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Vacationing in Hormone Hell

February 15, 2014 //
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I’m just bitching. (Nothing to see here, folks, let’s move it along…)

We can choose to be dismayed by circumstances, mired in our mud, or we choose differently.

We can choose to be dismayed by circumstances, mired in our mud, or we can choose differently.

The ‘hormone thing’ is one of those maddening bits of human existence I could do without, on an emotional level. Thankfully, the variation in my day-to-day balance is both less significant in severity, and less common these days. Long overdue, I say. I’ve had my fill of having my existence linked in some vague and irrefutable way to reproductive potential. I’m ready to move on to just being a person, with will of my own, and a level of every day balance that is at least somewhat predictable.

I still find a lot of opportunity to resent the fuck out of the lack of medical progress in the area of women’s health and well-being with regard to sex, sexuality, hormonal cycling, and reproduction. You may not agree – I mean, so many fewer women die in childbirth than once-upon-a-time, right? And…The Pill, people, we have The Pill. Sure, sure, we do. Good stuff. I wouldn’t reject those advances as being undesirable or unworthy of high regard; they are game changers for women. Still…we’re talking about medical science.  Are you aware that there is no ‘test’ for menopause? None. No scientific, clinically validated, reliable test that determines conclusively when a woman has reached menopause. Oh wait… there is this ‘state of the art’ gem: “When it’s been a year since your last period, and you are ‘older’ than typical child-bearing age, it’s ‘menopause’. (If you are ‘too young’ for menopause, don’t forget to see your doctor if you miss your period for a year.)”  Yep. That’s it. State of the art medical science and diagnostics in action. Welcome to Hormone Hell, we have your reservation on file.

Those years after a woman ‘loses her goddamned mind’ and is finally accepted to be ‘menopausal’ are an interesting buffet of being insulted, ignored, over-medicated, referred for mental health care, infantilized, resented, feared, and dismissed. It all sucks very much, from the first time a physician tut-tuts those very first concerns that ‘something isn’t right’ to the moment a physician much younger than you are insists that ‘you’re really much too young’ to be experiencing peri-menopausal phenomena – at 45.  By 50, most doctors will grudgingly admit that perhaps you’re not insane and may actually be accurately reporting your experience, and may be closing in on menopause. Did I mention it sucks?

Hilarity really ensues, for me, when a lovely, educated, fit physician in her early 30s states with considerable self-assurance that ‘most women’ don’t have any real difficulties with their hormones, and more likely need mental health care – because she has not had any issues herself.  Yep, that’s a real winner with me. lol. Another fan favorite is when women who have finally gotten to the other side somehow magically rewrite history such that their recollection of their own experience is that ‘it really wasn’t a big deal’ and they ‘barely noticed at all’. I like that one best when they deliver it sweetly in the presence of family members who actually recall how bat-shit crazy the bitch was for nearly a decade; the facial expressions are priceless, and sometimes people snort their beverages, and shoot them out their nose.

I’m ready to be done. I don’t really enjoy the new challenges (vaginal dryness – it’s a real thing, ladies, and it’s likely going to result in at least one or two tearful rounds of ‘but I did feel like it, I don’t know why…’ before everyone settles down and moves on to the next issue), and the reduction in moments of hormonal tantrums and flare-ups of temper sometimes doesn’t make up for the hot flashes, the sleeplessness, or the chronic uncertainty about when/if there’s going to be gross quantities of unexpected bleeding.

It’s gotten to be almost routine, now. I have some mild, barely noticeable shift in hormones, and the ripple effect on my experience is so subtle it is almost undetectable…until I find myself frustrated by something small, or losing my train of thought in mid-sentence. 5 years ago it was more about ‘please, can’t you give me some sympathy, or some help?’  Now, I find myself more likely – like this morning – to be feeling something more ‘damn it, I wish this were finished, this has got to be hard on him.’ Who knew I’d find some value in this process, or a way to apply these experiences to personal growth and perspective? I sure didn’t.

