In My Body, Ep. 3, Lauren Betts

Hi everyone! Welcome to the third installment of “(The Menstrual Cycle) In My Body,” with special guest Lauren Betts. 

I first met Lauren back in March of 2020, right at the beginning of COVID19. We were working on a small farm together at the time, and, needless to say, we got to know each other very well during that year. Lauren (29, she/her) is originally from Connecticut, but has been living in California for over ten years and currently resides in Santa Rosa, CA. She works for AIM (Agricultural Institute of Marin) as a market manager and specializes in providing support to marginalized farmers and producers, as well as small business owners. She has also been farming herself for 7 years, and currently runs her own flower farm operation and ceramics business. 

Lauren and I had this conversation back in February of this year (‘24), and it was a breath of fresh air in the middle of a long winter. I’ve known Lauren for years now, but never heard her menstrual cycle story, and I got such a kick out of hearing how her particular essence shows up (and has since the beginning) in her menstrual cycle journey, as well as how much her relationship with her cycle and self has grown and deepened over the years. Lauren is a deeply feeling and deeply insightful human being, and I hope everyone enjoys hearing her story and gains a little extra wisdom from her reflections. Thank you for sharing Lauren! 

RR: Ok! We’re going to start at the beginning. And this is fun because I know you, but I actually have no idea about any of these experiences. So, please tell me the story of when you got your first period!

Lauren: Ok. I’m going to set the scene. I don’t know how old I am, but I’m in Florida on a family vacation, one of maybe two that we ever took. We’re in the Keys. I’m in one of those concrete buildings. It’s hot. I’m at the beach. We’re supposed to go swimming, and I go to the bathroom and I was bleeding. Like a lot. And I don’t know whether that was the first time it happened, but that’s my first memory of it. 

And I was devastated. I was devastated because I couldn’t go swimming, in my mind, and it was just so uncomfortable. Like, I felt so trapped and like I couldn’t get up or get out of the bathroom stall because that was happening. Also uncomfortable emotionally. I was just utterly disappointed. Which is an experience I have often in my life, this utter disappointment of not being able to do what I want. And it felt like maybe that was the first memory of that experience of disappointment…when I was so excited to go swimming and it felt like it was ripped away and I couldn’t go… Ya, it didn’t fit into my idea of what should have been happening. 

Otherwise, I don’t remember any conversation about it. I don’t remember telling anyone. I don’t remember anyone being particularly useful to me in terms of explaining anything. I remember my mom getting a tampon out of a plastic bag that she had on her, but I was too scared to put it in. So the swimming problem didn’t get solved! And that’s all I remember about it. 

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RR: I have some follow up questions. But first, I feel like it is pretty significant what you just said about how your first period was the first memory you have of having this big let down or restriction. 

Lauren: Ya, I felt so restricted. And the next thing I remember was that I had a very heavy flow. And when I was at school, maybe the following week, all I could think about was bleeding on the chair. I was just horrified that that might happen on one of the plastic chairs. And I would get up every 5 seconds to check if that was what happened. Which sometimes it did!

I have another flash of having my period and having horrible cramps, and I have a memory of walking around at a football game and being in absolute distress, but still walking around. I guess, though, the quality is that I felt pretty disconnected from it, my period. It felt like a thing that was getting in my way or blocking me or making me uncomfortable or disgusting. It really felt like not a part of me. 

RR: And how about after the first time? Do you remember if it was consistent or generally how it might have been for the first few years?

Lauren: That’s amazing to me that anyone could possibly answer that question. I don’t remember! But, I think my story to myself is that it's always been extremely consistent. It comes at the same time and for the exact same amount of time. Early on it was short. Four or so days. I remember that, and I remember being very proud of that. Then I got on birth control when I was 15, and then of course it was incredibly consistent. I was on the pill, hormonal. 

RR: It's so funny because everything you’re describing feels very consistent with what I know of you. Like, the fact that you were outraged that there was this thing getting in the way of what you wanted to do and kind of…rejecting that..and also that you were proud of it being consistently four days long. Haha. It feels very utilitarian…which adds up! I think that’s pretty funny. 

