Some Days I’m Not Sad. I’m Just… Tired of Being a Woman.

There are days I wake up crying and I swear on my life, nothing happened.

No trigger. No drama. Just my body glitching like a secondhand radio.

And all I can think is: “Is it me or my hormones? Is it real or just the usual womanhood glitch again?”

Because I’m over the “strong woman” aesthetic. I want peace. Sanity. Maybe even a consistent personality for once.

The Key Takeaway.

Being a woman sometimes feels like living in a haunted house, you’re trying to be normal, but every now and then something invisible throws a chair across the room. And you’re the one apologizing for it.

What People Never Tell You About Women and Mental Health.

Everyone says “check on your strong female friends.” What they don’t say is “check if her period is around the corner, her brain is melting from hormonal shifts, and she’s silently disassociating in a group chat pretending everything is fine.”

Mental health in women isn’t just trauma and stress. It’s biology, identity, it’s this weird performance we’re forced to do 24/7 so people don’t label us “too emotional,” “too dramatic,” or my personal favorite: unstable.

Women and Mental Health: Hormones, Identity and Balance.

Hormones.

Baby, if you’ve ever cried over an ad, started an argument you didn’t even believe in, or felt 17 different emotions in one morning, congrats, you’ve met your hormones.

These things run your life like a toxic ex who still has your Netflix password.

One week you’re thriving, organizing your life, meditating, journaling, clean girl aesthetic.

Next week? You’re crying on the floor, ghosting your friends, binge eating Pringles and watching old TikToks of your ex’s new girlfriend. And the worst part? You don’t know which version is the “real you.”

Identity.

Girlhood is a scam.

You grow up thinking “being a woman” will feel like Beyoncé in a pantsuit. Instead, you feel like a background character in your own life, performing femininity, fighting for sanity, trying to make everyone else comfortable while you quietly fall apart.

• You try to be soft but strong.
• Nurturing but independent.
• Sexy but modest.
• Happy but not too happy (because then you’re “intimidating”).
• And when you finally scream for help? They say “are you on your period?”

Balance.

Balance? LMAOOO!

The world loves a woman who “has it all together.” But what does that even mean?

A clean house? A stable job? A flat stomach and no mental breakdowns?

We’re expected to manage our careers, bodies, families, friendships, traumas, and still smile in selfies like everything’s chill.

NEWSFLASH: We’re not okay.

We’re balancing our sanity on top of broken hormones, unpaid emotional labor, generational trauma, and the constant pressure to be likeable.

• You ever cried and didn’t know why?
• Felt ugly for three days straight?
• Felt like your body was rejecting your spirit?
• Like you were outside yourself watching you ruin your own life and not even stopping it?

Yeah. That’s womanhood.

It’s not all empowerment and aesthetic brunches. Sometimes it’s waking up and fighting your body just to feel normal.

No one talks about:

• The week before your period when your brain turns into a horror movie.
• The identity confusion of not knowing who you are outside people’s expectations.
• Those tiny, daily micro-breakdowns you swallow because “you have work.”
• The guilt of wanting rest but feeling lazy.
• The fear of being labeled “difficult” for simply having emotions.

They don’t talk about the emotional hangovers.

• When you finally feel better but now you’re dealing with shame for how you acted last week.
• You apologize for your body. Your mind. Your feelings. Like you’re an inconvenience for existing.

Let me say this loud for the women in the back: YOU ARE NOT BROKEN.

• You’re not crazy.
• You’re not too much.
• You’re in a system that punishes you for having a body that feels deeply, a mind that changes, and a soul that’s exhausted from pretending it’s fine.

AND YET, WE KEEP GOING.

We show up.

To work. To friendships. To expectations.

We slap on makeup, rehearse small talk, and show up even when we’re dying inside.

Because that’s what women are taught to do.

Survive. With a smile.

But hear me now, you deserve more than survival.

• You deserve rest. You deserve slowness.
• You deserve to exist without always explaining yourself.
• You deserve to say “I’m not okay” without people treating you like a project.