I was once a woman in my 20s, pretty cocky about how comfortable my hormone balance felt for me. I had little sympathy for other women; I didn’t have cramps, so how bad could theirs be? Later I was a woman in my 30s facing doctor after doctor assuring me I was wrong about my experience, and being given medication for things that probably don’t need a pharmaceutical solution as much as they need support, understanding, and education. I was definitely headed for ‘bat-shit crazy’ at that point. I’m not so cocky now. lol. I hope that I don’t get to the other side and magically lose all recollection of how tough some of this has been.

My latte is cold. I’m bored with bitching. My head aches. I feel cross and disconnected, and struggle to make simple decisions real-time without dithering a bit. My conversational flow is impeded by my emotional experience.  If you’re also vacationing in Hormone Hell, I’m just down the hall – you have my sympathy, and you’re not any crazier than you choose to be, although there are unavoidably moments when that isn’t clear. 🙂 If you no longer vacation in Hormone Hell, nice going, and I hope the scenery is extraordinary wherever you find yourself now; have a great time! If you don’t know what the hell I’m on about, because you just haven’t gotten there yet… your time will come. Trust me. (And don’t be a dick, seriously.) 😉  If you are riding shotgun with someone vacationing in Hormone Hell, I want more than anything to offer reassurance, to give you support, to say there’s a light at the end of the tunnel… and if you are the sort who does sympathize and support your hormonal partner(s) to thank you for that… but… damn. There aren’t really any words to bridge that divide. What reassurance could I offer? ‘Next month may be better’? ‘It’ll all be over, eventually’? I guess ‘thank you for hanging in there, and trying to understand how hard this might be’ is about the best I can do.

There is an airplane in this picture. It's a metaphor.

There is an airplane in this picture. It’s a metaphor.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women

Struggling

February 12, 2014 //
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I slept poorly. I woke several times, restless and fearful, then later, angry. I struggled with nightmares. I felt too hot, sometimes, others too cold. I woke at 3:20 am, utterly awake, with ancient rage riding shotgun, feeling raw and emotionally volatile. I fussed restlessly through seemingly endless minutes of ‘trying’ to meditate. It didn’t feel effective, or worthwhile, and I gave up when my frustration with myself began to exceed the intensity of the emotions I woke with. I’ve come far enough along this path to recognize, and accept, that I might have a better experience, sooner, were I to choose to commit to the moment, and allow myself to begin to calm, truly, through meditation. There’s a verb there. I know it.

I’m not exactly best friends with my anger. Hell, I don’t think Anger and I can even have a civil discussion over coffee, just yet. My head aches from resisting it. My Anger launches a salvo of nerd quotes relevant to futility at me, from within. Oh yeah. Thanks, Brain. I wasn’t amused by “Resistance is Futile”, and frankly the material just got stale from there. This is a challenging emotional precipice for me. Teetering between the potential for unexpected rage, and unexpected tears…just waiting for someone to come along and flip that coin.

Did I mention the headache?

Which comes first, the drama or the fucked up sleep? Does it matter? One pushes the other, turn them around and the effect is quite the same; one pushing the other. Bitter damaged angry bits of self fight for a voice. Humor and cynicism occasionally pull into the lead with some comic relief. Take every tortured Super Hero, ever, portrayed as screaming, twisted, going through some powerful change… this morning it feels like that on the inside; some ferocious moment of tremendous growth and progress, imminent, painful, resisted…only to see the Hero, in the end, yield to their true nature. God damn it, when do I yield? When do I declare myself victorious in the face of my vanquished demons? When is ‘enough’? Who am I, and am I worthy?

Where the hell do all these tears come from?