Ok, last question on this part for now. I’m curious, how does it feel to be remembering and talking about this right now?

Lauren: Hmm. I feel surprised by, well, I haven’t taken a dip into my memory of being in Florida and getting my period in a while. I think actually I’ve been there many times in my mind, but no one’s ever asked me about it, so I’ve never said it out loud. And it's fascinating to me that the memory feels so readily available. And it feels good to be asked these questions about myself. It feels good to be answering them. And it's highlighting how different my relationship with my period is now. Ya, now it's like the only thing that I trust. It takes care of me. And it's so funny that before I was like, ‘how dare this wreck my vacation.’ 

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RR: Well great, that leads seamlessly into the next question..could you elaborate more on your relationship with your cycle now?

Lauren: Ya. Well, I think there’s a part of it that is functionally relieving. Like, being sexually active and all that, getting it monthly is like thank god. You know, since the age of 15… it was a thank god then, but it's a different one. It's not so much a thank god I'm not pregnant. It's more a thank god for the release of bleeding. For the release that brings to me. In a lot of ways it's a pretty intense cycle. And I'm learning that I have about two weeks of chill time, and the rest is pretty tumultuous and emotionally and physically challenging actually.

I spent most of my life thinking that rollercoaster was something that was untrackable. That I was just erratic and that there was no way to understand why I was crying for a week, it was totally untraceable. It was just like, this has no path. It felt so completely out of control. Ya, I just had no way of knowing when or why it was happening or when it would come. And it held so much more meaning than it does now because now I know it's a hormonal experience. It's like, no matter what’s going to happen, it's going to be through the lens of my hormones as opposed to me just being irreparably depressed or anxious. Now, sometimes it's still hard to understand or remember that, but I also have this timekeeper that’s telling me that anything that happens…there’s going to be this period of time during which it's going to hit really hard. Whether it's joy or sadness or pain or fear or anxiety. And often honestly at the end of the last week of my cycle, it's usually a lot of fear and it's when my brain does the trick that tells me that this is always what’s happening. You know, that story of I’m uncomfortable right now and I always will be. Or, I don’t trust you right now so I never will. Yeah, I just get pretty anxious.

But, all of that to say is my cycle is my favorite part of my day. Writing it down, what day I'm on. Ya, the days I don’t do that I feel lost. Even though it's only ever been three or so days that I’ll miss it. It feels like I don’t have my feet on the ground for those days, if I haven’t written it down. I just love doing it. 

I do have really bad pain. And I remember one single time when I felt like I could call off work and I did. And I laid down in that pain, and it was the sweetest pain. Like, I loved being in that pain. I just felt so good. I think about that all the time. It's very different to be in pain when I’m trying to mash through my day. And, ya, it's also not like I want to lay in bed all day. That’s not what it is. It's just wanting so badly to go at my own pace, whatever that is. 

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RR: It sounds like there is a big difference between being able to be present with it or not. And the choice around that versus having to adjust to whatever the day is bringing. 

Lauren: Ya. Otherwise, it's still pretty consistent. And I still feel pretty attached to that. I’m on my natural cycle. I have a copper IUD, so I guess it's not entirely natural because my period has intensified quite a bit. It's become an 8 day period instead of four. And I bleed really heavily and get really bad cramps. But, ya, sometimes I hear about people not having their cycles because of birth control and, for me, my whole body shuts down to that idea. And also, when I hear about people not being on their cycle anymore, you know being post menopausal, I feel this immense sadness. Like even though I’m really starting to realize that is probably its own whole thing. I just think it's my closest and most trusted friend. 

Although… I still do feel, like, when I have a trip planned and ...you know..it inhibits sort of free movement a bit. But also maybe it's not my cycle, maybe it's more the context I’m getting it in. You know, like it doesn’t feel like I can sort of show up fully when I have my period because I have to be hiding that I’m in pain, and I have to be covering up the fact that I’m bleeding and I have to be protecting people from my really extreme emotions that are happening and I feel...less sexy or less free moving. Because something could come out. Or, I have to be tethered to a bathroom in some way. That part still stands out. And I don’t really blame it.

