Epi 52: I Almost Quit My Dream Because I Was In A Hormonal Crash

One glance at my Apple Podcasts stats had me ready to throw the whole dream away. I filmed a full “I’m quitting” rant, cried real tears, and convinced myself it was bravery and honesty when it was actually a crash: PMDD, perimenopause, and plain old overload dressing themselves up as clarity.

I’m talking about what it feels like when your brain gets loud and cruel and you believe it because it sounds certain. We get into PMDD as a monthly distortion field, how perimenopause can hit your brain harder than your period, and why ADHD symptoms, executive dysfunction, rage, despair, fatigue, and brain fog can suddenly feel like your personality instead of a hormone-driven shift. I also share how shame nearly took me out in 2023, and why “you’re failing” is often a lie that hides a more accurate truth: you have a capacity problem, not a calling problem.

From there, we move into practical discernment. I walk through the questions I ask when I’m tempted to quit a job, end a relationship, post something too vulnerable, or burn my life down, plus my personal rule to wait 72 hours before big decisions. Slowing down isn’t sabotage. For me, it’s how the dream survives.

If you’re navigating PMDD, perimenopause, midlife mental health, burnout, or survival mode, come sit with me. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs the reminder, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or a five-star rating on Spotify so more women can find us.

Transcript

The Stats Spiral And Quitting

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Last week, y'all, I filmed an entire ass episode about quitting this podcast and how I was done. And y'all wouldn't gonna see my face no more about how I was embarrassed as hell and I was tired. And what had happened was I started looking at some of my numbers in the back end of Apple Podcasts, which I never really didn't, I didn't understand before I could do. And I saw some of the very abysmal numbers on Apple Podcasts. Now, my podcast is streamed on Podcast and Spotify and iHeart and really everywhere you listen to podcasts, as well as Buzz Sprout and on YouTube. So there's a lot of different analytics to look at. But I saw the average numbers that the Apple Podcast gave me. And I damn near cry because I work really hard on this podcast and it just it felt like such a fucking stab in the gut. And honestly, I was just thinking, girl, maybe it's time to quit. Like maybe this just ain't working. Like maybe nobody fucking cares about your stupid little podcast, bro. Like, hang this shit up. Hang it up. Maybe it's just time to stop. But then, in between filming the episode and literally getting it downloaded into my computer and into iMovie where I typically edit it. That process usually takes a couple days because I'm not too urgent about it right after I film. My hormones cleared up. And I realized, oh, you didn't want to quit. You were just having a bad PMDD day. Your hormones was wild and out of control. And you wanted to basically throw away something that is not only your dream, but something that you enjoy doing. So while I thought I was having clarity, really, I was just having a hormonal spike or depletion, an estrogen spike or depletion, which is what happens when you're in goddamn motherfucking perimenopause. But it did scare me a little because I almost made a permanent decision from a temporary state of despair. And that is something that I also have done before on a much larger level when I was in peramenopause. I I'm still in it, but before I was treated for peramenopause in 2023, I almost took my life. I I'm not playing no exaggeration, no hyperbole. I almost took my life in a time where I was in a hormonal crash or spike or depletion. Only to later realize, like, bitch, you're in peramenopause and this is ruining your life. You have to treat it, you have to get it treated. Today I want to talk about paramenopause, PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is something I've been suffering with since I was about 33, 34 years old. ADHD and the prominence of ADHD in older women as we are struggling through paramenopause, creative burnout, living in very tumultuous political times. Every day the news is worse than the day before, and it doesn't seem comprehensible. And the need for us to be very careful about making big life decisions, or maybe even sometimes small ones, while we're in survival mode. So if you care about all of that, stay tuned. Before we get into all of that, let me introduce myself. My name is Grace Sandra. I'm a writer, author, activist, advocate, mom, and a podcaster. And you are watching or listening to the Out Here Trying to Survive podcast, a hope-oriented storytelling space where I try to give a warm hug of solidarity from me to you and all middle-aged, midlife black

