One thing that I thought the pandemic and the attendant stress therein took from me was my ability to bounce back emotionally. Recover from set-backs. “Surely,” I thought to myself, as one does, “as this ends, I will regain some semblance of coping with stress”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then came the litany of other crisiseses and stressors, never minding the firehose of bad news that most of the internet consists of now. From time to time I would have a Good Week, and think, “this is it, this is the start of getting back to where I was: where I can handle a rejection with aplomb or a set-back with a sigh and roll-up of my sleeves”. (I do realize, before you feel the need to point it out, that I was not necessarily poised 24\/7 in the Before Times. Of course I wasn’t. I am an ordinary human being. But I didn’t feel like my battery was blinking red all the time either.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then would roll in the next set of clouds, the next wave of Big Problems Requiring Complex Decisions, and wham, I would be back to feeling squashed. Like an RPG character with a status effect called Drain. Every time I healed at a temple, I only got back to 50%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought it was depression. (It is not.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought it was anxiety (already being treated for that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought it might be anemia (and whoo boy was my iron low! but it’s better now, and while that helped, it’s not the whole story).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I got a therapist, and I was telling her about my latest moment of having a complete breakdown over a minor incident, and my whole “why am I like this now when I used to be like this then” set of internal questions, and she very quietly coughed into her palm and asked me how old I am. (Answer: going to be 45 at the end of the summer, whee). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Have you looked into perimenopause…?” <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I said I had been looking into the physical symptoms, she pointed me at some of the mental ones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My response: “huh”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“For some people it can be like PMS but all the time,” she added helpfully, and a lightbulb lit (and then exploded) in my brain. Because yes. That’s <\/em>what it feels like. What it’s felt like for years: PMS but low-grade and Of course the 2020s have been a whirlwind of shit too, globally. Not excusing that. But my emotional walls are wearing thin, and more of the outside world is getting in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And wearing thin is the operative metaphor: my hormonal levels are dropping. Well, duh, you say. That’s what (peri)menopause is<\/em>. But while estrogen and progesterone levels dropping gets talked about all the fucking time, no one talks about the fact that it’s everything<\/em> decreasing. Including oxytocin and serotonin<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m not imagining things. My resilience really has been dropping<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oxytocin is often called the “cuddle hormone”. By cowards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Oxytocin? Oh yes, that’s the hormone that keeps you from eating your baby.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n –my mother<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Oxytocin doesn’t just keep you feeling snuggly. It keeps you interested in socializing. It keeps you patient. It keeps you putting up with other people’s shit<\/em>. (A link to a fascinating deep dive<\/a> if you want a citation.)<\/p>\n\n\n\nall <\/s> most of the fucking time<\/em>. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have low-grade PMS and those times, I realize now, are the Good Weeks where I feel normal and ready to deal with the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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