The One Where I Get Hormonal

Today I found squash in my bra. Then I found a grain of rice in my hair. And no, it was not because I passed out in my food again. I left work and drove away from the house containing an eighteen-month-old boy who is discovering what emotional spikes are, and as I reached in my shirt and picked out a piece of buttercup squash (yes, “cup”, not “nut”...less common, very delish)..once I picked out a piece of buttercup squash off my chest, I couldn’t help but recollect my own journey with anger and button pushing.

My younger brothers can attest to the fact that I’ve always been easily, mm, let’s say “provoked”. Or, triggered, because this is, after all, a blog where we talk mental health. As far back as I can remember, I experienced sudden spikes of emotion. Teenagers are used to this, because at sixteen years old, a girl’s testosterone levels are at the highest they’ll ever be. Around that age? What a wild damn ride. And generally, we all experience these throughout our lives because our chemical and hormonal levels change from day to day and as we age.

As common as sibling rivalry and anger is, I always felt like my mind was swallowed in fire a little more often than some of my cohorts. Part of this is my personality where I often project feelings of existing on the outskirts of society (heyYO enneagram 4), but I also watched the way other people dealt with disappointment and frustration, and I noticed that some people could let things just roll of their backs without a fight. They wouldn’t hold on to things for hours upon hours and throw things, whereas my first reaction would be chucking a good old textbook across the room or ripping pages out of my notebooks. I am not kidding. This was elementary school, and when I was struggling with math problems, I reached for the nearest item that wasn’t of the highest esteem and I found a way to destroy it. Now, writing this out makes it sound like I was the world’s tiniest hulk of destruction, spitting fire and rage-singing N*SYNC lyrics for the better part of the 90’s. Not the case. At least the fire part. Lance Bass for life, baby. Yes, I know.

I did, however, feel compromised quite often by the feelings I couldn’t override. When I got to college and I was the only one stomping out of 8:00 am ballet when I fell out of my pirouettes, I started realizing something was wrong. Why, for the love of all that’s good, could I not gain control? As if a screw had been unfastened, stolen, and hidden, like some cruel game, I’d internally rage until the fog dissipated and I could see straight again, and would then apologize to everyone around me I’d roped into my tantrum.

And it wasn’t just anger and jealousy. Anxiety and obsessive mental habits would increase, too. Fear and the feeling that things were just not right.

It didn’t get better when I left college for the grander world of professional theatre. I’d still stomp out of rehearsal once in a blue moon when my body wasn’t yet cooperating with choreography or lyrics. I got better at hiding it, but my colleagues saw it on occasion and knew to steer clear of the chick dealin’ with it in the corner. To the many I speak of here who’ve witnessed, I thank you for ignoring, not giving it power, and continuing to love me. Especially the last one. For real.

But I digress...there’s a common thread throughout the scenarios presented here and littered along my lifeline thus far, and that connector is inward-facing. Whenever I failed to live up to expectations or became confused about something I was expected to learn, especially when others around me were catching on, I lashed out. I was furious with my brain and body, stupid me I thought, the bane of the earth. I once came offstage and proclaimed that everything my mother ever paid for was gone to shit, because I didn’t land a turn the way I wanted to. Woahhh, DRAMA Queen much? Luckily, this was only to one person, my “safe person”, who then reminded me how absolutely ridiculous the previous statement was. Self-doubt happens, anger happens, and they will continue to happen, but the speed at which I was ascending these hills and jumping off was getting to be too much. I’ve spent the greater bit of my twenties struggling to curb abrupt and unexpected episodes of rage and fear, firing them into the pages of my journals and into movement instead of at the people I love the most. I’d say I’ve succeeded eighty percent of the time, but that still leaves an inexcusable twenty percent.  

I finally reached out for help.

A large part of my mental health journey has been undergoing every blood test I can find that might explain the emotional struggles I’ve waded through in my time on earth, and when I first heard the title “hormone doctor”, I thought, nah, that’s not for me. I put off going for almost a year, mainly for frugal reasons. I got to a point last year that was so low and masterfully hidden that I was simultaneously mourning for the person who once was and impressed at how well I could function in public with so many responsibilities. I was terrified and decided I needed to tackle it two-fold. I began seeing a counselor and I made an appointment with the hormone doctor. A month passed and once we finally met, we talked for two hours scanning my history and sketched out a game plan.

Typing this makes me nervous, because I’m still in the middle of experimenting and I fear jinxing something, but since progress is not linear, here’s the long of the short of things. My hormone levels were, in a word, whack. Off the charts some days, with a direct correlation to everything I’ve experienced from anxiety to rage to depression to obsessive tendencies.

I’m now undergoing supplement and hormone treatment, as well as fighting to maintain clean and healthy eating. That part is hard, and I fail many days, allowing processed foods and sugar to slip into my diet. But here’s the thing. I’m feeling good and more even keel than I’ve ever felt before in my life. It isn’t drastic, but I notice incremental changes and I feel so optimistic and driven when I wake up each day. I know backsliding will occur, but I'm ready for it. I finally feel like my core self again more often than not.

In a year, I hope to fully dissect, but the journey is never-ending. In meeting a doctor who looked upstream at where the babies were being thrown into the water, instead of just hauling them out and drying them off, we discovered what I felt deep down all along...that the most obvious imbalances, the commonly overlooked ones, were coloring every aspect of my life. Our bodies and minds are so fully interconnected, and when one part of the pool is disturbed, the rest feels the waves.

In closing, keep fighting to find answers because there are doctors with hunches and ideas who are willing to listen. I’ve met my share of disinterested professionals, but it was worth the search to get here. And please, don’t hesitate to reach out if you have more detailed questions or stories of your own. Now, off to shower...I may find a snack somewhere else on my personage. Too far?

Now here's a bunch of photos of my family and I having an Easter picnic. I think I probably got angry at some point during it because, well, family. But I wouldn't trade them for the world.