When Hormones Masquerade As Truth

SPEAKER_00 3:20

women just out here trying to survive and hopefully thrive. Welcome to episode 52. But first, let me tell y'all a story. Yeah, so last week I was on the back end of Buzzstrout, Buzz Sprout. Buzz Sprout is the company I use to distribute my podcast everywhere. And I could see the predicted downloads for the next episode. And it was pretty low. But I was like, you know, I know that's an average for podcasts. Like podcasts typically in my range don't average anywhere more than between like 25 and 55 downloads. And I'm like, okay, whatever. But then it kind of was like, hey, do you want to see your Apple podcast? And I'm like, oh, sure, let me log in and see. Because Apple is about to, or maybe is now unveiling video on podcasts. And so I'm like, oh, that's another way that I can get my podcast out there, is I can now upload my videos, which is another step, by the way, when you already feel busy and overwhelmed. But I was like, let me look. And y'all, when I saw my stats in a place where I was already feeling kind of emotionally vulnerable, I cried, number one. I literally cried tears. But the next day I set up my camera and I tried to be honest about why I was quitting and why this felt like the brave thing to do. You know, sometimes the brave thing to do is to quit the thing that you love the most because you're tired, you know. And I still have that episode. I might like play a little clip from it or something because it actually could be funny. But I felt like I was finally admitting something to myself. But when I went to look back at the episode that I had filmed, the I'm quitting fuck y'all episode, I realized the lighting was really off. Like if you're watching on YouTube, my little I forgot what kind of light this is called. I forgot what this is, but anyway, this was like in a way on my face, like this. Like it was way too close to my face, and it made my face look really light. And also, there was like so many shadows, so it just looked weird. Now I don't know how this how I had it. So I don't want this episode to look weird. Hold on, let me let me see if I can find. Let me see if I can find. Okay, there you go. I think that's good. Hopefully, it's not bad. But the energy was off. So besides it just looking weird, oh, also I had the camera like over there in a weird way. It just the whole thing looked weird and I was too close. I was like this. So anyway, y'all, I quit. Let me back up. And I just was like, this is just sounds like despair. And this is not what I'm trying to do on this podcast episode. I'm not trying to do despair. The whole point is to have hope. But anyway, child, it was just like as the days wore on, I started actually editing the podcast, and then I started feeling better. And as I was editing it, I'm like, what are you talking about, girl? Like, you love this podcast, you love doing it, you don't want to quit. And while I do feel like I should probably slow down because I'm about to start a new full-time job, and I don't think I'm going to be able to produce, film, edit, and market a podcast with the same pace and intensity that I have. I don't think that throwing up my hands and saying, Well, I tried, it's not working, is where I need to be at. That was not clarity. That was literally my hormones dressed up as clarity, really just crashing

PMDD And The Danger Of Loud Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 6:22