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH HORMONES?

Let’s get one thing straight: You don’t “deal” with hormones. You survive them.

• Like a natural disaster.
• Like a tornado in your uterus, a thunderstorm in your brain, and a serio flood in your tear ducts.

But since we can’t legally quit our hormones or unplug our ovaries (yet), here’s something unhinged I’ve learned in the trenches:

Track your cycle like your life depends on it.

Because it kinda does. You wanna stop thinking you’re crazy? Start realizing that every week, your brain is basically on a different drug cocktail.

• Week 1: You’re Beyoncé.
• Week 2: You’re horny and reckless.
• Week 3: You’re crying at toothpaste commercials.
• Week 4: You hate everyone, especially yourself.

It’s not you. It’s biochemistry. So stop letting every mood swing ruin your self-worth.

• Sometimes the enemy isn’t your mindset.
• Sometimes it’s estrogen going, “Let’s mess around with her today.”

Eat like you love your own brain.

I knowwwwwww!

But sugar crashes, processed food, and starvation diets?They make your hormones angrier than a stereotypical mother when you tell her you’re depressed.

Eat your proteins. Fats. Complex carbs. No, not in a “clean girl aesthetic” way. In a “I need to stabilize my moods before I stab someone” way.

Rest like it’s your God-given right.

It is your God-given right. End of story. 

NOW, HOW DO YOU GET YOUR IDENTITY BACK?

Girl. That question should win a Nobel Peace Prize at this point.

Because this world doesn’t just chip away at your identity, it steals it in pieces and tells you that’s “maturity.”

Unfollow the noise.

You’ve absorbed too many opinions. 

Too many rules. 

Too many “this is how to be a woman” posts from people who don’t even know who they are.

• Block the Instagram girlies with the perfect routines if they make you feel like garbage.
• Mute the friends who mock your sensitivity.
• Reclaim your mental space like it’s sacred. Because it IS.

What would you wear, say, or do if NO ONE was watching?

Seriously. If there was no mirror. No audience. No likes. No aunties judging.

Who the hell would you be?

That girl? It’s you. That’s the real you buried under trauma, performance, shame, and capitalism.

Start doing small things for her. Not for likes. Not for approval. For HER. For YOU.

Stop tying your worth to how “productive” or “put together” you are.

Your identity is not your hustle.

• Not your GPA.
• Not your thighs.
• Not your boyfriend.
• Not your glow-up.

Your identity is that deep, weird, fiery spirit inside you. The one that still believes in love. That still dreams. That still laughs too loud.

Start honoring that version of you. That’s home.

HOW DO YOU FIND BALANCE?

You don’t.

And that’s the biggest lie they sold us:

That “balance” is a destination. A lifestyle. A Pinterest-worthy schedule where everything fits into neat little boxes.

HELL NO.

Balance is a battlefield.

• You wake up and FIGHT for it. Every day.
• You fight to keep your mind intact.
• You fight to rest without guilt.
• You fight to say no without explaining.
• You fight to feel joy in a world that profits off your exhaustion.

So let’s redefine balance:

• Some days you journal. 
• Other days you scream into your pillow.
• Some days you show up on time. 
• Other days you vanish from Earth.
• Some days you’re the mom friend. 
• Other days you’re the emotionally unavailable gremlin.

And BOTH are okay.

Balance isn’t perfection.

Balance is permission to change, to rest, to fall apart, and still be whole.

Your Verbal Slap and Hug In One.

You’re not crazy.

You’re just a woman.

A whole ecosystem of feelings, chemicals, thoughts, stories, traumas, and dreams.

• You’re not meant to be consistent like a robot.
• You’re meant to be wild. Complex. Changing. REAL.

Some days, I don’t want to “heal.” I don’t want to journal or meditate or do yoga. I just want someone to say: “Yeah. Being a woman is very hard. And you’re doing amazing just staying alive.”

So if no one else says it to you… I will: You’re not too much. The world is too little. Being a woman is very hard. And you’re doing amazing just staying alive.