I get a team. It's ups, it's it's Nicole Morrison, it's Tiffany and Cook, it's us, it's you. It's the fucking new Project for the fifteen hundred and thirtieth time, or something like that. Tippany an Cook over there with the wrong promo behind her, as is always the way, not representing the U Project at all, but some opposition podcast. I will not even mention the name of Hi Tiv.
I'll be sure to snip out a visual promo from this one then, if I've decked it out the right way. Really, will you make hay while the sun shines?
Will you? I see what you're doing there using my show to promote your show, Like, oh my god, did I leave that up?
That happened? Oh?
How did that exactly? Nicole? You know what she's up to. There's a bit of subterfuge. I'm not even sure what that means, but I think it's I don't know, Tiv, what's going on over there at you Central.
Oh it's been a busy old time. I feel like I haven't seen you for so long already. I feel like it's been days and days.
Well, you and I normally do three and sometimes four podcasts a week. As we record this, it's it's heading towards three pm on Wednesday, avough, and we've done fuck all in the industry in one another. No, no, well, here we are to remedy that. Nicole Nikki Morrison.
Hi hllo, here you going.
I'm well, very good. That's beautiful audio you've got there. That's beautiful. Now it's two thirty nine. As I said, I think I rang you at about two twenty three, which would be yeah, sixteen sixteen minutes ago, and I said, do you can't do a podcast? And you went, oh sure when? And I went about now? Then you went, oh right.
Okay, then I'm going to get a call at this time okay, and I wait for it.
Yeah exactly. Yeah. What he's not ringing because he loves me, He's ring because he wants something.
Yees.
Yeah, that's my way at least. I'm as long as you're transfer.
Straight about it, exactly exactly.
So a month or two ago you and I were chatting about a condition. Do we call it a condition?
Yeah?
So we call it a condition that I've never heard of, which that doesn't mean much, but for a bloke I probably know a fair bit about women's physiology and medical conditions and biology, because I spent the best part of forty years training more women than I did men, including elite athletes, more women than men, and a lot of
the general public. Huge amount of my work was with the general public, and as I said to you before, you know, dealing with you know, or working with women who were going through menopause, perimenopause and you know, younger women and women with eating disorders who are a men a rehea because did I say that correctly, who don't have their period, and women who suffer from postpartum depression and all of those things that you know, women have to deal with and navigate at various stages of their
kind of journey. And so it was a steep learning curve for me over the years, especially when I was in my twenties and was even more of an idiot than I am now and trying to you know, that's one of the really interesting things as a young trainer, working with people with issues that you're never going to have right and trying to understand that and then support
them through that. But anyway, one day you were feeling shit, correct me if I'm wrong, and we were chatting and you told me that you have that you suffer from a thing called pre menstrual dysphoric disorder. Did I get that right?
Yeah? You did?
You ever heard of that? Tiff night?
Yeah? Many ends?
Yeah, me too. So let's let's start with the obvious. What is it? Okay?
So, a lot of women suffer from pre minstu symptoms prior to their menstrual cycle kicking in. And that can be anything from having certain food craving, so then bit tied, fling, bit luck, whatever the case may be. Pre menstr dysphoric disorder is all of that on steroids.
Wow.
And it lasts. It sort of kicks in about a few days before your cycle is meant to kick in, and then it lasts several days after the cycle ends. So it kind of feels like you might feel normal for two weeks out of every four weeks.
Wow. Yeah, And so sometimes half of your life you're kind of dealing with this.
Oh gotcha? Absolutely?
Wow.
And that's and for me, as I've gotten older, the symptoms got more intense in terms of For me, it was migraines, nausea, just incredible helvic pain, and just anxiety. Depression moods. It was like I became a different person and then it had stopped, and I sort of look back and go, what the hell was that? What just
happened there? Because I didn't know what was happening, I didn't think to connect the dots as I just went through that for years, and I learned about premature disphoric disorder purely by chance when I was talking to a girl who's actually a patient that I was caring for at the time, and she was starting to explain some of the symptoms that she had and I'm like, yeah, I kind of get that too, and she's like, Nikki, it's a real thing. I'm like, what do you mean.
