Archives for category: Menopause
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So, Let Me Say This, About That…

February 4, 2013 //
2

I had an eventful weekend.

My Friday was pretty emotionally intense, and wonderfully promising. It was also a sort of ‘pampering me’ day, as it turned out; I got a great haircut and style from a new stylist at a cool shop, and a little more ‘me time’ on the personal aesthetic front later in the day. I wish I could also say that those elements of my weekend nurtured and restored my soul, but that’s not what it was.

My Saturday was strange, moody and productive, sort of detached. I worked at this and that to ease my anxiety and my emotional fatigue; pruned the roses, baked some shortbread. It was a decent day – it had, in fact, all the elements of an actually good day, but I felt like I was ‘going through the motions’ most of the day, and the challenges offered by every day life and the ebb and flow of other people’s experiences and emotions pulled at my heart. Evening was good in spite of the effort the day itself required, and the day ended well, really well. So… ‘no complaints’?

Sunday was hard to call, initially… was it a good day? A bad day? A difficult day? I was moody, tense, anxious, and working my ass off to shrug it off and avoid negatively coloring the weekend for my partners; it was their anniversary. I could not allow myself to blow that, and I probably put a lot of extra pressure on myself over it that I could have done without. This ‘human being’ thing is a more difficult puzzle than it appears from the vantage point of youthful daydreams.  As it turned out, though, Sunday was… amazing.  I did a few chores and ran some errands in the morning, kissed my partners and headed out into the world, and… wow. The World was right there waiting for me.

I had a pretty powerful moment in the Portland Art Museum, which has quite a good modern art collection for a relatively small city museum. I added the museum to my agenda as an afterthought, actually, and arrived only a couple hours before they closed. None of that matters.  What matters is running into old friends, and what matters is this.  Right? Maybe that’s not obvious… It’s “Untitled”, 1987, Peter Schuyff.  Seeing it yesterday was an experience. I saw a lot of paintings, and sculpture, and glass work that I enjoyed a lot. “Untitled” really got me on a different level. I sat in front of it, just looking and feeling it – letting my body feel how I would position the canvas, set up the layout, work the piece to get those effects – and as I relaxed into the moment and felt that painting ‘become’ part of my thinking and understanding, it became more real and more whole and I saw more and more of it. I felt – taken beyond myself, somehow revealing an inner core ‘strength of being’ I have been unable to feel for a while. I understood what I saw, and I experienced a feeling of confidence and certainty and a secure sense of self that couldn’t be shaken by some moment of pain, however ancient, however evil. No harm could come to me through the strength I had revealed to myself, from within my own being. I am still pretty wowed. It was quite…  something, and I needed it. Like slaking a days old thirst in the heat of the desert with cold clear spring water, like the ‘a-ha!’ moment at the front of the classroom, like the last punctuation mark on a moment of literary wonder… that moment in time, with that painting, meant more to me than words can capture here. I hope to keep it, as safe and precious as a lover’s photo in a locket, and look at it often and feel my soul restored again and again. Art has power so far beyond mere words.

My elation lasted much of the evening, and lingered in my thoughts when I dropped off to sleep, satisfied with the day, and the weekend.  I was still smiling and thinking thoughts of Art and feeling inspired to paint, and more than just pain and woe, too… and the smile deepened and remained my companion throughout the morning, after spending a few minutes on Love, and coffee. The things that matter don’t have to be things other people find valuable or important, I guess I just have to know what they are, for myself, to keep them high on my list of priorities.  So far a good week.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Sleepless Nights, Turning 50, Words

Taking Chances, Pruning Roses

February 2, 2013 //
1

It’s a lovely sunny day, today, unexpectedly. It could be ‘expectedly’ but that would have required that I actually look at a weather forecast sometime in the recent past and I’ve barely looked at my phone. I’m not very involved with my phone the last couple weeks, and even the news nauseates rather than fascinates, and I’m avoiding it as much as possible. (Thanks, Delhi, you turned the entire world of news into the ’24-hour Rape Channel’) Still, expected or not, a lovely sunny day greeted me.  I was out and about pretty early for a Saturday, shopping, doing… then in the garden, pruning the roses, giving them a boost to prepare for Spring, re-arranging them in their new homes (many of them are potted, and I have the luxury of easily moving them about). Today should feel easy… but I had a tough night fighting invisible enemies in a hostile dreamscape and listening to my demons mock me. I woke crying several times, and although I think I ‘got enough rest’ to satisfy my body, my mind feels bruised and worn down, and I’m on the edge of tears most of the time, for no obvious reason. (Hormones? How can I tell anymore?)

Yesterday was special, and especially hard. Promising, but demanding… I ended the day fatigued beyond what seemed reasonable, but feeling more hopeful than has been typical for a long while. I want to say “I have a future…” but that sounds far more dramatic or potentially alarming by implication than I really mean it to. I already had a future… we all do, until the moment we don’t, whether it is chosen or forced upon us by circumstance.