I was not going to write this morning. I finished a favorite book… it was still brutally early when I had. I tried writing a tender email to the partner I lean on most for emotional support…words upon words, so many… when I found myself observing, in text, that the words themselves seemed ineffective, superfluous, and not actually helpful, I tried again. I eventually just scrapped the attempt. What would be the point? Communication? Of what? With what goal? I ‘officially let it go’…but here I am. Struggling with myself before dawn.

Let’s look at this again… I woke early, from a restless uncomfortable night. I have the luxury of spending much of that time in meditation, and some of it reading for pleasure. It’s quiet time, invested in me. My latte is exceptional this morning, and aside from the headache, my body feels pretty okay today – not much pain. I have a high-speed internet connection, and a warm secure place to live. My family is safe at home, sleeping, and the world (near by) is quiet. I have time and space to write, and the respect of my partners who know that I need it.

“Gratitude is the opposite of Anger.” Timber Hawkeye (among others)

I’m grateful the winter snow has mostly melted away, although the beauty of it was also quite wonderful. I’m grateful to have good coffee in the morning, and hot running water. I’m grateful that I can count on the good company of friends, and that I have a job I love. I’m grateful for so many opportunities to grow, and become the woman I most want to be. I’m grateful that I can recognize choice, and opportunities. I’m grateful for language, both spoken and written. I’m grateful for Love, and that wonderful quality it has to overlook bullshit.

I’m tired. It was a challenging, distressful night. This headache hasn’t let up, yet, but it likely will. For now, I’ve gotten past the anger I woke with, and that feels very good – and I still have time to settle down and meditate. The day is just beginning, and I yield to the moment, and all the possibilities it holds.

One small crocus getting a head start on spring.

One small crocus getting a head start on spring.

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

Life Needs a Caution Sign

January 30, 2014 //
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Or two, or three, or hell – let’s just pave it into something comfortable, predictable, and mapped, settle into easy contentment, and call it a day?

I had a great day at work, yesterday. Sometimes I have the strange sensation that ‘work life balance’ may actually mean that when things at work suck, things at home are lovely, and of course…the inverse of that would then be true as well. That, thankfully, is fanciful bitterness with struggle, and with the simple ups and downs of life.  We’re each having our own experience. The experiences we have are not all uniformly pleasant, or comfortable. I guess I’ll keep practicing the practices that seem to build a life that is more up than down, more content than not, easier than hard, more pleasant than unpleasant, and see where all that goes.

This morning isn’t my best morning. I woke crying from dreams that contained content ripped from the most difficult moments of the prior evening. It was nearly an hour before my brain would even acknowledge that the evening had ended on a relatively positive note – or at least finished somewhat supportively. My heart feels heavy, and tears are queued up waiting for a reason to spill over. This is one of my least favorite emotional states.

The bottom-line is that I want more than I have in life, in love, emotionally, sexually, even financially (although that one is very low on my list, and exists more to bolster the likelihood of other things I value being attainable).  I think wanting is probably pretty commonplace.  It takes wanting to reach a sense of being without, after all.  I even understand the connection between craving and discontent, and how difficult life can become when we desire only those things that are out of reach, or when we lose sight of the wonders we already have in our life.  I started 2014 knowing that ‘sufficiency’ is a big deal for me, and that ‘contentment’ is an emotional experience I enjoy, and a quality I would like to develop and support.  What I don’t know is where the subtle distinction between genuine contentment and ‘settling’ for something is, and how to recognize it. Is there a difference?

I struggle to communicate with the people nearest to me. Setting boundaries, sharing needs, speaking calmly and explicitly about what I want, what supports my needs over time, being honest about how I feel in the moment, or in general, these are all very difficult for me to begin with. Doing them well is something I find myself working so hard at, and still not succeeding with any reliability. At least, if I am succeeding, the outcome is incredibly unpleasant much of the time. This morning I woke wishing I could just stop talking at all. No more words. No speaking. No writing. No.More.Words.  I seem to have a gift for saying too much, or phrasing something in the worst possible way.  I rarely feel actually understood, or even heard. (It makes it so much ‘worse’ that there was a time and a relationship in which I did feel understood and heard, making it something possible in life that I just don’t have now.)

