Rachael’s Story

As far back as I can remember is health class in high school. Amazing, as we all know. All I remember is my teacher at some point saying something along the lines of, “You're gonna wake up in a pool of blood one day.” So I had that anticipation and not a whole lot of talk about it from my family. Then when it actually came, which I think was pretty early for me, like 13, it wasn't that at all. And so there is this complacency towards it, but maybe also relief, but at the same time, so much dread mixed in of like, “Okay, now I have to deal with this.” And my family handled it pretty neutrally.

So I got on birth control at some point. I was lucky to not have extreme pain, but mostly just as a contraceptive. But that's when it started to really affect my moods. The part of my cycle that's always been the most intense has been how it affects my moods. I mean, on top of, just my moods in general, but I've come to realize how linked they are.

I got off birth control pretty quickly because it made mood swings much more intense for me and it didn't feel worth it. I found some other methods over time. It wasn't until college that I started to actually make that connection though about moods and emotions and the cycles that I was experiencing and how right before my bleed was always this super intense time where it was all this self-doubt coming up.

This was usually when the fights would happen the most with my partner or just like this deep insecurity was there. All the shame and I didn't really notice. That time in particular is like a landmark for me. First of all that my bleed was coming, but also that this was something cyclical. I noticed I was bleeding with the full moon and that began to be really beautiful. And it felt like something clicked when I made this connection. It must have been like three or four months into bleeding on the full moon each month. And then that continued for a whole year and it really served as an anchor point. I had that point of reference that was outside of myself and I'm very internal. I love to make connections. So I began to start making connections through just noticing that anchor point I had.

From there, I felt like I was able to give myself a bit more grace. It came and went. Still a work in progress. The inner critic always comes up. I now recognize that as a warning sign, even though it's sometimes hard to notice when I need to slow down. When my body's in pain, when my emotions are all over the place, I may not be able to control it, but I can listen to that as a signal to slow down and give myself whatever is needed. Or if it's not always possible, at least notice how I can be gentler with myself. Not that I'm perfect at it or anything, but it's just something I attribute to being able to find these anchor points in the cycle. It is this rollercoaster ride, but at the same time there's this beautiful flow in it. I’m able to take some of that blame off myself and realize this isn't my fault if I'm in pain or if I'm feeling like I'm crazy. That doesn't excuse the times that I might accidentally take that out on my partner, but I can learn from those times or other instances of just not catching my emotions or regulating how I'm overworking.

I’m coming to see it as a part of myself in nature. It wasn't until I moved to the city in college that I really started to realize how nature is the one thing that helped me come out of a deep depression. Not that nature wasn't there, there were trees, there were gardens, but there's a separation from nature that is so evident even though it's there and it's in all of us. And so through this divergence, I was able to come back and find some of that connection. This noticing of both inner and outer cycles helped me realize that the moon was my anchor point, but it's also my body. And even when I feel like it's unreliable or it's in pain and I can't trust it or I feel frustrated, there's always that to come back to.

It's hard to even remember how I used to think about my cycle or how it just correlates to how I used to abuse my body between self harm and also sexual freedom in a way that at the time felt pleasurable and liberating, but deep down it was another self-destructive method of numbing myself and not listening to my body. I’m recognizing how I've come a long way from that, but also at the same time that I'm still learning and growing and healing. And I really just owe it to noticing the cyclical nature within myself and as an interconnected part of the whole.

The more I sink into that knowing, the more everything makes sense because the world wants us to be linear and predictable and it's counterintuitive to what we are as natural beings. So I'm just really grateful to be able to tap into this ancestral, primordial wisdom that indigenous peoples of all lands have always known and still practice today and are still marginalized for. We're able to carry forward if we just notice, but noticing is just the first step. The moon is always there and so I just have this affinity for the moon, that it's something outside of ourselves, but it's a mirror that can bring us in. That's my shout out to the moon. I'll leave it there.

-Rachael, they/she, 26