Vacationing in Hormone Hell

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 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.