Don’t Blame The Hormones

It’s not their fault

The Menstrual Cycle, 1939; Designed by Herbert Bayer

Before I learned how my cyclical body works, I had a consistent urge to burn bridges. It would happen nearly every month, to the point where it was a bit of a joke. Mysteriously, but in oddly regular intervals, I would want to take a torch to something—maybe everything—in my life. These intrusive thoughts would bang around in my brain for maybe a week or so, tormenting me. I couldn’t get away from them and I would try various methods of letting off steam.

But oh how I wanted to watch it all burn to the ground.

This was a consistent trend all through my teenage and early adult years, and I had no idea what was causing it. In fact, without any kind of decent explanation, I thought it must mean that something was wrong with my life and I was just consistently getting to the point where I couldn’t ignore the problems any more. Why else would I be experiencing a sensation this strong? These urges to burn bridges, I figured, had to be true. Because if they were weren’t true what did that say about me?

For a while it was a joke, though a dark one. Sometimes it wasn’t funny at all.

I can still remember a moment of the deep unsettledness I experienced as a teenager. Nothing was ok and I wanted to take dynamite to it all and start over. Not that I had very much to take dynamite to, at sixteen, or that much to start over. This go around, what I had in my power to scrap was my internet presence. That’s what I fixated on. This probably consisted of my Pinterest¹, blogger, and Etsy.² It wasn’t much, but it was mine.

My mom pointed out I was probably about to get my period. I likely rolled my eyes. But then, I did get my period…

The next month though, I might throw away a bunch of my precious notebooks. I remember how much this alarmed my parents, and it’s funny now. It wasn’t then.

As a young adult, the impulse to burn it all down became more intense perhaps because there was more at stake. I had more potential kindling at my disposal. Jobs, relationships, projects, hobbies, living situations, hard earned belongings. More responsibilities meant more stress, which meant more that I could, in theory, leave behind. Because maybe leaving it behind would make this feeling go away. The cause, I figured, had to be a real thing that I could change.

So I would do what I could without truly making a pile of ash out of it all, because deep down I knew that wasn’t the solution. I would get rid of clothes, delete files, delete accounts, stomp off away from my partner, start a fight with my partner, decide I was going to ghost people, make plans to quit my job…

Though it happened over and over, I forgot that if I gave it a few days, a week maybe, things went back to the way they were. That wasn’t a comfort, because I still thought the intensity of these feelings made them true. Each time, I got a little singed. I questioned my relationships, my life choices, and—worst of all—my sanity. I really feared I might be “crazy,” which for me looked basically like the 20th century definition of hysteria.³

It took nearly fifteen years before I finally accepted that these urges to burn it all down were connected to my menstrual cycle and that that was ok. They would flare up about a week before my bleed and then, within twenty-four hours of the first spot of blood, they’d dissipate.

But even when I did allow myself to believe the cause of these thoughts was “hormonal,” I didn’t treat that as valid. Hormones were no excuse for this intensity. Ok, fine. It’s hormones, I told myself. But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. Since I now know it’s hormones, I should be able to get the better of it. I should be able to control, put it down, make it go away.

I think quite often hormones or hormonal “swings” or “being hormonal”—however it’s phrased—is treated as an aberration. I get why this is. If you’re thinking of cis-male bodies as the default—as society has done for, say, thousands of years—then I can see why you’d think female hormones are something weird. Something to be managed and put down like a rebellion. But cis-male bodies can’t be the default because there is no default.

I used to say, “Hormones…can’t live with them, can’t live without them.” And that might get a chuckle out of someone. But I no longer believe that. Now it’s more like: Hormones, you can live with them and, depending on your goals, you probably don’t want to live without them.

I might take it a step further actually. I think it’s dangerous to perpetuate the idea that goes like this:

Hormones. *shrug* Nothing you can do about them. They’re just going sweep you along and you have to grit your teeth and get through it. That’s just how it is when you have a female body.

This isn’t helping anyone because it isn’t true.

Now, I can’t remember the last time I wanted to burn a bridge. My last cycle ended really beautifully, with a calm clarity. I haven’t done anything particularly special to “manage” my hormones. I don’t take supplements for them, I don’t seed cycle, I’m not on hormonal birth control.⁴ I’ve done things to improve my overall health, particularly my microbiome health, but I’ve not done anything to target “hormonal balance.”