I thought it was just me just being me and me just having to deal with it. She's like, no, it's an actual condition called pre minster hisphoric disorder. I belonged to a research group about it. I belonged to a support group about it. It's starting to get more traction in terms of being known in Australia and in terms of psychologists starting to do more research into it and how to treat it and manage it. And that's where I started to learn about it. But Prior to that,
I've just been trying to survive. Really, I have a confession I have. I was familiar with PMDDY. I just was googling, went, oh, this is the yes, so I actually am familiar with it.
Yeah, it's and.
Look, there's a whole range of symptoms that A lists and you know, everyone's going to have their own experience of that, and you won't necessarily have all of the symptoms. I had like a handful of them, and others will have different ones. But it's thanks acutally well. In my experience, it took over my life and was exhausting to the point where I thought something that had changed one wow. You know.
You know what's interesting is before we progress, everyone Nicky was worried. Before we not worried, but just concerned that this would be confused with medical advice. This is not medical advice, This is not a recommendation. This is just this is really an education for me and maybe for some of you around something yeah, and trying to open the door on awareness and understanding and you know, maybe we can push the needle a little bit on something in their space, which is what I want to do.
But you know what's ironic is so you've been a nurse for a long time and you're a high level nurse, you're very qualified, and you also you're a death dueler, and you do you work with people at the end stage of life, and you work with cancer patients and you do a lot of amazing But you had a patient teach you about.
I know, it was literally were she was about coming to the clinic, and I went out to the waiting room just to have a chat with her before she came in to see the consultants. And you know, we've become good friends along the way, and yeah, she was just telling me about some of the things that she'd been experiencing and just surely happened by chance. And it was like, oh my gosh, maybe it's not just me. Maybe this isn't all in my head. Maybe this isn't
me just being weird. Maybe this is an actual thing. And from that day on, I just felt relief.
Tell us about your experience, Nikki, up until that point in time, because I mean, we had this chat months ago, but I feel like you told me that basically, some people, Yeah, some experts in inverted commas that you've been see have kind of like, you know, you know, jog it out, it's in your mind, or it's like you're overreacting. All women go through this like chill out and stop being a big baby kind of.
Yeah, when it was getting really bad, sort of into my mid to late thirties, I was really starting to look, look at this is taking over my life. I can't function like this anymore. So I started to you know, I speak to different endocrinologists and different medical medical professionals in sort of the gynecology area, and often, don't get
me wrong, somewhere wonderful. But I had to get through a lot of hoops before I found people who would believe me and support me and provide me with the management that I needed to.
What does that mean? Tell us about the hoops that you had to get through. Can you give us? Is it just just that they didn't believe you?
Yeah. I remember clearly sitting in one GP's office and I was practically in tears in front of us, saying, this is my life. I'm not functioning. I'm going to have a breakdown if it's something doesn't happen, And she just said, you're thinking about it too much, and I was like, right, so that occasions like that were really demoralizing and disheartening, but also just I admitted, you know, stand up for myself because as a nurse I've encouraged patients to be their own advocate and to have their
own voice. And I thought, I've got to do this for me now and and not give up, and not give up. And thankfully, you know, going through a lot of different specialists and trying so many different medications and that often made me worse, but you know, that was all part of the experience and in terms of trial and errorfying it find out what I actually needed to
deal with my particular case. Yeah, it's been a long journey than many years, but thankfully in the end I met with specialists who were compassionate and listened to me and understanding and believed me and took me seriously.
So where did you start?
Like what?
So finally somebody listened and I mean, are there I guess there is, but are there people who specialize in this or you know, in all this is within their speciality where they deal with this, and they went did somebody go, no, Nicole, this is absolutely real and you're not crazy, And yeah, right, tell us a bit about that that person and that process.