out. Here is something that we need to learn and remember about PMDD. And this is something I don't feel like PMDD is talked about enough. I can't believe I got into my 40s, I think, before I even knew what PMDD was. It was a long time, whatever the case may be, that I was out here suffering with this shit. But I think what people don't realize is that PMDD makes you believe that your thoughts are true. And because PMDD makes you believe that your thoughts are true, it's very loud. It's not because it is true. It's not because they're wise thoughts or intuitive thoughts. It's just because they're loud and because the nature of the disorder is that you feel like it's true. You do feel like you're worthless. You do feel like there's no point in living. You do feel like everything you do is a failure. Or whatever negative thought that like takes hold of you where you have it, you recognize that you have it. You might not know you're about to start your period at all. You might not have any other symptoms other than your brain starts telling you things that feel very, very true. And then you might start your period the next literally the next day after you might want to unalive yourself on a Friday and then on Saturday start your period and be like, Oh, I feel fine. I don't want to kill myself. What the fuck, bro? And it you real recognize that it's night and day. If that's what's happening to you every month, month over month over month, sis. You might have PMDD. Please, I'm not a I am not a licensed. I ain't like Dr. Sinee, whatever her name is. Sinee Na Bryant. Okay, I'm not licensed. I'm not pretending to be licensed. I ain't a doctor, I ain't pretending to be a doctor. I got a master's degree of communications. Okay, I don't have no mental health degree at all. But what I can tell you is I'm a woman who suffered through this shit. I have suffered. I have suffered since I was 30 fucking three years old. I have suffered with PMBD. Your girl has been out here suffering. I'm sorry I'm saying that word so much, but like this has been a tremendously painful part of my life that every month I'm 49. How many years is that? That's like 16 fucking years of feeling like death itself. 12 months out of the year, right before I start my period. This is fucking insanity. Like, there's just there's no reason why any woman in 2026 should be suffering through PMDD. Let me say that I've had times where I've had relief from there because I had antidepressants that I took before I knew I was struggling through PMDD. I took antidepressants um on and off for some of those years. I also had a two babies during the time I've mentioned since I realized I had PMBD. I had two babies, so there were times I went on and off. There were times I had postpartum depression. But I had postpartum depression with all three of my children, but particularly and horribly with the last one in part because I was also enduring domestic violence at the same time that I had PMDD and depression and postpartum and ADHD, and I was in perimenopause with so many fucking things going on. I'm surprised I didn't I'm very surprised. I made it through hallelujah. Everything, hallelujah, made save my life, hallelujah. Didn't unalive myself, hallelujah, okay? But what I realized is that in those PMDD days, there were days that I would want to quit jobs. There are certain days where I would want to just end relationships like flat out. Then period starts, huh? Our relationship is fine. There are days where I don't want to send a long ass text explaining my feelings or leave tearful ass messages, but then there are certain days where I did do that shit and it's embarrassing as hell. There are days where I have posted things I should not have posted. They were just way too vulnerable. And there are certain days I never have the desire to do that. There are days where I spent money I shouldn't have spent because I felt like I deserve it and it was irresponsible. And then there are certain days where I'm like, there's no way in hell I would sabotage my finances like that. Like, bro, there are certain days where I do not try to decide my whole entire future. And then there are certain days when I do. For some of us, we have bodies that make it feel like this despair is discernment. I mean, think about how fucking crazy that is. That you feel a level of despair and it somehow masks itself as if it's discernment. And I think this really matters because we live in a culture, in a society where we are told that our intuition is really all that matters, and we're told to trust our intuition, which I have said before. You've probably heard me say it on this podcast before. We do need to trust our intuition, we do need to trust what our body's telling us, but we also have to learn the difference, and this is something I'm still learning at my big age of 49. We have to learn the difference between intuition and an entire ass nervous system collapse. Now, again, I want to just preface this by saying I'm not a doctor or even close or a therapist. Like I said, you have to seek out someone who is in who is licensed and in this field, okay? Because I can't diagnose you, but there have been friends I've said you should look into PMDD. You should also do your hormone panels and look into the fact to see if you're in perimenopause, because perimenopause estrogen spikes and depletions monthly greatly affect your brain. But there is also estrogen in all of our major organs, require estrogen. So if your hormone levels, your estrogen levels are spiking like way up higher than normal and they're depleting way day way lower than they normally do, you're gonna have symptoms in all of the ways that those major organs operate. And if your brain is getting a huge spike of estrogen or a huge depletion of estrogen and it's used to having kind of a normal amount, then you're going to experience things. And from what a lot of women are saying, and I myself experience, if you have ADHD, it goes off the fucking rails. If you're already someone who struggles with depression, it's going off the rails. If you have PDMDD and you're depressed every month for one to seven to 10 days before your period, it's going off the fucking rails. And every other major organ of your body that requires estrogen, if it spikes or depletes down to nothing, that part of your body ain't gonna work like it's used to. That's why there's like 78 fucking peramenopause symptoms

