Well, it has been quite a while! I have been meaning to
write but other things have been taking up my time and energy, which is a good
thing because I have just enjoyed almost an entire month without major
incident! My mood has really lifted and evened out and this has been a HUGE relief…
I seemed to reach a crisis
point a few weeks ago and though I had managed to reduce my intense rages by
taking Chinese Angelica, I was still feeling very depressed and anxious,
especially on waking in the morning. I was so very close to going to the doctor’s
for some HRT but really wanted to try and help myself as naturally as
possible. So I decided to take some action; I went back to see my counsellor, agreed
with my partner that he give me more space at home and started taking 0.5ml of
Black Cohosh twice a day. I also started a (back dated) mood diary of the last
few months so I could identify any patterns and the potential effects of herbs,
hormones and the lunar cycles more easily.
I started the counselling right at the beginning of my last
cycle. On the first session I had a good vent about everything that was
bothering me, but I was still very much 'in it'. Around this time my partner had realised that our
relationship was in serious jeopardy so he started to give me regular space to
be alone and this also took some of the pressure off. But the most noticeable
shift in my mood came when I started taking the Black Cohosh about a week into
my cycle – the depression and anxiety lifted noticeably for the first time in a
few months and amazingly, it stayed that way for the rest of my cycle – I
didn’t even have any major premenstrual mood swings. What is really interesting
is that when my partner suffered a couple of moody days, for the first time in months
I was able to avoid over-reacting to him. Instead of feed-backing off each
other and getting into a huge row, I was able to show my upset in a calm way
and then take my space until he was ready to re-engage emotionally. This really
is major progress!
My conclusion in all this is that I have definitely been
struggling with a chemical/hormonal imbalance that has been severely affecting
my mood, even to the point of making me feel suicidal. When I was ‘in it’ it was incredibly hard for me to really see this or to believe that hormones could be having such
a huge effect on me; I really wasn’t convinced that there wasn’t some other
terrible threat that was causing me to feel the way I felt. Looking at my mood diary
entries, it is absolutely clear that the Black Cohosh has been the main factor
in stabilising my moods, so I am putting my mood swings down to ‘hormones’ with
‘other factors’ having exacerbated things. To my great relief, my mental clarity also returned when my mood lifted so I was able to get on with other things – hence a welcome break from the 'blog of insanity'!
If I wasn’t already completely convinced, I became so when I stopped
taking the herb for a short break on the first day of my period and the next
day my ‘morning anxiety’ returned with a vengeance. I think it is important to
take a few days off all the herbs but I will definitely be going back on them tomorrow. (FYI, I also stopped taking Agnus Castus last cycle as I had been on
it for over three years and my period didn’t suddenly arrive ridiculously early
as I feared it would. Perhaps the Chinese Angelica and Black Cohosh are helping
keep things regular…)
Despite my conclusion that I have been suffering a ‘hormonal
imbalance’, there are clearly other issues that needed to be resolved and I am
really glad I returned to counselling so I could start to address them. As long as I was
‘under the influence’ there really was no way out because no matter what I did,
I could never seem to find my inner balance – not even sitting alone in nature which always usually works for me. I honestly believe
if I hadn’t managed to get a handle on the hormonal imbalance, I
would still be going around in circles in counselling trying to get relief from
some other perceived threat. Thankfully, the Black Cohosh did work and as soon as
the anxiety and depression lifted, it became much easier to see things clearly and
to start to figure other things out. Yay!! :)
