Is it just like being permanently pissed off ?
This is my darling other half trying to understand what it
feels like to have your hormones de-rail. For your normal peaceful life, with a
bout of PMS thrown in here and there. Not that we ever admit it, we just blame
our men for being particularly irritating at the same times every month, you
would think they would learn, to go totally off track. Here however I have to
give him a huge barrel full of credit because he really does want to
understand, and he really is a great support. Thankfully.
I tried to explain it, but it’s difficult, it’s hard to
explain how your body can do one thing, and your brain another. How you can
look down on yourself sitting on the floor in front of your new oven in tears
and think ‘WOAH Maxine what on earth is your deal ?’. The same way as when I have decided that a
romantic meal, the night before my darling has surgery is the correct time to
have a massive rant at him about things that aren’t exactly important at that
moment. Whilst again, there is a small part of me tugging on my shoulder and
telling me this is a) really not very nice and b) totally out of character.
Back to the kitchen floor……
Oven in, shiny, working, marble intact and everything I
needed and wanted, aside from 1 tiny tile. Easily fixable, and yet my usual go
get them attitude totally deserted me, and my mother’s suggestion of popping to
the shops to get a replacement was met with a rapid of tears so big you would
have thought someone had told me that I could never cook again and that I could
never eat chocolate ever. It was tremendous. My mother took one look at me,
popped me on the sofa and called in for back up. An appointment with our GP, a
woman who has the heart of a lion, the patience of a saint and the humour of
Billy Connolly. Thankfully she is a whizz and I am now fully back on track and
will not be crying over ovens in the near future, fear not those of you who
have been invited for dinner.
Hormones are quite the things. They are so much in control
of you and yet most people know little to nothing about them, they also know
little to nothing about how they can be knocked off track, what affects you and
how you can put them right. For me its progesterone, me and it have a shaky
relationship, and when it builds up to high, added to my insomnia, a 3 hour
commute, and 6 weeks of visitors and a house move, it means that all the walls
come down and Maxines hormones have a party. The boss is gone, no one is in
charge and they are willy nilly doing whatever they like. So therefore inappropriate
responses become standard, new tiles = tears, end of a book = end of the world,
no cable for a TV that I barely watch = rage equal to that of a wwe wrestler.
However this hormone imbalance can affect more than whether I am a nightmare to
live with or not. It can affect fertility, sexual drive, ovulation, headaches
and can go on to other things. It’s something to note, something to watch for
and then equally something that you need to fix. I caught it early, thanks to
my family and my man having the ability to say to me, you are not yourself.
This is not you, what’s wrong ? Albeit having to have a couple of goes at
getting me to listen whilst dodging left hooks and proffering tissues. In all
my long travels with my health, and my many issues and revelations, I have
learned that the most important thing you can do for yourself is to listen to
your body. Sounds easy ? It’s not. You have to learn to hear what its telling
you, and why, and how you can placate it, or ease its pain. It’s difficult, but
once you learn the language your body can tell you things you never dreamed it
would say. I have learned, and it’s been the best thing I ever did. I talk
about it with friends, or here in my blog because if I help just one person to
get to where I am quicker than it took me, then it’s worth sharing my internal
life struggles.
If your body is tired, and tells you so, then it is, listen
to it, slow down. Don’t tell me you can’t, because I am the queen of the
excuses. My job, my life, my world, I need too, I must, I have too. You don’t.
You don’t HAVE to do things. You can change the things you are in control of.
Take the right vitamins, ensure you eat the right way, feed your body right and
it will help you out when you need it too. 4 hours sleep ? Come on body you owe
me one, you need to man up and get me through til its home time. If you have been
good to yourself most times your body steps up and helps you out. Me ? it took
my body totally shutting down on me and refusing to work until I listened to
get its message across. I am much better now. I stop sometimes, pop the ear
plugs in and do what I want to do. My body just reacts by doing one of many and
varied things to spite me. Bloating, migraines, restless legs, rashes. Just a
little taster of what it could really do should you choose to continue to
ignore the signs and notes it is leaving for you.
A busy few weeks, with not enough sleep and a fairly laisez
faire attitude to the vitamins meant that my body was knocking on the door for
me to sort myself out. So my hormones decided to fall out of sync. Major
league. So for now its good food, sleep and a multitude of different vitamins
and exercise to get me back into listening mode. Helped out with a few well-placed
drugs along the way. What ? You thought I was a do gooder ? No way, I am never
against some artificial help to beat the buggers back into submission.
Listen to your body though, most of the time you don’t end
up needing to fight, you can get along perfectly well. Otherwise it’s just like
being permanently pissed off !!
M