Perimenopause Hits The Whole Brain

SPEAKER_00 12:20

because it's fucking shit up. Don't let anybody like reduce peramenopause and the impact of perimenopause, the impact of it of it on PMDD, just to like hot flashes and oh my god, my periods are regular, like fuck hot flashes and fuck your regular periods. I'd rather have just have those two symptoms any fucking day. But having brain fog to the point that you can't remember like your fucking phone number or your kid's phone number, your kid's name or something when somebody's asking you a question, like that shit is crazy. You feel really undone. You feel like you can't work, like the kind of emotional intensity that accompanies this shit, the kind of rage, despair, and fatigue that you're just not used to having. Have you ever heard the statement a woman of a certain rage? Because a woman of a certain age is definitely feeling a certain level of rage about a lot of things, but especially when you're, you know, living in a capitalistic, misogynistic patriarchy that happens to be falling to fascism. You know, it's depressing. The executive dysfunction, just not being able to handle things that you were able to handle before at all, completely feeling like your life is unmanageable. It's just completely unmanageable. You cannot do it anymore. You used to be creative, that kind of creativity just disappears. Feeling like you can't keep up with anything laundry, food, your children, your self-care, working out, whatever it might be. And then just feeling like you want to burn everything down and maybe even yourself. That's a lot. It's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot. I, for one, was never told about paramenopause in general. But I think the message that needs to get out is that paramenopause is coming not just for your period, it's coming for your brain, and that affects everything else. And that should be, in some ways, the primary concern. We can deal later with, like, oh, we got spotty periods or it's irregular, it's twice a month, it's never for a couple months, and it comes back like all that shit. You know, we're women, we've been dealing with that shit. Who cares? Who fucking cares? I mean, that is not what primarily displaces women who are going through perimenopause, is not like, oh, my period is spotty. Like, we've got that shit figured out in our big age, in our late 30s and 40s and early 50s. But like the impact on our brain, the fact that you might have ADHD, the fact that you're losing motivation to do anything, even the will to live, the fact that you have this executive dysfunction and all of a sudden can't do basic shit. When you have those kind of your regulation, emotional regulation challenges, especially feeling heightened levels of depression every month, there also comes with shame. Just plain old shame can do like a big number on women. So it might feel like your whole life is falling apart. And yeah, that shit sucks. It like it really sucks really bad. Cause for me, the shame honestly is what led me to almost unalive myself in March 2023 because the shame was so intense. It wasn't just all the things I just mentioned, it was also because you're also a failure. All this is happening because you're a failure, and because you're a loser and you can't afford to even keep your housing because I was very housing insecure at that time. I mean, I had our apartment, but I was almost always going to lose it just because finances were so hard, because I was having a hard time working, because my brain was falling apart. The message to me wasn't you're doing the best you can, you're trying so hard despite all these mental health challenges. It was you're a fucking loser and you should probably just be dead. That would just be easier. So just going ahead and and while I'm not feeling any ideations of wanting to unalive myself right now, what I felt that night before I filmed the episode, which you're never gonna see about wanting to quit, was that the pace of my life with, like I said, you know, planning and filming and editing and syncing audio and uploading my podcast, making thumbnails, writing descriptions, clipping it, marketing it, making an accompanying Substack article, marketing that, juggling all of that with motherhood. And I I've been substitute teaching in lieu of you know working full-time, which I'm starting soon,