My friend who first told me about PMTD told me about a research group that she was involved with, and I subsequently contacted them myself because I didn't know where to go, and I thought, Okay, I'm just going to do this and see what happens. Anyway, the head of that service, who's quite a and I pushed psychiatrist, actually rang me herself and spoke to me on the phone and listened to me and listened to my symptoms and I said, does that sound a bit like what I
think you're talking about? And she's like yes, And I said, trouble. I can't live like this anymore. It is horrible. You're not making it up. And I'm go and speak to us. And that was I think. I don't know. I probably did cry on the phone because I was just so exhausted by that point. Just to have someone believe me, to have a professional believe me and validate me and acknowledge what I was saying and not dismiss it as I'm overreacting or I'm building it up in my head.
That was that really started to change the course of how I started to deal with it.
It's It's like there's there's two like there's two issues, parallel issues. One is the physical pain and then the other is the psychological anguish of people going it's not real, nik exact thinking you're thinking too much, Nikki. Yeah, I mean that must have complicated and compounded the issue.
Oh god, yeah, I was. I was a mess. I was, and I'm not trying to be dramatic about it, but I was so stressed physical and mentally emotionally, just from trying to find someone who would believe me and would try and help me navigate this maze that I felt I was locked into. Yeah. It literally felt like something's going to give sooner. I'm going to Leprescen.
Yeah, could you I know this is probably hard to do, but for me, the dude who never has to deal with stuff like that, obviously, but could you try to help me understand and maybe some of the other men who are listening to this and some of the women who were unfamiliar with it, and maybe who have sailed through I don't know, but those of us who don't get it, try to give me an insight into the physical reality, Like what like if you got it, like a like a level seven out of ten gut ache.
Is it like excruciating acute adominal pain? Is it? What is it?
It's like everyone's going to be different. Obviously for me, I would just get like a head fog that would sort of develop into migrain nausea that was so intense that I just I couldn't move, you know, or otherwise I just haven't had in the toilet bowl because I just couldn't go anywhere else, and burning pain for me in my back, and you know, as it kind of got worse and worse, just it was like I'd been hit by a bus and I just have to literally I would have to sleep off a couple of just
lose a couple of days in sleep because I couldn't deal with it any other way.
And that must be hard for you because you're the least lazy person. I know.
It was so stressful because you know, I was trying to hold down my job, which was being different were more difficult to do because I couldn't show up because I was so affected, and that psychologically that was playing on me too, and just yeah, I just have to sort of step off the world for a few days just to try and cope with it.
If have you had anything in the ballpark? Feel free to not answer anything. I don't know if I'm allowed to, but feel free to tell me to. You know, I'm like, fuck, where do I which doors can I open? I'm in this conversation. But does any of this resonate for you or what are your thoughts around this?
When I was a teenager, I had quite a turbulent time with my hormones and I got monthly migraines in the lead up to starting to have a cycle. And when I went on the contraceptive pill as a teen I had a lot of mood issues in finding the right pill, and that was feedback from Mum. She's like, you're a little bit like you have to go and get that change. So there was a yeah, yeah, And I get a lot of I'm a sugar head a couple of days before I crave sugar big time the
day the day before my cycle starts. And maybe if I tracked moods and symptoms and watched them a little more carefully, I would probably see more. But nothing that's stabilitating like what Nicky experiences. But I do know people that are and just.
On the mood stuff. I'm a fairly steady, calm person generally, but when all those symptoms were ramping up, I was looking to have a fight with someone or I was so depressed that I just was it was a struggle for me to get out my front door.
Because also, also you live by yourself. I mean there's not like there's someone else in the night that can bring you a glass of water or just check in on you, or sit on your bed and hold your hand and have a chat. That must have made it worse, right, yes.
Because I just sort of isolated, because I just so stuck in it, and I just kept on sort of getting deeper down the rabbit hole. And it got to the point where I said to my mum, Okay, Mom, I'm going to text you every morning just to let you know that I've gotten to work today, because it was so it was a battle to get out of the door sometimes and if I could text her to say I got to work, then I was like, good, she's out the house. She's made to get herself together
and get herself off to work. That was when it was really bad, and when I wasn't getting any making any headway in getting treatment, So that that was That was pretty massive, and I think that put you know, bless my mum. She has just been an absolute rock and an angel. But yeah, there was a point where I had to move back in with my parents because I couldn't handle living by myself anymore. I feel, say by myself.