This morning I have a lingering feeling that the things that matter most to me are simply things I can’t have, or will experience only very rarely. I want very much for that to just be okay, if it is true. If it isn’t true, I’d like that emotional cocktail to just go away. I would like to have a better understanding of ‘sufficiency’. Enough. What is ‘enough’. How to I get that? I have the nagging suspicion that even intimacy is easier/better when approached mindfully… but I’m not sure I ‘get’ how to approach it at all. I suspect I may not have correctly labeled whatever the hell I think the experience of intimacy feels like, and am chasing an unknown experience, or ‘shooting at the wrong target’.

I am grouchy and things suck this morning. I am very human, and even though my intellect politely reminds me that ‘this is a construct of your own thinking and you can choose differently’ and my recently-more-mindful-and-learning-more-all-the-time heart tells me ‘this too shall pass’, I’m hurting now, and it is hard to stop picking at it. Soon I’ll head to work, and the process of getting there will distract me for a time, and maybe it will be forgotten when I head home tonight?

Right now is right now. Right now I feel like giving up. I’m frustrated, hormonal, and cross. I spent the night with my fears and nightmares and woke feeling sad, tired, and crying. Right now is harder than it has to be, and right now I’m struggling. This too – quite inevitably – shall pass. Time runs out, moves on, and brings change. So. Yeah. (I hear myself laugh out loud, it sounds a little worn down and bitter, and I think about how lovely yesterday was – that passed, didn’t it? Yep. So…this will as well.)

Some lovely pictures from yesterday…

We can build serenity.

We can build serenity.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

No matter how much I am hurting in the moment, there is more to life and the world than my pain.

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming...

Things can seem so complicated and overwhelming…

Getting right up close doesn't always simplify our view of things.

Getting right up close doesn’t always simplify our view of things.

I am grateful that my experience this morning is largely subjective and a construct of my brain. I can find my way to something different. Compassion first, then, this morning? I pause with a certain surprise to realize that as I typed those words, my internal critic was hurling invective at me, launching emotional weaponry, and rallying my demons… I’m not always fully aware of the nasty bits and pieces of old hurts and old programming ‘going live’ to defend themselves in the background. Grim. Definitely compassion first…well… sort of first. Okay, not even a little bit first – that would have been a more positive start. Still human. I tested me. lol

Compassion, then, this morning – now that I see how much I need it.

Today, I am human. Today I face my hurts with self-compassion, and my certainty that emotional states rely on choices, too, however inevitable or permanent they feel in the moment. Today I change the world.

 

 

 

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, grief, Love, Menopause, Mindfulness, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, women, Words

The Strange Commute

January 29, 2014 //
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Monday I drove the car to work. I don’t drive to work as a rule, it’s so rare that I managed to learn something new about perspective – and myself, and what I value in my experience – when I drove to and from work on Monday. I had planned, prior to the drive on Monday, to take the car on Tuesday and Wednesday as well, to arrive much earlier than usual for some meetings. Yesterday, I did not drive, and I won’t be driving today. I found another way.

It’s not a long commute in distance, about 11 miles. On the 1/2 pedestrian, 1/2 transit commute it takes me a bit more than an hour, one way, most days. Monday morning took about 40 minutes, in light traffic, and really didn’t seem bad. The drive home was very different. It took 45 minutes just to cover half the distance (the remaining half was easily managed in another 20 minutes), and apparently most folks behind the wheel of a car during commuter hours in my community are… total dicks. Yep. That sounds pretty judgmental, but I’m not sure what else to say about what I saw in the decision-making all around me. It wasn’t simply slow-moving rush hour traffic; people were driving with real aggression and hostility, making sudden lane changes that put themselves and other drivers at risk, ignoring emergency vehicles, cross walks, driving in the bike lanes – I’m not exaggerating, people were aggressively and carelessly putting each other at risk. Scary. I’m a skilled driver, and I’ve been doing it a long time. I’m not yet losing any significant amount of my reaction time to aging. I was disappointed in my fellow-man, and in a couple of instances genuinely afraid for my own safety. I took every possible step to ensure I did not have to drive to/from work again this week.