I do feel aware that the world I live in … But, I've been noticing this thing, especially with my partner, I start to feel like…like I get the feeling that he is disinterested during that time, like sexually. But then, and maybe this is true and maybe it is not, but then there’s also a piece of it where my true form is alone during that period of time, right before and during my period. And I don’t think I'm really able to receive sexual affection in the same way. It's really like, I want to sort of be treated like a queen. You know! And also, I struggle with that. It's like this self imposed emotional isolation that happens that could be kind of what I need and also I struggle to actually give myself that and then be okay with what it actually looks like. The challenge of needing to be alone, and then feeling lonely. Yeah. There’s a lot in there. 

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RR: I feel curious about the other half. I’m wondering if you feel connected to your cycle in the same way in that first week or two after you’ve bled? 

Lauren: Ya that's a good question. I think that the times I miss the most days of writing down the day of my cycle is in the beginning. And I think it's because my emotional body and my physical body are less necessitating tracking because it's not the crisis or difficult time. You know, in those times I need to know where I'm at because of those things. And then the first half of my cycle sometimes blows by unnoticed because I'm not being held by those things.

But, when I tune in I feel very energized. And, there’s this part of my cycle, even one single day, in which I can do everything. Like, every task is doable and gets done. It's just this day where I’m totally capable of conceptualizing my entire life as a project. I can see the things I want to do and the amount of time I need to do them, and who’s involved. All the steps line up. It all makes sense for me. Ya, so many things feel undoable until this one day and then I can sit down and see the whole thing. It's cool, that organizing work doesn’t actually need to be done at other parts of my cycle. It's actually fine that my brain works in that way. But, if I miss that day, which happens, it can feel like I’m chasing my tail for the entire month. 

And there’s another day, a bit closer to the beginning, where I’m totally tone deaf. I just cannot recreate a melody. It's been happening for years and, I'm like, is this happening! But now I'm absolutely sure that it’s happening. I’ll be singing in my car and it will just hurt my own ears because it's so off. 

RR: That’s so interesting because I have musical moments in my cycle. Like for me normally I can hear harmonies really effortlessly in my mind, but right at the end of the cycle there’s a a day or two when I lose that. It's a state of exhaustion for me. It can happen at other times, but it happens most consistently then. And then, and this one is crazily consistent, but there is a day of my cycle, day 8, in which I just am singing constantly. Like, it happens unconsciously, but I’ll consistently have this day where I can’t stop singing and I'll get curious and look at my calendar and it will be day 8. I have a bunch of recordings from that day. It's a really creative time for me. 

Lauren: Ya, the second half is a really creative time for me too. Ya, like there’s a day where if i’m left to my own devices then I could write a song in a single day. All my songs have been written in single days, hours actually. No edits. And it does seem like that happens more in the first half of my cycle. 

But ya, the day when I can’t sing a melody, I use it as an indicator. This is not the time for me to begin doing this particular activity. You know, that part of my brain has just shut down and it is just not the time to try and make it happen. And that happens with other things. Ya, the amount of times where I don’t even bother doing something because there’s almost no point. I’ll just do it later. I’m not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing. So, it's their weird combination of extreme self trust and also not. Ya, knowing my limitations in a given moment, I think it's like a superpower and also, you know, sometimes it doesn’t line up or you still have to do it. 

There’s a clumsy day too! I just trip and drop and break things. 

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RR: I have that too. And that’s actually been shown in menstrual cycle research to be a very consistent thing. OK! I’m curious if there's an experience, be it physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, that you experience in the 24 hours, or even one, before you start bleeding?

Lauren: Ya, I guess more physical. It's almost like, at that moment, it feels like there’s the most pressure. In my mind it feels like the biggest wall. Ya, the biggest, most sturdy wall between the blood and the…out. And the idea that its coming, that the wall will come down, is emotionally a relief. But I usually can’t identify it until I start to bleed, and then I’m like, all right, it kind of catches up. 

