When Grief and Your Menstrual Cycle Collide

What happens when grief collides with your menstrual cycle? In this episode of Purpose, Not Pity, Erika opens up about a deeply personal experience: a week of nonstop tears that felt like a setback in her healing journey, until she realized her period had arrived.

Grief already weighs heavy, but hormonal shifts during PMS and perimenopause can amplify sadness, irritability, fatigue, and brain fog. Erika shares how living with rheumatoid arthritis made the symptoms even harder to untangle, why so little is written about the connection between hormones and grief, and why it’s time to start talking about it openly.

This conversation isn’t just for women who menstruate. Grief collides with all of our bodies; through stress, sleep, illness, or aging. Whether you’ve lost a child, a relationship, or a version of yourself, this episode sheds light on the often-hidden ways heartbreak shows up physically and reminds you that you’re not alone in it.

Join Erika as she breaks the silence on a taboo topic and invites us to track, prepare, and give ourselves grace when grief and our bodies intersect.