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focus On nutrient dense foods

Magnesium, vitamin e, omega 3, high fiber foods. Ginger, peppermint, chamomile tea. Red raspberry leaf tea is that bitch!!! It’s helpful to supplement throughout the whole month, but you can really treat yourself to dishes that include these right before and during your cycle. I also have the Internet that there has been a correlation with PMDD and people having a low tolerance for histamine. They state that taking an allergy pill helps. I can’t speak more on this, but that’s something you can look into.

@mossyelfie

Feb 8, 2025

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Your body will regulate itself

For your skin, you can take spironolactone— it’s a much lower dose estrogen, so it won’t have as many symptoms (at least in my experience). But also, your menstrual cycle, and your skin, will have changed over the past five years— if you want to go off birth control, you may find being off it feels better on your body. I went off birth control 3 years ago, and my periods are more regulated now, and my body feels better. Some practical tips: Keep a journal/track your cycle as you go off it, and remember it will take a few months for your body to regulate its own cycles again. Be generous with yourself— you and your body are on the same team, and if you get crampy or cranky or period anxious, that’s your body communicating with you. For the first few cycles, really plan your week around your period: I use my period as a week of rest, and now I look forward to it. I skip exercise classes, I eat iron rich foods, I go to bed early and I hang out with my girlfriends. Think of your period as your body “wintering”; a season of rest and dormancy so that you’re reenergised for the rest of your cycle. If you notice a change in your skin, you can start by using clindamycin topically— it’s a low dose antibiotic, and it will help stop breakouts from spreading. You can also try a retinol and a good moisturise.

@nadiyaelyse

Jun 3, 2024

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Vitamins + your cycle

D3, B12, Iron. Zinc when sick. Also, if you are someone who has a menstrual cycle, keep in mind you are going to look different based on where you are in that cycle. Not all mirrors are the same, either. I’ve found I will find myself beautiful and grotesque within a few hours, so I can’t trust my own perception of myself. I just work on being a good person and hope that shines thru lol

@mossyelfie

Nov 5, 2024

Top Recs from @nadiyaelyse

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You are only mundane to yourself because you are so familiar— to everyone else you are new

Firstly, I’m so sorry you’re feeling that way— that’s really crummy, and I’m sure that once you feel that way everything feels like confirmation of being unspecial. But in a very very real way, you might be bored with yourself because you know yourself so well— other people don’t know you. You could walk into a bar or a cafe or an event and you would be new to at least one person there. If you feel like you aren’t interesting conversationally, are you a good listener? In a very honest way, the people I’ve found hottest and most intriguing are always good listeners, and people who are quiet and incisive. It’s okay if you don’t talk on and on; a lot of “interesting” people are just filling space with noise. Noise is always briefly exciting or interesting, but that doesn’t mean it has substance or adds value. Trust me on this, I’m a performer and frankly so many nights I’m just making noise. So first piece of advice is, approach yourself as if you were a stranger— look at everything about you like you’ve never ever seen it before, and start to notice what you like. Then build on those things. Like, it’s okay if you hate your clothes, but do you have one jacket/shirt/earring that you love? Wear that so much, and slowly look out for pieces that make you feel like the thing you love— it’s okay if it takes time, the outfits that make me feel dynamic are all cobbled together from stuff I found over years. Then look at other people, what do you find interesting about them? I am a knockoff of every woman I ever thought was cool— my summer camp counselor, my gender studies TA from my first year of college, my mom, and literally everyone else. That’s okay though, mimicking what you like is a way of developing your taste, and you will put yourself together in a way that’s a little different and totally your own. It’s okay if it takes time— sometimes we have seasons where we don’t like ourselves a ton, but they do pass, and who you will be in a year is a brand new person— you haven’t met them yet, and you might love them. Tiny practical advice? Go for walks; it’s good for your body, it releases endorphins, and it gives you a chance to people watch/observe nature. Read something small; it can be a single poem, or an essay, or a children’s book— I love Howl’s Moving Castle and if I’m feeling stuck in a rut I read that, even though it’s a children’s book. If reading isn’t your thing watch a movie or a TV episode, but whatever you consume, watch it and take notes, like you‘re a secret critic— note what you liked, whether it’s costumes or language or the vibe, and what you didn’t, and then you can find more things like it— that’s how you develop your own taste, and it’s a good way to develop language around art and media. All critics and essayists and everyone whose job is to write interestingly about art started with shit they liked in middle school, and built on that to find their own language— you can do that too. Sorry for the hugely long post, but I promise that you are more interesting than you give yourself credit for, and there are people in the world who will see that.

@nadiyaelyse

Feb 19, 2024

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transparency is not the same as intimacy

This was really impactful for me; the analogy is, your life/your heart is a room (or an apartment, a space, etc) and relationships are all about inviting people into that room. Intimacy is letting them into the room and knowing that they might touch stuff, move furniture around, or change the way you’ve laid the room out. Transparency is letting people see the room, but keeping a glass between them and the space— they can see, but not touch. I think relationally we all have impulses toward transparency instead of intimacy, and it’s easy to say “I let you look at my room, that was intimacy,” while maintaining the glass that separates people from the room. Be intimate! Let people pick up the tchotchkes in your heart and move the furniture.

@nadiyaelyse

May 28, 2024

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Let it die

I like to let my phone die— I often don’t charge it overnight, and try not to plug it in during the day. If you’re able to access work/school through only your laptop, let your phone die, or leave it on the plug in another room. I also delete most apps from my phone for periods of weeks, and minimally use social media— if this works for you, it can feel very liberating, and makes me feel much less constantly accessible (which I think is a good thing). Something that helps me is thinking about the flattening of correspondence; before social media, if you wanted to communicate to a friend, it was one-on-one— you might write a letter, or call, or email, but what you were doing was conversational and relational. When we use social media, we flatten a lot of individual relationships into one relationship between us and our “audience.” Instead of sharing a thought or comment intended for one person, and designed for them to reply and continue the correspondence, we put out press releases on our own lives: “this is what I had for breakfast,” “this is a meme about my mental health,” and we become part of a passive audience in our friend’s lives. We end up feeling like we’ve just seen our friends, because we’re “viewing” their lives, but actually apps leave us feeling very isolated and anti-social. Try deleting your most used social media apps, and also schedule a walk/movie night/coffee with a friend. Outside of radical deletion, pick an audio book to listen to, and pair it with a hands on/tactile activity: you could load the dishwasher, or draw, or try embroidery.

@nadiyaelyse

Jul 29, 2024