Shame, Overload, And Capacity Limits

SPEAKER_00 16:08

going to school, huge money stressors, having a little bit of a custody battle, and I don't talk, don't talk about too much, trying to navigate a very messy home with living with myself and children who have ADHD yikes, all of these hormonal fluctuations, and all of the things that all of us are going through. I mean, I don't think I'm going through anything unique that anyone else isn't, but I think that while I was telling myself you're just inconsistent and you don't deserve a platform, da da da, it was feeling very shame-based. But the truth is I've just been overloaded. I'm just overloaded. I'm overwhelmed. And at the end of the day, I'm a single mom who kill parents and I'm still overwhelmed. Like the shit is a lot. And while the PMDD was telling me you're a failure, you gotta quit because you're a failure. I realized that it's not that I'm a failure. I have a capacity issue. I don't have the capacity to keep doing this at the pace I've been doing it. And I've missed two weeks now. By the time I get this uploaded, I think I will have gone two weeks without an episode. And so the reframe in a normal day, today's a normal day. I have like a normal mood, I'm not having any hormonal spikes or depletions. So I'm like, okay, I'm a human being and I miss two weeks, but I was dealing with my children and I was paying my bills and I was substitute teaching, and I'm doing all these things. And if I miss two weeks, it's because I'm producing a show all by myself and I can't do it all. And it's okay for me to acknowledge I can't do it all. And for me to kind of write that out, journal it out, and think about it and talk about it with like one of my girlfriends. I realized it's not a failure, it's information. I needed the information, I needed that reframe. And the the lie, again, besides everything else, was nobody cares. No single person on this entire planet cares about your podcast. Girl, shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up, bitch. Like, damn, girl, you talk too fucking much. Nobody wants to hear you. But once I did the reframe, I'm like, that's not true though. Cause there are people who tell me, I like your voice. I love hearing your voice. I love hearing what you have to talk about. I enjoy it. And then there was someone who came from this YouTube channel, this YouTuber I love, her name is Stefko, and I commented on one of her videos, I guess I don't even know how long ago, about something. And a woman just recently, like a few days ago, after I filmed the I quit episode, she came on and she said, Hey, I came over from Stefco's channel and I love what you're doing. I've been been watching binge watching all day. And I was like, right when I'm wondering if my voice matters at all, a black woman comes over and comments this who came over from a different black woman's YouTube channel and let me know that she had been binge watching, which binge watching anyone is a high compliment. Like the fact that they can listen to more than one episode at once, which I do, you know, sometimes on YouTube channels, it just let me know, okay, I guess I have something to say that people are interested in. And yeah, it is, it was only one person, but that was recently. I mean, I've had other feedback along the way. I've always had feedback along the way, like, hey, I love what you're doing, keep doing, keep, keep going. But also one person saying that means the work can travel. One person means my voice is connecting somehow, it connected to her. One person means the issue might not be my work or the quality of my work, but a discovery issue, like on a real tip, like SEO shit, marketing shit that maybe I haven't done yet or thought of, or able to do myself with the capacity that I'm at. But I did kind of do a little, a little work and thinking about it, and I realized like I think this is not so much like a talent problem. I don't think it's a bad podcast per se. I think it could probably stand to be more focused and be more intentional. And getting out one episode a week would be amazing in terms of consistency. I've tried to do that since January with a few blips here and there. But really, the problem is probably primarily a distribution problem, as is the problem with most most podcasts. They're hard to get out there. I probably do have a packaging problem too. Maybe my thumbnails could be better, etc. You know what I'm saying? Like it's a capacity problem, it's distribution, it's packaging. But what I don't have is a calling problem. I've never had a sense of like I'm on the right track in terms of who I'm called to speak to, about, and for. And that's black women. So here is where I'm at right

Sustainability Over Self Abandonment

SPEAKER_00 20:18

now. I'm not quitting the podcast, y'all. But I can't also keep going like I'm a machine because I'm not. Or am I? As of today, I don't think that weekly episodes are sustainable. And that's just today. I mean, it could be in a month I'll be making enough money from my new job that I'll be able to hire an editor, and maybe I could do weekly episodes then. But right now, baby, it's too much. I might work in seasons, I might take breaks intentionally instead of like disappearing altogether. Like I said, an editor might help me return back to more frequent uploads. It would be dope as fuck if I could do two episodes a week, but like even that, the filming process takes kind of a lot out of me. But the point is I'm choosing sustainability over self-abandonment. I just no longer want to self-abandon myself at all, even when it comes to something that feels like a hobby and something that's fun and something that's a dream of mine. And I don't want to stop again. I just want to do something in a way that feels honoring to me and doesn't make me feel shame because I just felt so much shame at the idea of doing something like this, spending this much time and not making nearly enough money to even justify it with the amount of money that it costs me every month. Anyway, I'm trying to talk about two things at once here. One is all these lies that you know, PMDD and like how perimenopauses made it worse, all the lies that that gave me. But this could apply to you and other things going on in your life that I don't know about, right? Abo slowing down and realizing that slow slowing down is not sabotage. Or like maybe the lie that PMDD is giving you is that you should keep working hard no matter what, even if it's killing you. But for me, slowing down is how I think I can keep a good promise to myself and to you all, as my listeners, that even if I go away or I miss a week or two. Two, your girl's coming back. You just know your girl is struggling through mental health shit. And I have been for years and years and years, which is not an anomaly for people who have very severely traumatic childhoods. And I'm just trying to have grace on myself about that. Like that was what I endured. Clearly, it still affects me in a lot of ways. And there is no amount of try more than I have already tried. I've

