A Journey Through Amenorrhoea - How I'm Learning to Listen To My Body

This blog is a bit more specific towards women, specifically women who push themselves hard, who love the thrill and rush of pride after a intensive workout, who feel accomplished after that torturous but worthy run, who thrive off the adrenaline after pushing an eight hour day of work.

This is for the women who want so badly to be healthy, to strive for a lean and fit body, but without realising are committing an opposite crime. Instead of listening within, we listen outside. To what we are told is beautiful, what we are told is healthy, who we are told to be.

Amenorrhea is the absence of menstruation — one or more missed menstrual periods. Women who have missed at least three menstrual periods in a row have amenorrhea (Mayo Clinic, 2019).

The journey of amenorrhea started approximately two and a half years ago. I guess you could say there was a huge influence from social media, to look like the picture perfect fitness model. My teenage brain obsessed with looking thin. Taking photos at the end of every month and comparing them from the previous. Feeling guilty if I'd gained even a kg more. The analysis of what needed to change would happen. "Instead of jogging, why not sprint running. That burns more fat right?" The journey continued until I lost 10kg in the span of 6 months. And I felt great! I had almost no fat, plenty of lean muscle, looked the way that I had imagined and thought I was on the right track. But inside, my body was under attack. It was begging me to stop. Appearance overruled the signals inside, and slowly but surely, the periods stopped.

At the time, I didn't think of it as a big deal. It was temporary, and it would come back. I thought gaining a bit of weight would help it, but still the fear of going back to the beginning was too much.

Then I picked up a job of 8 hour shifts. Walking the whole day, 10 minute break. I thought it was good. I'm doing so much exercise! It's great for my body, moving all day. No rest, just work. No eating, just work.

This year, I started to wake up a bit. Two years without a period isn't normal... Maybe I should do something about it. After visiting my friend Katie-Grace, an absolutely incredible Naturopath, she made me wake up and face the truth. "Your body is telling you that it cannot have a baby. Something is wrong". This is when I realised, it's time to pay attention.

There are two main sources of influence I recognise which can lead you down this path:

One, Social Comparison. It's so easy as teenage girls to get sucked into this turmoil of what is healthy, what do the boys think is attractive, what is the norm online, how are these woman so fit and beautiful? We don't get taught to listen within. The forces are too strong, and the innate intelligence within is overruled by the the forces outside.

This doesn't help with the system we are chucked in to survive. the eight hours a day, intensive work. It's a disease that has been normalised in our Western world. Instead of nurturing us as our bodies should, it tells you to work work work. To DO, DO, DO. Because that's what you're paid for, right? You have to get through this report? I guess it's time to skip lunch! There's one hundred customers at the door, who cares if you've got a pounding headache, get to work.

It's driven by that feeling of guilt and shame. Guilt of being lazy while the others are pushing through the grind. Guilt of not working hard enough. Shame of taking it slower than the crowd . Fear of not doing enough.

It's warped. A system where we are trained to stay disconnected. Where we are trained to go against what our bodies need, and instead produce.

But now I stand here, as a young woman who was blinded by these forces, and tell you, you have permission.

You have permission to take it slow, to listen to your body, to take a rest when it needs, to stop when it needs. I give you permission, to take control back, to find a space that nurtures your natural cycles. I give you permission, to love your body, to take care of it.