The Versions of Me
There is a version of me that only shows up when I am not okay.
She appears, usually a few days to one week before
my period.
She could be dramatic, and in a kind of heavy, inward pull I have soon come to recognise.
I call it my "valley of darkness".
During this phase, everything feels... louder.
Not externally, but internally. My thoughts are sharper, my emotions closer to the surface, and my tolerance for things that I deem as nonsense becomes very low.
And interestingly, this is also when I have the most to say.
Ideas come rapidly.
Connections form effortlessly.
Thoughts that I normally brush aside suddenly feel urgent, important, and worth unpacking.
This is when I rant.
And more often than not, those rants turn into blog posts.
Then, just as suddenly, it all disappears.
When the Shift Happens
The moment my period comes, something shifts.
The emotional intensity softens.
The urgency fades.
The thoughts that once felt so compelling now seem… distant.
And with that, the ideas vanish.
Not reduced. Not dulled.
Vanished.
For the past one and a half weeks, especially after returning from my Macau family trip (which I am struggling to blog about), I have been sitting in this strange calm quietness.
No strong opinions.
No pressing thoughts.
No stories demanding to be written.
Just… stillness.
At first, I thought this meant I was blocked.
But what if it is not a block?
What if it is simply a shift in state?
Comparing the Two States
I am beginning to realise that my writing does not come from discipline alone.
It comes from emotional signals.
The Messier Side
When I am in that darker phase, my mind is actively processing:
frustrations
observations
unresolved questions
quiet tensions I do not usually confront
It is messy, but it is also honest.
And honesty, especially the uncomfortable kind, is incredibly fertile ground for writing.
The Calmer Side
But once my hormones stabilise, my system does something else.
It regulates. It calms. It restores balance.
And in doing so, it removes the very tension that fuels my writing.
Redefining My Own Expectations
Perhaps the problem was never creativity.
The problem was expectation.
I expected myself to:
generate ideas when I feel stable
create from a place that is naturally quieter
produce “insight” without emotional friction
But that is not how I seem to be wired.
I am not a constant-output writer.
I am a signal-driven one.
I write when something feels off.
I write when something needs to be understood.
I write when there is a question I cannot ignore.
And when those signals are not present, my mind rests.
Maybe This is Not A Weakness
For a while, I wondered if this pattern meant something was wrong with me.
Why can I only write when I feel low?
Why can I not produce consistently like others do?
But now I see it differently.
There are two versions of me at play:
One that feels deeply and generates meaning
One that organises, refines, and moves forward
Neither is better.
They simply serve different purposes.
The issue was that I kept asking the second version to do the first version's job.
What I Am Learning to Do Differently
Instead of fighting this rhythm, I am starting to work with it.
When I am in the "valley":
I capture everything
I do not filter
I let the thoughts be messy and incomplete
When I come out of it:
I revisit what was written
I shape it
I give it structure and clarity
In other words, I am learning that I do not need to create and refine at the same time.
A Quiet Realisation
Right now, I may not have new ideas.
But that does not mean I have nothing to say.
It may simply mean that the part of me that feels the need to say it is resting.
And perhaps that is just as important.
Maybe the goal is not to force consistency but to understand the rhythm and trust that when the noise returns, so will the words.
If you have ever noticed your thoughts becoming clearer in your most emotional moments, you are not alone. Perhaps there is something there worth listening to.