The 72 Hour Pause Rule

SPEAKER_00 22:23

tried and tried and tried and did everything I possibly can to eradicate these kinds of mental health issues, but they're still here. So I have to be honest with myself. And I also have to say, I am not quitting the podcast, but I am just quitting the pace that makes me want to quit the podcast. And I am also deciding again and again and again do not make big decisions on days where I can already feel like I'm really off in a mental health kind of way. What that means for me is taking a very deep breath, several deep breaths, and asking myself who's speaking, who is speaking. Is it that ratchet little bitch, PMDD? Is it that heinous little shrew paramenopause making PMDD even worse? Is it my body? Is it my intuition? Is it my core self? Is it who I am? Because the thing is, if I take any major decision that I want to make and wait a month, because in a month's time and 30 days' time, usually I'm cycling through every phase of whatever it's doing to my brain. And I can kind of discern who I am on most of those days, who, you know, the kind of thoughts I'm thinking on my quote unquote normal days is really who I am and what my gut is telling me and what my intuition is telling me and what I keep coming back to. But if I only have like one week out of the month where I'm like, I hate everything, I hate the color red, I fucking hate red, red sucks ass. Da-da-da-da-da. But then for the other three weeks out of the month, I'm like, yeah, I like red, red is cool, red is fine. I don't mind anything in my house being red. I can look back and look at the pattern and see what the problem is, you know, and see who's speaking. And when PMDD is speaking, she just does a great job of making you believe that it's you, but it's not, it's PMDD. There's also some questions that could be helpful for you that have been helpful for me. Talking it through and working it through sometimes is the best method. Some of those questions are is this wisdom? Is it fear? Is this exhaustion speaking? Is it shame speaking? Am I tired? When am I gonna start my period next? Is this ADHD overwhelm? Is this my trauma trying to protect me? Is this my actual truth? Because the truth is, like, not every voice inside of us deserves equal authority. Sometimes the most mature and brave thing we can do is just to wait 72 hours and see how you feel, if it's any different. Whether that's you wanting to quit a job, quit a relationship, quit on your life, etc. Whatever it is, just take 72 hours at minimum. That's before you quit, before you pause, push pause on something. Before you send the long ass text, pause. Before you decide to marry him or not marry him, marry her or not marry her, pause. Before you call yourself a failure, pause. Before you call your life a failure, pause. Your career a failure, pause. Before you decide to burn the world down, take a beat, pause, let 72 hours go by, see what happens differently in your brain.