I think what made the greatest change is that I learned enough that I got it into my subconscious that my hormones are not a cacophony of chemicals but symphony. How I think about the whole thing, consciously and subconsciously, comes from that place and that greatly influences my actions. Maybe I don’t always think the symphony is beautiful, though sometimes it now is. But I know that all the instruments are playing their parts from the sheet music provided. Now I finally have a copy of the music too.

It goes like this: In that week I used to want to cast things into the fire, estrogen has peaked and fallen. You can hardly hear it lilting in the background. The loudest instrument in the room now is progesterone. But in the last week of the cycle that too is getting quieter. There’s a little splash of androgens, which gives me a distinct crash in mood. Progesterone’s song is getting softer and softer. Until, it will almost sounds like the music has paused completely during bleeding. Almost. When bleeding ends—ah!—there’s estrogen’s bright, bubbly noise again, getting louder. It’s joined by the harp-like vibration of follicle stimulating hormone, doing what it says on the tin. Then comes a cymbal clang as estrogen peaks, signaling lutenizing hormones to release the egg, and it all begins again.

If everything is going to plan, this is what happens every single time. It isn’t a mystery to me. I don’t feel like I’m at the whim of my hormones any more than I feel like I’m at the whim of winter turning to spring, or the tide going out and coming in. I know how it goes.

There are, of course, very real ways this hormonal tune goes awry—worse ways than feeling the need to burn things down monthly. And that too always deserves looking into. Shrugging and saying “it’s just hormones” is never the right course of action. If you know how it should go then you can spot where something isn’t right. But if you’ve never gotten a copy of the music, how are you to know when something isn’t keeping time?⁵

So many of us have never been handed a copy of the music. And society seems to reject that this tune is playing at all.

I wish my younger self could have known that sometimes it isn’t PMS. PMS and PMDD are completely valid and should be taken seriously. But I think sometimes what we experience is actually just a very natural reaction to being disconnected from what’s happening in our bodies and living in world that rejects this experience. I think sometimes discomfort comes not from a “hormonal imbalances,” but from a lack of knowledge and lack of support for the realities of our cyclical bodies.

Estrogen and progesterone do fall. That isn’t a problem. That isn’t an “imbalance.” That isn’t something to stop. We need the release that proceeds that drop, allowing the cycle to continue. Sometimes we can feel discomfort—mental, emotional, or physical—when those hormones are plummeting. Sometimes the discomfort is not the fault of the hormones but comes from our assumptions and biases towards the changes happening in our bodies.

For me, the discomfort came from not knowing what was happening, not accepting that what was happening as biological reality, and not feeling like there was a place in the world for my experience. When these hormones drop, it may be time to change what you’re doing. That isn’t a glitch. Would you say nature is doing something wrong when leaves start to drop in the fall? I hope not. So when our hormones are dropping we shouldn’t say it’s wrong to slow down in the ways we can. Or turn inward, or eat differently and be gentle with ourselves. Or whatever it is you need. If you can acknowledge that what is happening is real and earnest, then can you find ways of living with it.

I wish I could say that this isn’t an uphill battle, but we all know that isn’t true. Society and this modern world don’t make it easy to live cyclically right now. But that doesn’t decrease the worth of doing this work—I think it increases it. There are cyclical bodies here on earth and there will continue to be. Let’s make it better for all of us.

I love not wanting to burn every bridge in site each month. It truly feels like such a gift. And I know that sounds kind of trite, but it’s true. The peace that has come from knowing what’s happening in my body is something I wish every person with a cycle could experience.

My cycle isn’t perfect, by any means. But I’m not surrounded by the grating, confused cacophony now. I’m listening to, and learning from, the wild ebbs and flows of an age old symphony.

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✍🏻 Will you come meet me down in the comments?

🌀Have you felt like your hormones are out to get you? What does that look like for you? What would make you feel more at ease and supported?

🌀Or have you found a way to live with your cycle? If so, how did you do it?

🌀Or, if you don’t have a cycle, what is the impression you’ve gotten about living with a cycle?

1. Which, to be fair, was very new and shiny. I know I got a Pinterest when it was still in beta and you had to have an invitation from a Pinterest user to be able to make an account.

2. I sold photographs on there for a bit and participated in the early Etsy community.

3. This is why you don’t let kids consume content exclusively from the 19th and 20th century when their brains are still developing. It’s intense stuff. You gotta be careful.

4. Which, I think we all know, doesn’t do exactly where we’re told it does but that is a story for another day.

5. Or, if your doctor has never gotten a copy of the sheet music…as so many of them have not.