Funny, I don’t mind ‘commuter traffic’ when I’m not specifically commuting, and I generally find driving at rush hour just fine – I don’t mind being slowed down, I just relax and take my time. This felt so different. The only clearly identifiable difference was that I, myself, was commuting, too. I got into the car just wanting to go home. It really changes things, doesn’t it?

Once I did get home, and thankfully safely, it took me more than an hour to get my blood pressure back down, to really relax and start to unwind, to feel kind and human again – are we all going through that? If we are, why are we choosing it? How much domestic strife and bullshit spill over into our lives and loves because we’re cross about how shitty everyone – including ourselves – behaves on the rush hour roadways? Ick. Ick and blech. I’m making a different choice. I’m clearly not yet emotionally resilient enough, and firm enough in my own emotional boundaries to resist the volume of hate and nastiness on the road if I am, myself, commuting behind the wheel of my own car.  I’ll ride mass transit, and deal with grumpy strangers who are not guiding fast-moving killing machines.  It’s not just safer, it saves me so much time – once I count how much time is wasted getting my sanity and calm back after the drive time!

Yesterday was a lovely work day. Productive. Fun. I got home, feeling good and content and joyful… something went wrong. Not horrifically so, I suppose, but I ended up choosing a solitary evening of meditation over chill time with the family, because… I just couldn’t manage being with other people.  I felt cross, I felt disconnected, and trying to connect just seemed to result in new opportunities to feel dismissed, devalued, or ignored. It wasn’t them. It was clearly me, and it was a constant struggle not to take things personally, or overreact to small stuff. More than anything I just wanted to be touched, to be held – and I couldn’t get past how annoying the sound of voices seemed, and I would feel anger start to surge over and over again in response to things I know damned well I am not angry about, or over, or in response to at other times.

My attempts at self-compassion were largely received (by me) with more anger. <sigh> One of my loves commented with nothing but sympathy in his eyes ‘it sounds like hormones…’ followed by ‘I’m so sorry.’  Nothing he can do for that, of course. Me either. I’m advancing on The ‘Pause quite efficiently, and issues with hormones are rarer all the time, but when they do occur, I am no longer sure of what I’m going through, and perspective bounces between ‘totally have a grip on that’ and ‘what the fuck is going on with me now?’ I went to bed early, and mostly slept well – but my brain never really shut itself down. I had strange dreams all night, and kept thinking I was awake listening to voices,  only to wake for real and hear nothing but quiet. At least I slept. I woke to a new morning, a new perspective, and feeling pretty good. Calm, balanced. Ready for work. I’m even going in early today…

I won’t be taking the car. I have a commute I enjoy, and it doesn’t require me to drive in rush hour traffic, or see humanity – and my coworkers – at their worst. I’ll make the choice to enjoy that, and I guess I won’t be bitching about the inconvenience of riding the bus/light rail anymore, apparently I prefer it. 🙂

I'll just take the train, and walk from there.

I’ll just take the train, and walk from there.

 

 

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Menopause, Mindfulness, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Turning 50, Words

A Beginner’s Mind

January 25, 2014 //
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Strange, beautiful, wonderful day; sights and tastes and conversations with strangers, and after all of it, I find myself at home, secure and comfortable, safe from the world – and from myself, which is a new thing to explore.

It’s been building for a couple of days, this strange juxtaposition of new learning and new experiences, this willingness to let go and allow life to unfold, fearlessly. I am unconcerned with whether it ‘is real’ or if it will last longer than now. It’s now. I am here, in this precious lovely moment, after this delightful day, and it feels so effortless to contemplate the quiet of evening ahead. This is nice. I hope to repeat it (the feeling, in general, I mean – the moment has been enough on its own, and unrepeatable).

