The Purple Break

It takes a long time before I go to the doctor. My body has been purring obediently for over five decades. I gave birth to my daughters without an epidural. I am a "I first listen to myself" specialist, I also feel connected to alternative medicine, and when it really gets bad, I throw in an ibuprofen.

But then.

It started with a certain anxiety towards the normal things in life. Oh yes, the constant stress, I thought, just do more yoga and meditate regularly, go to bed earlier. Anxiety moved in as a tenant; it felt like nasty goblins in my body were turning on a tap, intermittently releasing a chemistry of worry, insecurity, and irritability. After a while, my daughters' looks said it all. The goblins only sneered mockingly at the over-the-counter passionflower-lavender-st. john's wort complex remedies I desperately sucked on in ever higher doses. That was phase 1 – it lasted a whole year.

Then phase 2 began. Along with the nervous tension and my carefully maintained fear-avoidance strategies, a reliable sleep disorder joined in. Snap! Every night, around 3 a.m., I would open my eyes wide awake but not rested. Great to lie in the silence of the night. Now I turned into a ghost. Because healthy sleep had always been my salvation. Even during the rush hour of life with crying infants, high-fever children, scheduling chaos, and breakup dramas, deep sleep was always my best friend, my doctor, my charging station. Had been.

I became even more sensitive, crying at every suitable and unsuitable opportunity. And because that still wasn't enough to drive me into hysteria, the legendary hot flashes suddenly set in. I had always despised those in my mother. I didn't want to have them. I had engraved that in large letters into my women's biography—oh nonsense, it was a purple glowing graffiti the size of the Elbphilharmonie: no hot flashes! Not me. "Yes," whispered the goblins, the ghost, and the hot witch at night. After only a few weeks, I felt as if I had been scraped from the inside. Was I still a woman? Not really. I felt insubstantial, my esprit had vanished, and I was actually ready to die. That wouldn't be so bad, I thought, because I feared the transcendental dimension less than the next night. My red wine consumption became athletic, "from now on it's downhill," I hummed the Knef classic.

Then began the parade of doctors and alternative practitioners. In retrospect, I have to conclude that unfortunately, it was no help. It couldn't have been because I still made a decent impression in each consultation, because I had turned into a complaining woman. I had lost seven kilos in a few months and carried black half-moons under my eyes; my only consolation was chocolate cake, which I devoured daily in children's birthday portions. My concerned daughters cooked vegetables for me—a totally twisted world. I made absolutely no secret of my dilemma, neither to my general practitioner nor to my gynecologist (who has known me for 21 years!), nor to my alternative practitioner, nor to the TCM master. I received mundane nutritional tips (eat avocado with fried egg), pills made from Siberian rhubarb (they take about eight weeks to work... I didn't have that much time left), an ointment made from yam root (definitely rub it on the upper arm... why?), sepia drops (cuttlefish against the feeling of dissolution), and the advice to call my patron saints while standing under a tree. I had lost the number.

I found the comments from women my age even more cynical, who earnestly advised me to bravely endure the inevitable menopause, after all, it was a transformation and part of being a woman. After many more long months, I found myself in a cold cave of dogmas. Apparently, emancipation ended simultaneously with menstruation. That these evolutionary-biological martyrs didn't call me a wimp was probably merciful. The goblins danced giggling around the fire—the witch arrogantly threw some twigs on it. In January, I lay down on the sofa for the final purple pause. Whatever, everything doesn't matter, I thought.

And like a flash in the valley of misery, I suddenly thought of an old friend who works as a hormone specialist in Berlin. The next day I called her, and in a few sentences, my condition was at least partially analyzed. A few days later, she drew what felt like 20 tubes of blood from me, urged me to get a mammogram, and prescribed progesterone capsules and an estrogen gel. On top of that, she explained to me – appropriately humorous and attentive – the interplay of the hormones, phase 1 (the loss of progesterone: restlessness and anxiety) and phase 2 (the radical drop in estrogen levels: sleep disorder and heat). Exactly these two phases, which had clearly marked themselves over two years, putting my body and psyche into a state of emergency. Actually not rocket science. A condition that, from her point of view, I didn't necessarily have to endure; hormone replacement therapy is, after all, a well-researched path. Not Siberian rhubarb. Not yam root. Not sepia drops. Not God or an avocado a day. When I first applied the estrogen gel, I hummed a melody confidently. I swallowed the progesterone capsule with positive momentum. "You'll be feeling really good again soon," I recalled my friend's words. "You won't feel as fit as a 19-year-old before ovulation, but definitely like a changed person." I could hardly wait.

Just a few days after taking my hormone cocktail for the first time, I actually slept through the first night for nine hours. For me, that was like a miracle. People who suffer or have suffered from sleep disorders know what I'm talking about, that priceless and wonderful feeling of being well-rested. And it lasts. My side effects so far: appetite for sex and other healthy things. I'm making plans, renovating my apartment, and every day I'm grateful for my returned carefree spirit. And the best part: the fear-goblins are calmed, the progesterone makes them nicely behaved, they keep quiet. I was informed about the risks of hormone replacement therapy; but right now, I'm just grateful to feel like a whole person again. I probably couldn't have endured the side effects of the Purple Pause for another month. I would have just stayed in bed.