“Hello.”
“Do we have any hazel nuts?” said my fourteen-year-old son Yohannes.
“Umm . . . I don’t think so,” I said. “Why?”
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m at the ranch with Laurèn.”
“I want to make Nutella,” he said.
“Nutella?”
“Yes. I need hazel nuts.”
“You could try a bit of almond butter and . . . “
“Okay. I got it.” He hung up.
I arrived home after a day at the ranch that lasted too long. The countertop, splattered with nut butter and chocolate, looked like a battlefield with spoons and forks as the weapons. The faux-Nutella sat in a large glass bowl. Yohannes had used the entire jar of almond butter, and a bag of chocolate chips lay annihilated on the counter.
“Yohannes!” I yelled. He came upstairs.
“Did you try it?” he asked enthusiastically.
“WHY did you use all the almond butter?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” he answered.
“Do you know how much that jar cost?”
“Nope.”
“That jar was like thirteen dollars, and the chocolate chips were probably another gazillion. You could have taken a trip to the Nutella factory in Italy for less than that!!”
“Mom?” he said, “you okay?”
“You only needed a couple of tablespoons! What are you going to do with all of that?”
“I’ll freeze it,” he answered.
Clearly I had taken leave of my senses and could not be trusted to interact with other humans. I waved my hand at him and went to unpack from the ranch. When I turned back, Yohannes was gone and so was the faux-Nutella.
In the freezer I found the glass bowl of chocolatey goodness—with no lid or plastic wrap! I did what any sane and attentive mom would have done. I yelled and stomped on the floor over Yohannes’ bedroom. He showed up in the kitchen (brave kid).
“What were you thinking!!” I asked. Not waiting for an answer, I took the bowl from the freezer and threw the whole thing into the garbage.
“What are you doing?” Yohannes asked.
A reasonable question, to which I replied, “AUGGG!!”
“I could have put it in a container,” he said.
“But you didn’t put it into a container, did you?! It’s just going to get freezer burn, so I’ll throw it out now and save myself the trouble later. Do you even watch me? Where do you get your ideas from? I don’t even know who you are anymore!”
I stormed up the stairs, slammed my bedroom door, and sat on the floor and sobbed.
***
“Peri-menopausal rage” — I’d heard it called on “Not Your Mother’s Menopause”, a podcast by Dr. Fiona Lovely.
Me? I don’t have PMS. Why are you looking at me that way?
No . . . pffft . . . I’m not crying because my Starbucks card ran out and I forgot my wallet.
You think I’m over-reacting?! Ohhhhh… I’m picking a fight with you?? YOU used my favourite coffee mug! WHAT. DO. YOU. HAVE. TO. SAY. ABOUT. THAT?
Really, you think you're having a rough day? Well, my uterus is sliding out through my vagina. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT FEELS?
Rational thought runs into a wall; the brain gets electrified from too many signals at once; the thing that triggers the rage becomes an insurmountable problem; and conspiracy theory abounds as you imagine loved ones laying awake plotting ways to make you S-N-A-P.
***
Scientific evidence is plentiful on the changes that occur in the brains of peri-menopausal women. In The Wisdom of Menopause, Christiane Northrup writes that “differences in relative levels of estrogen and progesterone affect the temporal lobe and limbic areas of our brains, and we may find ourselves becoming irritable, anxious, emotionally volatile” (p. 38). But, she also says that PMS and the ramping up of symptoms during peri-menopause are a call to check in on your inner guidance — it could be that we need to tune in and take control.
Of particular interest is that research cannot differentiate between the hormone levels of women who experience PMS and those who don’t. Every woman shifts gears, but not every woman drives the emotional rollercoaster that causes her family to be afraid and nauseous during the sudden descent (into hell).
So, it’s not the hormones alone.
Why — during one week do I come home and crash headlong into a rage over something as insignificant as homemade faux-Nutella, and in another week I’d pop a slice of bread into the toaster to sample the product of my son’s creativity? Why do I become the Tasmanian Devil a few days before my period, and Tweety Bird a few days later? But not every cycle.
It’s complicated.
Dr. Northrup summarizes it this way, “it is the particular combination of a woman’s hormone levels and her preexisting brain chemistry along with her life situation that results in her symptoms” (p. 43). God help me! The symptoms of PMS are “begging us to look up and see what’s not working in our lives” and attend to it (p. 40). If we don’t, there is an urgency during peri-menopause and the symptoms escalate.
Any psychologist will tell you that anger is not the first emotion. I didn’t go nuts because the jar sat empty on the counter, or because it was worth more than a case of peanut butter, or because Yohannes doesn’t watch me and “do as I do.” NO, I went berserk for (at least) two reasons: First of all, I was tired - I’d taken an emotional beating and truly just wanted to get into bed (but couldn’t); and secondly, my inner guide took a holiday — no actually she was gagged and kidnapped some time ago —so I’ve been winging it, and not listening to the wisdom that my ill-contrived behaviour is trying to convey. Selective deafness.
So, if you are reading this and you are still in your thirties (or forties) heed the wisdom of your inner guidance system and make necessary adjustments—every bloody month.
References:
Lovely, Dr. Fiona. “Not Your Mother’s Menopause”. Audio podcast. 2018. https://drlovely.com/podcast/
Northrup, Dr. Christiane. 2012. The Wisdom of Menopause. New York. Bantam Books.