I’m tired. My head hurts. The ‘harder I try’ the more my head seems to hurt, some days, like my brain doesn’t want to work so hard. There’s this very angry part of me that wants to drive harder, wants to scream ‘no pain, no gain – don’t you dare give up!!’, and make me do more-better-sooner… I fight myself constantly these days; questioning every assumption, every knee-jerk reaction, every bit of ‘programming’ and every task on ‘auto pilot’… one of my partners asked me very early this morning ‘When do you rest? When do you stop and take care of you?’. I could hear the concern, the frustration… but the simple failures, mistakes, don’t they cause frustration, too, aren’t they always a  huge disappointment? I’m not sure I know where my own priorities are, but I’m afraid to stop trying to do more-better-sooner, right now, as if I could somehow force myself to be well and whole and ‘okay’ – and if I don’t, well, somewhere inside myself it feels like a character flaw.

I’m too tired today to easily manage my emotions, prone to taking things personally. I want to do things well, treat myself and my partners well… I may have to be satisfied with not treating them badly. Maybe tonight there will be no nightmares, only sleep…and tomorrow another sunny day.

Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Rape, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Potential, Expectations, and Going With the Moment

January 30, 2013 //
1

I am having a very good day, so far. I feel well-rested, balanced, and happy. Contented. I slept last night.  I often wonder if this particular feeling is something that some large population of ‘other people’ take for granted because it is their everyday state of affairs… or if that is a notion based on wishful thinking and a lifetime of thinking ‘happily ever after’ is a reasonable goal? Today, and for some weeks now, I am not striving for, struggling with, or stressing over ‘happily ever after’. I’m working on skill building instead, and learning to accept and value my experience – all of it.

I sometimes deliver myself some pretty terrible hurts because any moment is potentially quite horrible (or to be fair, quite wonderful, or quite dull…), and while I generally expect to survive, whatever it is, I rarely allow myself to build expectations of wonder or delight.  When I have allowed myself the thrill of merry anticipation of a great experience, it seems I am often just destroyed by hurt and frustration when some little thing goes awry. I create a horrific see-saw of expectations and reactions based on a huge variety of potential experiences. I hurt with it. I have cried for hours bereft of a pleasure there was no guarantee of having in the first place. It seems pretty silly, from my vantage point of this last however-many-days… letting go of guessing at the potential outcomes, letting go of fearful what-ifs, letting go of implicit expectations of the extraordinary, delightful, or disastrous… and just being in the moment, and hearing and feeling and seeing. I wonder if I will get good at this? I still have to commit to it very specifically moment by moment, day by day, for now. I’m stunned at how much is going on around me that I routinely miss, or misunderstand.

Tangentially, I’ve begun walking to work regularly, again. It feels good to get back on track with my health and fitness goals. I had been commuting to work on foot regularly as part of my fitness routine, until a fall in the summer of 2011 injured me badly enough that walking any distance was both difficult and painful. Sometimes walking still is painful, but so far the 2.2 miles from home to work in the morning, when my ankle is rested and strongest, is comfortable and allows me to hit my 5-miles-a-day goal pretty easily.  I’m no fitness guru, I just want to be as healthy as I can be, and live a long, fit life. I’ve got some work to do, but I think calorie management, balanced nutrition, and regular exercise are good places to start.  I also find when I am walking my mind is free to wander in a very productive way on complex subjects, artistic whimsy, or highly emotional topics that need my attention. Walking meditation is a good fit for me as a being. Even when I’m agitated or very angry, walking is the thing I feel driven to do more than any other thing, and although I suspect that is more about ‘walking away’ or even ‘running away from home’ sensations than a healthy break from conflict or stress, I am generally able to put that time to good use gaining perspective and balance. Adding strength training back to my routine is next…maybe this weekend? I have an idea of ‘beauty’ in my head (that seems healthy and achievable) and I’d like to be that while I am still young enough to do so…which is to say, before I’m old enough to want to embrace a new idea of beauty for the woman I will become, then.

It was a quiet morning, this morning, and the feeling of safety and contentment linger. I hope it lasts the day, and if it doesn’t I will try to remember that because it exists right now, it has existed and will exist again. I’m enjoying the experience of feeling happy, and contented – and feeling safe to have those feelings.  I haven’t always had that feeling of emotional safety, and it is a wonderful feeling. It’s the relationships that matter on that one, but the relationship I have with myself didn’t offer much potential for a feeling of emotional safety until recently. Working on having a better relationship with myself, understanding myself, and accepting myself seem to be paying off in ways I didn’t expect – like smiling all through an ordinary Wednesday morning, even though there’s nothing spectacularly awesome going on. Right now it feels easy to treat people around me well, including me.

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Categories Anxiety, Brain Injury, Healthy Living, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Relationships

Bliss, Confusion, Fatigue, and ‘Real Life’

January 29, 2013 //
5

I had a great evening, yesterday, but a poor night’s sleep last night. I woke restless and anxious in the wee hours, and couldn’t put it to rest with meditation, yoga, or having a quiet contemplative smoke in the dark. I knew what I was anxious about – I’m just about finished moving, but there’s just a thing or two more to do, and I feel a noticeable and probably appropriate ‘performance pressure’ to manage the remaining tasks well.  Even at 49, I sometimes find myself inappropriately ‘eager to please’, like the small girl ‘helping Daddy with projects’ that I once was.  Is that ‘something to fix’? I often wonder; I’m rarely certain.

