In recent years I’ve been making space for feelings as they happen within my body. I’ve paid more attention to my emotions and not tried to suppress them, and I’ve started to explore how to better embody and express those feelings. And then there’s the hormones…
I’ve spent the majority of my life inhabiting the hormonal shifts of my menstrual cycle. In the days before I bleed, I tend towards melancholy. When I’m bleeding, if anything is wrong in my life it will become much harder to ignore. I listen to the wisdom of my angry blood these days, and I deal with whatever comes out of that time. I get a few days off before the reproductive urges kick in, and a quieter patch after that. I know my cycle well and I know who I am within it, and I identify with those emotions. Who and how I am shifts during the month and I experience all of it as being intrinsically me.
Now, peri-menopausal, or as I prefer to call it, living with the menoporpoise, everything has changed. Hormones turn up as late night tsunamis that I can drown in, that sweep all before them, and wash away my brain and sense of self. I think things I wouldn’t normally think – levels of anxiety and despair and pointlessness that just don’t fit with who I am the rest of the time. There’s no rhythm to it, so I can’t adapt. Even as I pay attention to my emotions I’m in the uneasy position of having to acknowledge that this is happening in my body, but I can’t own it as part of how I feel. It is both me, and not me, and that’s quite challenging.
When the menoporpoise hormone tsunami hits, I can tell what it is. How I experience it is more in line with how I experience having taking something that impacts on me. Only what I’m taking here isn’t pain relief or alcohol, or a sugar high. It’s a wash of misery and horribleness. I can see how easy it would be to become this, to be persuaded by the bodily experience that these are my feelings and experiences.
In some ways I am advantaged by years of body ambivalence because I don’t assume that if I feel it, it must be me. I’ve dealt with physical pain and emotional trauma acting on my body, and I have a sense of self that holds those as part of it, but doesn’t give them the steering wheel. My identity is not entirely formed by my experiences, but also shaped by my deliberate choices. I’ve had to learn how to chose my way around damage inflicted, and intrinsic issues that I don’t want to be dominated by. This is another round of things happening in my body that I can’t do much about, but aren’t of my choosing. I experience them, but I do not become the experience. It makes me realise that there is always this potential – to embrace or reject making an experience a part of your identity.
May 10th, 2019 at 11:37 am
Thank you, this is really helpful. I’m in the middle of menopause and hot flushes but I’m scared to go looking for people blogging about it in case they’re TERFy. It’s such a relief to read a blogpost about it from someone with the same values and similar gender identity to me.
May 10th, 2019 at 11:40 am
May interest you to know … I saw a chap today talking about getting menopause symptoms because he was being given hormones to control prostate cancer… and all the massive implications that has…
May 10th, 2019 at 11:45 am
Yes men can get hot flushes too.
In the last post I wrote about this, I suggested that there should be a queer sacred space to talk about this stuff. Not just for women (I was pleased to see a trans-inclusive women’s event advertised on Instagram yesterday) but for everyone. I think it would have to be only for queer people so that it would be safe. I’d love to be in such a space.
May 10th, 2019 at 11:48 am
Having queer friends to talk about this stuff with has been such a blessing for me.
May 10th, 2019 at 11:52 am
I have lots of queer friends, but none in the middle of menopause. Thankfully the people I know who are post-menopausal are not gender essentialists.
May 10th, 2019 at 11:42 am
I like sage, I may go for eating more of it!
May 10th, 2019 at 11:48 am
Each daily dose (4 capsules) contains 260mg of sage leaf, and 88mg of sage extract, which is at 10:1 concentration, equivalent to 880mg sage leaf. They are also available in vegan capsules.
May 13th, 2019 at 6:42 am
good to know, thank you! Far more than I am prepared to eat!
May 13th, 2019 at 11:18 am
Exactly! Holland and Barrett do a vegan version of the capsules too!
May 13th, 2019 at 11:19 am
Oh I already said that!
May 10th, 2019 at 11:38 am
Oh and I’ve found sage tablets from Holland and Barrett really good for keeping the hot flushes down (I forgot to take them for ages but I’ve just started again — I purchased a supply of them last time I was in England).
July 7th, 2019 at 1:20 pm
[…] to be able to discuss hormonal changes in the body with trans women. I want to be able to discuss fluctuations in my identity with other nonbinary people. I want to be able to create safe and inclusive spaces where people can talk about this stuff […]
July 9th, 2019 at 10:21 am
[…] to be able to discuss hormonal changes in the body with trans women. I want to be able to discuss fluctuations in my identity with other nonbinary people. I want to be able to create safe and inclusive spaces where people can talk about this stuff […]