I also think I notice when I'm ovulating. I get a cramp. And it always scares the shit out of me. And I get pretty horny around that time. But it's more a physical experience, where I'm like, something is happening, and it's not my period, so it must be the other major shift. And that’s what I'm assuming it is. It's only one single time it happens. 

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RR: I’m curious, and you’ve touched on this a bit, how your cycle shows up in relation to your sexuality or at work, in relationships, or other areas of life?

Lauren: Ya, at work there are some days I go in and I'm like, I spend almost a full eight hours doing nothing. 

RR: Haha ok we won’t share this with them.

Lauren: No, you can tell them because they know because they’re watching and it's horrible. And, it feels like it's a waste of everyone’s time to force that day, or couple of days. It's right before my period. Another thing that’s been happening at that time is I’ve been falling asleep in the daylight, which relates to my commute…you know when I commute really early in the morning, I’m really having issues keeping my eyes open with this level of exhaustion. 

And then there’s a time, this isn’t really work, it's more relational, but I have some experiences of being really, like very stereotypical PMS where people are talking and I’m saying mean things about them in my head or trying to hurt them in my head or just being sooo annoyed.

Ya, my study of my cycle in my relationship has been the most potent lately because it's a really clear mirror of how I’m showing up. And for a while, we were really struggling at that time before I get my period. Yeah, a lot of things were playing into it. The annoyance piece was playing into it, and the lack of trust or safety piece, and the fear. Yeah, my fear was really heightened. And then, we realized what was happening and it was like, you know, it was interesting…or, you know I’m feeling a bit self conscious talking about it because it's really a very solo experience. But, it's been fascinating. Because at other times I haven’t been able to really communicate what was going on with the person I was spending time with, or they weren’t paying enough attention to catch on. And in this particular relationship, because of kindness and care, and maybe just because of the way his brain works, he was like, it's this date one month ago, and before, the same thing was happening. And it kind of started to serve as a way for him to really receive me differently during those times that I was struggling.Ya, it's good. It doesn’t even feel like I could begin to describe it really… I feel very held and also very witnessed. 

And then there are also times where the relationship itself will trigger a spiral that's only made possible in that last week before my period. That could look like my not being able to stop crying for hours. And, how do you do that with another person?! Like really, how do you even start to do that with yourself? You know, it's horrible and I have never, yeah, I think there’s this really interesting dichotomy that’s been happening where …ya there’s that annoying thing where people are like ‘Oh you’re just on your period’ you know? But then, there’s also something really valuable about that because they’re able to understand that this is true, but also not true…maybe at the same time. And to be able to make the space for that, and hold it, and acknowledge it, forgive it, and then move on. I’ve never been with a person who even tried before. And I’ve never been able to really open up to it. Really just let it happen. And probably, you don’t always need to open to it in the presence of another person because it's like…you know…leaning all the way in sometimes is just sort of really tortuous or not really necessary. But ya, sometimes I need it. There’s not one answer. 

Yeah, my experience of it right now is…I've spent almost three years maybe since I’ve known you, I guess, on the journey of learning this about myself. And now I’m going through it, like, witnessed consistently. And that is a different thing. 

RR: I’m struck by so many things you said. But I think, most of all, what you spoke to, with your partner being able to experience you in that way. It sounds like he was able to stop the cycle of needing to react to what you were experiencing as something that had anything to do with him, or even you guys…and just witness you. Which is, so the human experience. Like, I think everyone wants that. Yeah, that’s so…I’m gonna cry again. That’s pretty cool. But yes, the conflict of it not always being the right thing to do or avenue to go down. It's hard. It's confusing. No answers here! 

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Ok, switching gears. Do you have any cycle related goals, hopes or intentions?

Lauren: There was a time when you were drawing like, 6,000 circle on a piece of paper and doodling on them each day. And I wanted so badly to do that or feel called to that. But I never have. I think it's hard to do anything every day. But, as I say that, I’m like, what the fuck! Like, it's not that hard. But, you know, like three years ago I said that..so I don’t know. I haven’t found a way that works for me to really actually keep track every day. And dates are so tough for me. Like, my sense of time is really a complete scramble and it's hard for me to linearly keep track of things. There are things I know so deeply in my body, but I could not really tell you when they happened. 