I’m tired. Four hours or so of sleep isn’t enough for my best emotional balance or cognition. I already know this about me. I want to learn to deliver my very best in spite of limited sleep – because sleep disturbances, nightmares, and insomnia are all part of my experience on a pretty frequent basis. I want to master treating people well, even on bad days.

Now I have MC Frontalot ‘Your Friend Wil’ stuck in my head.  I’m not surprised. I find hope for the world in the existence of Wheaton’s Law, in general.  I find dismay in the number of news articles published every single day wherein the subject matter is really not much more, or less, than someone being a dick to someone else. Seriously. What’s up with people being mean, or inconsiderate, the most common definition of ‘being a dick’, and what makes any one of us think it is ok when we, ourselves, are being dicks? I had considered linking to some of those very articles… discovered so many exceptional examples that doing so quickly looked like some sort of thesis research and less a blog post.  I challenge you to go directly to your favorite news source of a current events type and not find at least one article on the ‘front page’ that details someone being inconsiderate, rude, abrasive, insensitive, or mean at the heart of it.

I’m tired, I haven’t had enough sleep – but I am resolved to get through today without being a dick to anyone, especially my loving partners. I mean – wow – how ungracious would it be of me to celebrate the wonderful evening we shared last night by being a dick today? So, ok… back to that ‘mindfulness’ thing, I’m guessing.

I’m rambling, and feeling vaguely that I ‘owe you an apology’ for it… my focus and cognition suffer when I’m fatigued. I guess that’s true for everyone, but I know that with my starting point today I will want to be extra cautious with my behavior later, when I’m more tired, or risk irrational mood swings or tantrums. I wish I understood more clearly which pieces of my puzzle are my brain injury, my hormones, or my PTSD…although…I don’t know that the information, if I had it, would change my experience.

I really want to get completely settled in to my new home and paint. I am struggling to express certain things – to myself, I suppose, more than to someone else, and I know I hear me so clearly in texture and color.

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Categories Anxiety, Art, Brain Injury, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Relationships, Sleepless Nights

Madness, Menopause, Magnesium

January 28, 2013 //
2

I’ve been told by more than one professional of one sort or another that I would “probably calm down after menopause”.  Glossing over how that observation always seemed to trivialize my experience, diminish me as a free will adult, and offer little present-day hope, it was also something I’ve held onto for a long time… it will be all be better…eventually… like magic… without effort.  Just a simple biological, chemical change in my reproductive functionality and I will be well and whole and somehow saner and more balanced.  Let’s be real – that sounds too good to be true, and even if it is true, wouldn’t it be a ludicrous failure to manage my affairs in an adult way to simply sit around throwing random tantrums and waiting for menopause? My hormones and I have put my loved ones through hell, more than once.  I’ve even dared to say, out loud, that I am ‘not high maintenance’ and even ‘not especially moody’. Wow.

I am… high maintenance, and then some. In spite of myself.  I’m moody, too – especially moody, and rather often.  I have indulged in tantrums that go so far beyond what could be considered acceptable from an adult I’m lucky I still get invited to parties by proper grown ups.  I can do better than this – can’t I?  I’ve read my share of ‘self help’ books, and mostly they haven’t done much in the way of help, because… ready for it? They’re just books. In spite of the lack of action on their part, and mine, a few outstanding books have stood out… and I go back to them again and again, to learn more than the words on the pages. Brain injury, PTSD, the slow march toward menopause… I still choose my actions, don’t I? Well, I guess I don’t always – but it sounds like a good starting point. (Do I get a ‘starting point’ at 49? Extraordinary!)

So, thoughtful, mindful, well-chosen action, considerate of my loved ones and associates and fellow-man – and doing my best to ‘take care of me’, too… it seems a good approach. It’s easy on paper – that’s what makes the ‘self help’ industry thrive. The ideas are so simple, so effective – and like fad diets, they probably all work.  If I do them.  That reminds me, a healthy diet, a good fitness plan, managed and adequate rest, harmonious healthy relationships all add up to thriving, don’t they? Does it even take money? Is a book even necessary? (Not always; this weekend I enjoyed the opportunity to share how helpful regular baths in Epsom salts have been for stabilizing my mood and helping me sleep. A man in line with me at the store could not resist asking what I needed all the Epsom salts for, and it was clearly on the order of a lifeline to hear something as simple and inexpensive as Epsom salts have given me so much relief; it was clear from our exchange that both he and his wife are suffering through her change.)

I did my best this weekend to choose my words and actions well, to nurture my loved ones and not take their experiences personally, to take care of my own basic needs, and where I could to assist my loved ones in meeting theirs, too. It was a pretty great weekend.  I suspect it makes for a dull blog post, but I feel pretty good today.

Happy Monday! Being nicer today feels easy…

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Categories Brain Injury, Epsom salts, Logic & Reason, Menopause, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Relationships, Turning 50, Words
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