The Journal, Support, And How To Help

SPEAKER_00 25:12

And that's no matter what phase the Luteal phase you're in. And honestly, this is another reason why I created the signature out here trying to survive journal, because so much of survival is discerning these voices and trying to figure out what it's trying to tell you before the spiral becomes the actual decision before you make the bad decision that can really blow a lot of ish up for a lot of your life. And the journal is made for women like me. I made the journal with women like me in mind who are already tired and already overwhelmed, emotionally full, really kind of feels beat up by life and is starting again, trying to hear herself again. Because I realized at some point that pretending everything was fine was not working for me at all. I did that literally through living through domestic violence. I was literally online pretending like everything was fine. But this is about creating enough space between the feelings and the decisions we make so that we can actually ask ourselves, like, what is actually true here? What about what I'm feeling is actually true? Because once I got down to the nitty-gritty and I did journal and write it down, I have a scripting journal, I have a regular journal, and then I have an online journal too. It's an app that I use to journal in. And I realized after some after literally it was probably a little over 72 hours almost exactly, because it was like two, three days-ish. But when I stopped and realized, like, oh shit, I'm feeling better, my hormones have leveled out, I was like, I I don't want to quit. I'm just tired. I'm hormonal as hell, and I'm going through a few different things that I hadn't even identified yet. I lost a friendship about a month ago that I didn't really realize. Well, I did realize it was bothering me. I didn't think it was still bothering me as much as it did. But yeah, just realizing I was hormonal and grieving something, and grieving one of my best friends is really sick right now, and I was grieving that and it's just discouraged. And I realized I just need a slower rhythm. Like I'm just doing too much right now. I need to slow down. And I really don't want to disappear from something I love. Like I don't want to do that. So anyway, if you're in a season where you're trying not to burn everything down every month as a result of like some PMDD bullshit or some parametopause bullshit, or every time you get tired, or you're literally trying to consciously move out of survival mode with gentleness for yourself, with more honesty and more self-trust, I would highly suggest getting the Out Here Trying to Survive journal and trying to use it and doing those daily check-ins on your mood and what you're feeling. There's a space for free writing as well. This is a digital product, but if you open it up on your iPad, you can physically write into it. You can have it printed out if you wanted to, or you can just look at it in your phone and literally type in your notes if that's your thing. If you want it, the link is in my description box. You can just get it and look through it, sift through it and figure out what you want to say. You can write before you decide, and hopefully get to the place where you're letting yourself share your truths and it's coming from a calm place and not a frantic, hyper obsessed, sad, crazy, out of this world feeling that sometimes those PMDD days can bring. And we can just learn how to listen to our body together, how to learn the difference between a warning sign and a trauma response. We need to learn together how to learn the difference between wisdom and despair, and that being tired does not mean destroying everything. Cause I'm like I cannot live in a way where the work that I have to do is to push through at all costs. I can't live like that. The real work is to learn how to pause before we get to the point where we're abandoning ourselves, and I refuse to self-abandon anymore at all. So I pray for all of us that the next version of survival for us is not endurance. Like let's just do all these practices and learn how to endure more, how to take more pain, how to be more exhausted. The next level of growth for us is to have discernment about what we should do and shouldn't do, what thoughts we sh should have and should intentionally try to do, and which thoughts we will not allow. Because yeah, I don't think that slowing down has to mean the end of the dream. Not for me, like for the dream of this podcast to grow and become something that is really my entire career. I would really love that. Slowing down is how the dream survives. You know what I mean? Like the dream will survive because I've decided to prioritize myself. Thank you so much for watching. I know you can be anywhere on these internet streets, and I appreciate that you're here with me. Would you do me a favor and please, if you're on YouTube, make sure you're subscribed and go ahead and like this video. And as just a way of supporting me, hype me up in the comments. You can press the hype button. Hype me the fuck up, girl, please. And thank you. But also, if you're listening on Apple, I would love if you went ahead and left me a review on Apple Podcasts. It really helps get the get the podcast out there. And same thing if on Spotify, it's really quick and easy to leave a five-star review. And of course, if you're anywhere else, I'd appreciate you supporting me there as well. Don't forget to sign up for my Substack, which is substack.com at OutHereetRing to Survive. And the newsletter is an accompaniment to the podcast, but also other things I'm gonna share, like my favorite books and things I'm reading, and just more reflections on the life of a multiple trauma survivor out here trying to heal and survive and thrive. But you'll also get updates and anything that I'm doing or it's coming out soon, you're gonna hear it first on the Substack. Thank you guys so much for being here. I appreciate y'all, and I'll see y'all in episode 53. Bye.