From First Flow to Flowing Through Life

Hi there! My name is Dominique and I am so excited to share the first offical menstrual cycle related blog post on my new platform Flowing Through Life.

There's a lot to dive into concerning the choice I made to start this platform, what it actually stands for and how I want to show up in the world to help people, but mostly menstruators, finding the power within their flow.

Because that's what it is; one of the most powerful tools in the world.

But before I go into all of that, let me start by talking about where it all started for me.

It’s only fair that when I encourage the world to talk about the flow of life more openly, I start by sharing my own cycle story.

Hi, it is I! 👋😃

WHERE TO EVEN BEGIN

Let's try at the start.

From a young age, my cycle mostly revolved around inconvenience and getting, or rather trying not to get, pregnant. It never even occured to me it's a superpower which would eventually help me achieve my goals (or rather, guided me from the start), navigate my emotions better, and give direction to my life in a way I could only ever dream of.

It really took me a while to realise the beauty and power of living cyclically.

And in saying that, let's not forget about the lunar cycle, the seasonal cycles, the solar cycles, the cicadean rhythm and so on.

I'm glad I am where I am now, though. And if anything, I believe there is a reason it took me a while to get here. I had to experience all the things I experienced in life to get to exactly this point.

I believe there is a reason for evertything that happens in our lives. Good or bad.

Is there even a good or bad? I don't even believe in that really. But that's a topic for another day.

If we find the courage let go of the reins we hold on so tightly all the time, we will collectively discover where the beauty of life is hidden and was hidden all this time.

It's where Flowing Through Life really starts.

Time to dive in.

THE FIRST OF MANY

Bleeds, that is.

I didn’t exactly remember how old I was when I got my first period until recently but I have always remembered which underwear I was wearing. I also remember I was shopping with a friend and her mum when I felt unwell and wanted to home to lay on the couch.

Which I did.

Now that I think of it, that first flow wasn’t even an actual full on bleed. It was bloody discharge more than anything. But I did feel all the feelings and I knew this was the moment I had, supposedly, turned into a woman.

My mum handled the situation like a pro. She wasn’t too pushy or too loud about it and she created space for questions from my end. She showed me which products she used and made sure I was comfortable and let me be. She made herself available for any questions whenever they came up but wasn't pushy about giving me all the ins and outs.

Other than that afternoon on the couch I don't have many vivid memories about how things went from there on. I just remember getting my period quite often.

I was lucky enough to not experience awful period pains, but the frequency and irregularity of my cycle did start to take an effect on my life. I must have felt embarrassed to talk to friends about what was happening to me because I had no idea if anyone else was going through the same thing. At the young age of 13, I just knew I didn't want to have to deal with this uncontrollable inconvenience much longer. Not if I could do something about it.

I have since learned this stage of my cycle is called menarche, and it is perfectly normal for it to be irregular at the start and as long as the discomfort doesn't turn into outrageous pain and the cycle stabilises within a maximum of 2 years after the first signs of menarche, that's a huge sign of a healthy cycle.

PILL TO THE RESCUE

It was just before my 14th birthday when I was on a city trip to Rotterdam with my friends and I remember calling my mum in despair, begging her I could please go on the pill as soon as possible.

In saying this, I realise how absurd it now sounds for me to have been on a city trip with friends at the age of 14 haha. I was a very independant child and my parents trusted me. I veel very blessed being raised by such free spirits.

Anyway.

At that time, my periods were coming every other week at that particular point in time I found myself in a toilet looking down into my underwear which was drenched in period goo and blood and I wasn't prepared fot it. I didn't know much about what was going on but I knew this; there was a pill that could stop all this madness and I wanted that quick fix more than anything

And my mum, bless her, didn't raise questions when I asked her if I could go on hormonal birth control at such a young age where reasons most mums would. She knew I didn’t have a boyfriend and was trying to get on birth control to have unprotected sex. I wasn't even thinking about sex at that age.

I think.

No, she knew I was suffering, and she made an appointment at our doctor’s office to get a consult to ask about what our options were.

The doctor was on board with my request pretty much straight away. No alternatives were given and I walked out of the office with a prescription for the pill not long after my 14th birthday. I know my mum wouldn't have agreed to any of this if she knew what we know now or if this wasn't the only option for me to not feel miserable almost all the time. At least, not the only option that was shared with us at the time.

Because it wasn't just the irritation around the irregularity, it was also my lack of energy and low immune system that was starting to have its effect on my day-to-day life.

And there was something else. There's always something else.

With all the other inconveniences of puberty kicking in, so did the pimple parade. I got on the Diane pill, the strongest pill on the market then, right from the start to manage the acne and the irregularity of my very fragile cycle.