Wow. So I'm going to ask you a hard question, which you are welcome to decline. Sure, but you've spoken very openly about you know, we've both spoken about eating disorders, disordered eating body dysmorphia, and some of the weird and wonderful and borderline crazy shit that both you and I have done with food, with exercise, with obsessive, compulsive, addictive behaviors.
Do you think that any of the stuff that you did as a kid and as a young adult brought this on, impacted this, intersected with this, or do you think it's it's completely genetic.
I've asked myself that so many times, and I've had to work through a lot of guilt and shame about all of that, because I thought, have I caused this well to the point where the managements that I had to have surgically changed my life. So I don't know. I can't answer that definitively part of me has you know, just really beat that horse to the nth degree. And I thought, Nikki, you just can't keep going down.
Yeah. Well, I mean for me, it was more out of curiosity because trying to figure out you know, maybe I don't know, like in science, were always like, what's the mechanism? How does this thing work? Did I do? Did I do something or not do something? And and for me, it's definitely not about blame or self loathing, just understanding and awareness, you know.
Yeah, and maybe halps, I don't know. I just sort of thought, look, nick, maybe contributed, maybe it didn't. You can't know that. You can't change that, so you just got to get on with it.
Yeah. Yeah, so you mentioned, well you mentioned a treatment that changed your life in some way. Can can you talk to us about that?
Yeah? So I'm in my mid forties and I had when I was getting serious about looking at what are some viable treatment options for this condition? I kept on coming across surgery, and the surgery that I was looking at would be removing the uterus and the ovaries, so basically removing my reproductive system. And given I was about forty one or forty two. At the time when I was looking at that, a lot of practitioners were very reluctant to agree for me to have that surgery because
they thought, you're too young and it's too drastic. But thankfully, in the end, I met with an endochronologist who just worked with me and collaborated with me and believed and saw what I was going through, and she referred me to a surgeon, and all along the way it was made very clear to me, You've got to be aware that this is a life changing decision that you're making. You know the consequences. Take your time to make the decision,
because it would mean I can't have children. So after a lot of thought and just not being able to live that way anymore, the only option I did have left to me was to have the surgery.
And is that a common treatment path, Nikki?
It can be. There are other options, certainly in terms of different medications to help you manage the symptoms, different lifestyle behavioral modifications that you can make. Oh, I was doing all of that and I was not getting any better. It was I was just like keeping my hand above order. So at the end, in the end, it felt like for me, it was the only choice that was available to me.
And now I'm going to ask you a weird It's not weird between you and me because we know each other well, but it might be a weird question in the context of where we've been so far. But I know that you're a very spiritual person, and that you know, you're probably more heart driven, soul driven, spirit driven for one of a better term, than you are brain driven
in your life. Is that an accurate comment? Yeah, yeah, which is not to say that you're not smart and don't use of course, I mean you've got multiple degrees. You're highly intelligent, But so did you. I know that you always kind of tune in, you know, like to the universe, to God, to the trees, to mother Earth to you know, you're always when I talk to you, you're like, you're always tuning into something. Yes, thankfully, thankfully it's not fucking Instagram, right, So to I'm glad you're going.
I'm glad you go into a better source than most of us. Did you do that? Did you pray? Did you meditate? Did you seek? Did you and what kind of happened in that?
Oh? Gosh, yes, I prayed, I meditated? If we said, what do I do if I don't have the surgery. If it's not the right thing for me to have the surgery, then I won't have it. Then how am I going to function? How am I going to show up in life? How am I going to contribute to life the way I want to contribute? Because I can't
survive this. I don't see it well. I mean I couldn't see the time how I could survive it otherwise in terms of being able to continue to work and function and show up as the person wanted to be in my life and in my family, and and you know, just for myself as well. I was losing myself.