Today I awoke at an odd time, later than usual, but ahead of the alarm – itself set for an out of the ordinary time of morning. My routine was in tatters before I ever woke, and knowing that when I descended into sleep the night before, I woke unconcerned about it.  I made two lattes, and enjoyed a morning of intimate, gentle conversation with a partner already awake for the day, and left with a smile near to the time I needed to, imprecise and free from chronological bondage, to catch the train to an appointment. A hair cut, and a manicure later, I headed for my last errand, thoroughly enjoying the day and feeling very pampered.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

Today the world felt filled with possibilities.

What made today so rare, so extraordinary? Well, for one thing, the sun shined like …well… something brilliant and without adequate words. I enjoyed all manner of odd experiences along the path of my day-that-routine-forgot. My morning was unscripted. My haircut is different – on a whim. I got my nails done somewhere I’d never been. I had a bite of breakfast at an odd little stand-up cafe wedged among the food carts; it was very early and I munched my breakfast sandwich standing alongside a small throng of ‘the unwashed masses’ panhandling for a shot at a sandwich. It was a very good sandwich, and the conversation wasn’t bad, either.   I had a maple cinnamon latte at a cafe obviously frequented by artists – I’d never been there, but the conversations swirling around me in the background were a giveaway. Later, as I headed home, I saw a SuperHero cross the street, quite properly, at the cross walk and head into a small pharmacy. I wasn’t surprised, which did surprise me. A block or two along the way, I spotted another, then another SuperHero – tights, spandex, cape, all of it.  I don’t always think to question the extraordinary. This was definitely one of those times. It was many miles and minutes later before I thought to wonder – SuperHeroes? Why were there SuperHeroes?

I was offered an earnest moment of self-awareness and perspective, along with the fun of the day.  To reach my last destination, I walked across the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

The least interesting view of the Burnside bridge.

To do so, I had to carefully make my way through huddled groups, tribes, clans, of homeless people finding what comfort they can, where they are permitted to do so. Years ago, I’d have felt invisible passing between and around them, camouflaged by my own indifference to their privation, and mine. More recently, I might have averted my eyes, instead, hoping to avoid interaction, and allow what little dignity I had to offer through my lack of observation. Today I felt humbled; aware that I’d just had my hair and nails done, a recent shower in a safe and secure home of my own, an exceptional cup of coffee and a nutritious breakfast, and very aware of what a privilege that actually is.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

Not generally SuperHeroes, but mathematically likely they may be, sometimes.

On the train home, I continued my reading (Buddha’s Brain). The books about mindfulness are piling up. Some take a practical perspective. Some take a poetic tone. Some are quite spiritual, but striving to distance themselves from religion. Others are about the science. I am still a student, of life, of love – of mindfulness. I still have PTSD. I am still a survivor of trauma, and of a brain injury. I’m still headed for menopause.  While those things are parts of my experience I’m willing to identify as ‘facts’, I am also no longer utterly dominated by them. I’m learning. I’m studying. Bit by bit, I seem to be gaining on real wellness and balance. I hope I never find myself taking them for granted when I have them – and it does look like ‘when’ now, more than ‘if’. I wish I could share it. It’s all in print, in every one of these books. Each book telling the tale in a slightly different way, with different words, and different authors of different traditions and styles of communication. It’s all there, though. Mindfulness. Meditation. Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

Practice.

It’s not about ‘practice makes perfect’. There is no perfect. No need of perfect. There is only practice. A bit at a time I am catching on to the idea that the journey itself is the thing to attend to.

Along the way, more practice.

Along the way, more practice.

Today, I face the world with a beginner’s mind. Today I am compassionate. Today I am tender. Today I am changing the world.  Here it comes.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Free Will, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Love, Menopause, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Parables, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, women, Words
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