And from that young age, my hormonal birth control story kind of took over the story around my menstrual cycle story for the following 16 years.

GOTTA CATCH THEM ALL

And I think I did.

Most of them at least.

Methods of hormonal birth control that is.

I was on and off (mostly on) birth control before I decided to go off them completely at the age of 30. I didn't actually try them all, but I was well on my way of getting the full bingo card.

Aside from the hormonal birth control pill, I also used the implanon for 3 years and a bit and by my late twenties, when I had gone off of birth control methods a few times already, I tried the nuvaring during a sfling I was having at the time. That situation came to an end quite quickly and so did the Nuvaring story.

I switched between different methods of hormonal birth control for various but the main reason always was not to get pregnant.

But it wasn't just that, it was also the fact that I was still scared for my cycle being as irregular as it was at the beginning because that's the only way I remembered it.

As previously mentioned, I didn't know then that it's completely natural that a cycle's can frequency fluctuate in the early years of young menstruators. It literally ebbs and flows and is irregular and quite frankly, just a pain in the ass, for the first couple of years for most girls.

In all honesty, if I knew that then I'm still not sure whether I would have been patient enough to wait a couple of years for things to settle naturally but it would have been nice if I had gotten a broader explanation from a doctor with some alternative options that didn't just include hormonal medication so I could have made a more informed decision about how to proceed back when I was 14 years old and who knows, I might have not gotten on the pill after all.

I stopped using hormonal birth control just before I turned 30 and I think that was one of the best decisions I ever made.

And the beautiful part of this story is, is that I am now ready to be an advocate for young girls going through their menarche and giving the explanation they need and deserve. Girls need to hear how normal it is the body takes time to adjust to such a beautiful new system that is introduced during menarche. They should also know that when there is extreme pain or irregularity involved, a doctor should be there to offer help to support the health of the cycle rather than putting young girls on hormonal birth control to manipulate a beautifully natural system.

SO, HOW DID IT FEEL TO GO OFF HORMONAL BIRTH CONTROL INDEFINITELY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 16 YEARS?

Honestly? It was the most liberating thing I've ever done in my life.

I feel more like me than I have ever before.

I have been connecting with my body on a deeper and deeper level every day.

Once I was off hormonal birth control, I started experimenting with measuring my temperature and eventually tracking my cycle it in my journal and Iphone Health app.

And in terms of not getting pregnant; I started insisting on using condoms more and more. It also helped I didn't have many sexual partners anymore from that time onwards.

Sex positivty alongside talking the menstrual cycle is also very important to me. That's why I will zoom in on the "many sexual partners" side of the story another time. It's a time in my life I also refer to as my Rural Twenties. And boy oh boy, were they rural at times.

It was and still is my long-term goal to know my body so well I can trust it to know when I can and can't fall pregnant ut without a long-term partner in life, and therefore a very low risk of getting pregnant, I have decided to focus on getting a regular cycle first.

Due to my nomadic lifestyle, a traumatic sexual assualt that happened in my mid-twenties, and being on hormonal birth control non-stop for nearly 16 years (which in its own way is a traumatic event just as the sexual assault I experienced),, my cycle hasn't been regular since I got off hormonal birh control almost 4 years ago.

And for those who are new at this; Western medicine states a healthy cycle should be somewhere between 21 and 35 days. However, according to my reacher at Cyclical School, 21 days is too short for a cycle to be really healthy.

The most important thing, though, is the regularity of it. A fluctutation of a couple of days from cycle to cycle is nothing to be worried about, but my cycles have been anywhere between 17 and 54 days from the moment I started tracking her back in 2022.

And this is one of the main reasons I enrolled in a course that focussed on the art of Menstrual Cycle Coaching.

I wanted to learn how to live in alignment with all the miracles the menstrual ycle has offer (yes, also and maybe especially when we bleed), and use natural remedies to support the cycle, and maybe, eventually, even get a regular cycle.

Since I started focusing even more on my diet, supporting myself with essential oils and other natural remedies, spending a lot of time in nature and with like-minded people, and turning off of the contrant noice of (social) media as much as I could, my cycle has since gone to a variation between 22 and 28 days approximately. Which is a huge win for me.

The actual best remedy to everything 💛

So, there you go.

That's my cycle story in a kinda sorta nutshell.

There's so much more to say and I am very excited to share more about my personal journey but also to share about the wisdom I have since gained that might be very useful for you too.

Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or would like to chat about the beauty of the menstrual cycle yourself more too.

All the love.

Xoxo Domi