So when you're asking these questions, right, and you're in this kind of you're opening this spiritual door to connect to an intelligence or wisdom or whatever. You know. I know, different people believe different things, but something greater and smarter and wiser than me and you, right, and tip like you to connect. Are you looking for clarity? Are you looking for calm? Like what is it that that happens
that kind of tells you where you go? You know, it's like I feel a sense of calm or confidence or knowing about.
This for me, it's off and a real process of journaling and writing and talking about it with trusted others and doing a lot of prayer about it, and really just going into I guess for in a better way to put the real bets of myself to go, Okay, how do I what do I do? Where do I go from here? It's I sort of have to make my way through all the layers and all the talk and the chatter in my head of do these do and go okay, I need to find the stillness around this.
I need to find the stillness. And for me, a part of that was a lot of walking in nature, because when I'm out in nature, that's when I feel grounded and calm, And often that's when I feel like I get the clarity that I need or I create the conditions that allows that clarity to come through. And it just when I got the sort of the the guidance of Nicky have the surgery, I just thought, Okay, I'm just going to sit with that. But it was consistent over a period of time and I just thought, well,
that's it. Then it wasn't dramatic, it was just it was calm, it was clear, it was concise, which for me is often the way that the guidance appears in my heart. As I said, okay, m but it's definitely a process for me.
Yeah, So I mean, I want to chuck in a red herring here, but just because I thought of it, And if you haven't heard Nikki before, this might not make much sense, but I'll try to make it make sense. So one of the things, So there's a thing in Victoria called assisted dying. Is that what it's called? Yeah? And you are sorry, what's.
Called elementary assisted dying?
Right? And you are a what do we call you?
Like?
You help people on that journey through that process. So what's the name for that? Like for you life an end of life tooler? Okay, like doing your job, which is I mean? And I also know that you volunteer and you work with homeless people, and you work with addicts and alcoholics and men in prison and you do and I know that you don't want accolades and you don't want glory. I know that. I know that. So this is me just telling people kind of who you are.
And then you spend your life in service helping sick people, and then you spend some of your time helping people die, you know, I mean like that, I don't can't think of another way to say it. Okay, is yeah, it is what it is, isn't it. How does all of this and I know this is a little bit of a left turn from our chat until now, but how
does this inform your thinking and decision making? And I don't know direction, you know, when you're you know, like you deal with some what would for me and Tiff probably I can't speak for Tiff, but for me anyway, this would be very confronting, hard stuff that you do every day. How does that impact how you manage you or maybe you're thinking, or your gratitude or your I don't know. It just seems like that must really impact the way that you do life.
And me, I think it's a privilege to be in that position and be in the sacred space of all that intimate private space of others. And it makes me fit how I say it, it's feeds me, It nourishes me, It enlivens me. To be in that position, to be abut off the kindness and compassion and human wrongth when some run is at their most vulnerable is extraordinary. There aren't words to describe it, well, I can't find them, but it is it's like my heart and my soul is alive in those moments.
Wow wow, I.
Think, yeah, it's like un lit up on the inside.
Wow. Do you think that that that role amongst the other roles that you play? But I don't know. We talk about purpose a lot in our culture, right whether or not it's preordained or me ordained, you know, whether or not we've got to discover it or create it or choose it. Like, what do you think your purpose is? I mean, I know that's a big question, but do you do you have clarity about your purpose?
I think it ultimately. I feel like my purpose is surface and that can take different iterations in terms of h I guess my my sort of overriding prayer that I put out there is placing where you want me to be. So sometimes that's that's the cold face in terms of you know, being right in the thick of an acute hospital doing treatment, diagnosis, all that sort of stuff. And at other times it's been at the end of
life where it's a totally different environment. But it's ultimately I see all of that as a function.
Mhmm.