But, I have a really deep desire to be grounded in the timing of it. So that’s one thing. And another is, this feels like the classic thing in terms of people talking about their cycles. But I want to plan my life around it. Like to an extent, you know, I can’t choose when other people do things, have parties and what not. But, when I take trips or, you know, where in my cycle I’m going to be at the end of the month..or even in seven! It would be hard, but even just a little bit of that lining up. I’d love to be able to take a sick day the first day that I bleed, but of course I can’t always just drop out. 

Also just keeping better track. I’m also wanting to better understand the physical mechanics of it, you know. Like I was just thinking about it on my way to work the other day, how I still don’t really know what is happening. I had these horrible cramps last month, I threw up from them. They were so bad. And I was like, I don’t even know what a cramp is. Like, I don’t know why you get cramps. I don’t know what causes them or where they actually are. So, I think some education for myself around the mechanics is what I’m needing, for some peace of mind. I think that would bring the next layer of deeper understanding. 

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RR: Ok, You’ve touched on this  a little bit, but I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit to your experience of birth control over the years?

Lauren: Ya, I was on hormonal birth control since I was 14 or 15. And I don’t know enough scientifically to talk definitively about what happens when you’re on birth control. But I have a hunch that it was really affecting my emotional well being. And, when I was 15, or after I’d been on birth control for about a year or so, I was also put on something for ADHD and depression. I forget the name. It was something my dad was also on. And I was basically under lock and key, it was a very intense little drug. And I pretty quickly figured out how to abuse it. Like pretty quickly I was like, if I add caffeine to this mix, I’m like bouncing off the walls. Or, if I add alcohol into this mix or whatever. Ya, I don’t know how to explain it. A memory that is coming up in my head is I was in the bathroom before going to school and I was like, ‘oh my god, this is the happiest moment of my life. I’ve never been happier. I’m so in line with the world. I’m crying. I'm so happy. I’m so lucky.’ But, I’m like sitting in the bathroom in my high school! You know. 

RR: What I’m hearing is, it was a very internal experience. That didn’t have a lot to do with the world outside. I can understand that. 

Lauren: Ya. And when I went to college, I was like, for whatever reason, I was like I should stop taking this. And also birth control. And, you know, it's pretty dangerous to blame anything directly on anything. So I don’t actually know. Observations without conclusions. But, I got off birth control and I guess I really felt like it had been messing me up. Ya, it's been many years since I’ve been on it and I wouldn’t go back on, for myself. Yeah, my internal experience can be whacky! And, you know, I don’t blame or credit you with this, but the amount of alert to any sort of change in my bodily experience, it's almost obnoxious. It's like, I can really feel any tiny shift. 

For a while I was doing a micro dosing of mushrooms, you know, an almost imperceptible amount. And, it will say online that that amount doesn’t do anything, and I’m taking like an 8th of it, but I can feel it. So, I really notice these little shifts. 

RR: This makes me think about something I read recently. I was reading a Taoist book on sexual reflexology, and it said in the book, and it was such a light bulb moment for me, but it basically said that women, or people who have internal genitalia, are naturally drawn to look inside themselves and focus on their internal experience. Because they have to, in order to understand themselves. Whereas men, or people with external genitalia, they focus on the outside reality, because for them…it's all out there, interacting with the world. And, obviously its a big simplification, but I also just loved that because it felt so simple and like it highlighted this baseline difference in perspective or attention focus. And it said in the book that sometimes the biggest challenge for men and women in a relationship is learning to communicate around that difference in perception. Anyways, your moment in the bathroom stall really makes me think about that. And also that hyper focus on the internal, how it can be annoying. I think that is definitely a good thing to notice. Sometimes we need to notice, to become aware, but then ultimately…really learn how to just let it go and actually not focus on it. Unless of course it needs some specific attention or action. 

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