After years of battling an unseen adversary in my body, I reached a stage where I
just wanted to give up. Anyone at the mercy of their hormones will know that
you have absolutely no recourse when the hormonal storms hit you – they do not
necessarily let you know when they start their onslaught in your blood and brain
and in fact, they really do not care that you might be a danger to the world when
they free fall and cause volcanic eruptions within you. My first real encounter
with these invisible foes was as a child – I suffered from severe panic anxiety
attacks and when the adrenalin pulsed through my body- I felt as if I could not
breathe, I held my heart terror stricken that it would leave my body and death
awaited me in a dark deep abyss that I felt I was pulled towards. I had no control
and all I felt was terror, panic and a sense that the world around me was in
chaos. I did not want to sleep at night, fearing that if I did, I would never awake.
The sweaty hands, the shortness of breath and the tightness and sometimes-even
pain in my chest together with waves of terror flooding every cell in my body
never lost its novelty. One would think that somewhere the mind would
understand, given that it has experienced the same thing over a thousand times,
that you are going to be ok – but when it comes to panic anxiety attacks, it feels
like you have never been here before. It took the road less travelled and
gathering many tools along the way to get to the point where I am today – but as
one reaches one destination, a new journey begins.
Then along comes PMS and it felt as if I was being cursed by some unknown evil
force that most definitely hated me and wanted to see me sad, unhappy and
depressed. I experienced strange melancholic feelings, had terrible dark
thoughts about my life, had bad dreams and physically the water retention, the
racing heart, the sore muscles, the tiredness and the generally overall feeling that
the world hated me and everyone was out to get me, made me feel alone and
overwhelmed. I looked at life from a doom and gloom perspective and felt
physically as if I walked around with 1 ton shackles around my ankles – I felt fat,
swollen and angry and looked for things and circumstances around me that
made me angry and sad. So my inner world would reflect perfectly what was on
the outside. This was the time friends ditched me, boyfriends did not like me and
I got shoved around in waiting lines by a cheery, confident person whom I knew
was just out to get me. I hated the world and myself at least for a week every
month for as long as I could remember – until I became aware and studied and
encountered this phenomenon in others later on in my life, I realized that I could
do something about it and it was just a hormonal imbalance that could be
rectified.
After the birth of your kids another friendly onslaught from the thyroid
hormones comes along and you lose your hair, you feel depressed and when you
think it must be a joke, the scales in the bathroom stop working – the springs
pop out, the crushing metal under your feet makes you realize that this is not a
nightmare – it is you standing on the wrong kind of machinery – the cattle scales
is what you should be putting in the bathroom – your skin loses its luster and
you feel more at home with the elephants – they do not even attack you when
you go on Safari in Africa – you look and feel like them. Your beauty sleep is
reduced to restless battles with yourself, you wake up exhausted and tired and it
becomes a drag even lifting one foot out of the bed. You think this is the end and
there is no way out – you give up trying to diet, the more you do it the more like
your friends in the wild you begin to look and finally you realize that you have to
make peace with it all – there is still so much time left in this world to fill with
meaningless tasks and somehow you get through the days – hope faintly lurks
somewhere in a very hidden corner of the mind but is very shy and you do not
often get to meet it – if feels just like the unicorns – you know they must have
existed but you have yet to meet one.
Then comes the big one – it is not just bad enough that you have to face the fact
that you are now moving to the dreaded two digit birthday starting with 5 and
ending in death but along comes another dark wave that feels like a tsunami
compared to the lapping waves of PMS. This is the real storm and as with any
massive storm of nature, you feel overwhelmed and helpless against this gale
force that sweeps you along without any mercy in its wake – your body slows
down, your heart races and you feel as if volcanoes erupt within your body, the
heat burning away any dignity you might have the audacity to have left over. I
suppose the idea of hot as hell starts making a lot more sense now, especially
now that your life is over and Lucifer is already sitting inside your soul, gleefully
clapping his bony hands while he fattens you up for his eternal fire feast a few
years on. You cant cope, overwhelment becomes a real word and now it all goes
wrong on the outside as well and for many this becomes a time of crises and in
this now meaningless world, many feel adrift, dissatisfied and life is just about
existence – Joy is a word that some asshole made up just to torture you – you
cannot remember its existence and most definitely have no recall of anything
resembling happiness, peace, laughter and freedom. In fact, you have little recall
of anything beyond the last 5 minutes. You are trapped in this Storm which is
relentlessly taking you to the hot but dark place of depression and disconnection
to the world.
Suddenly that glass of wine you loved for most of your life is cause for your kids
to call the fire brigade and the ambulance – your purple face and the real heat
waves is a danger to everyone around you and no one is certain if this is the first
sign of an apoplexy or self combustion – to be safe call 000. You grasp for hope
in the ever-enlightening world of the web but all you find are the 38 worst
symptoms of Menopause – have you read it? If you have, and have not
considered jumping off the Mornington Pier, you are very brave – 38 crappy
things to look forward to – WTF???
So how come we are still trying when we are so at mercy of some chemicals in
our bodies – I reckon it is what we are just programmed to do – no matter how
hard life is, how much you are challenged by your own inner world, there has to
be a way out. This is what I probably have spent my last 30 years trying to find –
it is a journey and this one has been fraught with a lot of danger and stress, but is
the idea of the destination that shoves us along – hope is always lurking there
somewhere and for me this journey has been one of finding peace no matter how
much I was sabotaged by my hormones. For most of my life I felt I had no control
but I know now that the inner world just reflected my thoughts – the chaos, the
fear, insecurity, anger and uncertainty was beautifully reflected from within and
all my gorgeous hormones – it was as if my hormones were a chemical
counterpart of my thoughts which then triggered the emotions, which then
triggered the hormones. Finally understanding it all I feel that the purpose of my
journey was to find better ways of being and yes, we have the tools today in
natural medicine to help resonate our imbalanced hormones and bring it into
harmony but there needs to be an accompanied shift in our emotional and
thought world – today I am starting a new experiment in eating solely for
hormonal balance – my emotions and thoughts are more under control than ever
– I am in the midst of an EMOTIONAL 30 day VIBRATIONAL CLEAN UP and that
has helped so much to find my way to a possible hormonal solution. I will keep
you updated as I go along and share my journey. Till next time – Namaste