleep, sometimes it is much more complicated than that.  I know I am loved, and I’m learning to accept that it is most important that in that feeling of being loved, I must include my own voice, and with real enthusiasm and affection. This morning, progress is enough.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words

Downhill Slide

August 15, 2014 //
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This week has been peculiarly difficult in spots, amazing in others; the challenges seem to outweigh the benefits just at the moment, but that may be a byproduct of whatever new Hormone Hell I am enduring, or simple lack of sleep. My sleep has been disturbed for a couple of days now, and last night I was wakeful until after 3:00 am, the last time I checked the clock, and I needed every moment; the alarm at 5:00 am sounded actually annoyed with me for not being able to wake to shut it off sooner than a dozen or so beeps into the morning. I’m tired. I’m emotional. I’m saying good-bye to my traveling partner, and feeling my own feelings, having my own experience, facing my own challenges; this time around it’s too much, I guess. I am alone, for the moment, weeping quietly as I write.

What’s with the emotional intensity? Why is my emotional experience so uncomfortable for others? Why is theirs so uncomfortable for me? My brain and my heart and the things that I feel don’t ‘feel age’…but my body is sure taking a beating with the whole ‘aging process’ and I find myself resenting the hell out of it, wondering where it leads, struggling to find balance and meet needs. Struggling to feel valued, desirable, meaningful. This morning is an emotionally difficult one. I’m fucking exhausted, and the last shreds of functional intelligence know it, but I’m so tired I also have obviously impaired executive function, and my emotional volatility is through the roof. Hell, I don’t want to be around me right now, why would my good-hearted loves want to endure it if they can walk on?

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Looking up as a positive metaphor, although beauty needs no justification.

I’m doing my best. Pausing for cleansing breaths, meditating, doing my best to be compassionate with myself…but fuck, all this hurts so much right at the moment.  This week has been too much for me…and not the too much of terrible experiences or trauma, most of the week has been filled with amazing highs, achievements, connected conversation, delightful moments… The number of minutes in any given day is the same. This week has been crammed with experiences and emotions, from my amazing solo weekend – that I’ve yet to have a few minutes to really process – to the joy of the travelers coming home, changed by their own experiences. There has barely been time to share any of that, because it is also one of the busiest professional weeks I’ve ever had, filled with long hours, new software, and new knowledge.  I’d be in better shape this morning if I’d been able to sleep last night, I’m sure.

IMAG2482

Practices require practicing

So now what? My coffee has gone cold. My heart feels heavy. Tears just keep streaming down my cheeks… I have to go to work soon. I am alone when I want so much to be in the arms of my traveling partner. My feeling of connection and intimacy and warmth feels sheared off, as if too much happiness just won’t do, and must be cut away before I get too comfortable with it. My experience of self, itself, feels painful. I just don’t know why.  I have trouble accepting that ‘too tired’ could be reason enough, and that ‘too tired’ plus ‘hormones’ is more than reason enough, and that ‘enough’ is a good place to find balance, and stillness, and accept that this what it is, and just be. I want to feel loved, but even in my own heart I feel myself recoil from me, even as I see that desire to recoil from me reflected in my partner’s eyes. This shit sucks.

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There are choices, changing those changes everything…how to choose the better choice is a question.

Our mortal lives are so finite, so brief…it is pure raw unfairness that even one moment would ever feel like this; love exists, I still know that. I wish I didn’t feel so completely cut off from feeling that experience. Like it or not, eventually we all face the evening light.

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Feeling very mortal indeed, this morning.

Today is just one day. Today will teach me something about being the woman I most want to be. Today will be one of many in the rear view mirror all too soon, and it’s part of a bigger picture of precious minutes that cannot be repeated. Today is most especially a good day to change the world.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, grief, Hormone Hell, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, The Big 5, women, Words
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