Yeah, And you know, just service. And I don't mean that to sound you know, I don't know weird, but just ash giving, sharing human wants and compassion, and that is something that all of us can do with each other and it doesn't cost, but it can make so different in someone else's life. Just such a difference for someone to feel that they're acknowledged and they're known acknowledged
and they're known and they're seen, you know. That's that's especially in my work in like one of the major public hospitals where there's a lot of homeless and like disenfranchised people, to see them as the person rather than to see them as patient X or medical number four seventy nine or whatever. But to see them and to go up and you know them as a person. You know, there's I don't think there's any greater gift than for someone to feel that they're being seen and heard and
listened to and acknowledged and cared about. Giving someone out of time, that is the most precious thing.
So my prayer tonight is going to be, dear sweet baby Jesus, make me more like Nikki. All right, let's just I could listen to you. I feel like I want to talk to you when we open the door, and you kind of share like truly, I don't know that you know for me, I don't know how everyone else feels. But I find you very inspiring and also, Craig do better.
No, no, no, I'm just I'm just one person just having a crack and you know, learning from others. And I work with amazing people who inspire me and humble me and just lead the way for me. They like them for me. So I'm so privileged to be in those spaces.
So it's not it's I know, I know, we know. There's no chest beating coming from you. I'm doing it for you. All right, let's just wind up. Tell us, so you had that surgery, what was the outcome? What you know, if you could tell us in a few minutes kind of the without rushing you. If you need more, that's fine, but like, what was the outcome of that? How long before you felt different or better or you didn't feel different or better? And where are you now?
So I think it's been really two years, I think off the top of my head since I since I had the surgery. It's been up and down for sure, in terms of just all of a sudden, you know, major bits are no longer in my body. My body's like the hell, you know, and just trying to balance hormones and biochemistry. That's been It's been really up and down at times. Within the past that's probably six months.
I start to feel like I'm coming out of the postop sort of recovery period of it in terms of I think my body is starting to stabilize a bit more. I still have symptoms will on a better way to put it, but they're nowhere near as prolonged or as debilitating as they were, which I'm so grateful for this in the sense that I've got my life back today in that I can say, yeah, I will, I will show up to that because I'm not trying to think,
oh my god, what's my body going to be? Like, where am I going to be that, What's going to happen? Am I going to be able to function that day? I'm able to function more days than I'm not. And they's just been so precious, the whole precious, And.
I guess on top of what we spoke about before, the dealing with the emotional and psychological and not being believed and all of that as well, as the physical pain and debilitating kind of stuff, which you mentioned. The third bit to that is work and not wanting to let people down, patients patients down, or your colleagues down, and not wanting to be seen as being that unreliable chick that keeps taking time off because oh she's sick again.
Yeah, that was excruciating, absolutely xcretiating for me. I was really fortunate to have some very compassionate and kind and understanding managers and it was my responsibility to be upfront with him about what was going on. That's what That's how I felt about it. But yeah, that's been excretiating.
As always, we love chatting with you if people want to. And I know you're not the spokesperson or the advocate, but in this three way conversation you are. If people want to find out more, what is it? Just like, go, do a Google search, do some reading, watch a video or two.
Yeah, I think you've got my email address and I've been more than happy to put on the links that I've that have been shown to me.
Would you are you happy to tell people your email or do you want them to come via us?
Come by you? Great?
Yep? Okay, so just send it to Craig Harper dot net. If you want to Nikki to connect with you and stee you in the right direction, that'd be great. Uh what did you think of that? Tip?
Could listen to her all day?
Really sweet, isn't she?
Yeah?
But no, I think that was There'll be so many people that will probably feel heard for the very first time, to be honest, so some like.
If if it is relief to someone, you know.
The funny thing I was going to comment earlier when I googled it and realized I had heard of it before, but I didn't. I didn't remember the full name, but the classification of it being a mental disorder when it's a it's a hormonal issue, and I find that is really perplexing and has a lot of stigma and causes, shame and causes. So it's really tough.
You know. I literally asked myself, how many times am I going crazy? This is it? Some lose my mind? Now it's all done, it's all over.
You are crazy. But that's a separate issue. Yeah, yeah, that's different, Yeah.
In a different way.
But also having an understanding that those hormones drive behavior like even and this is like what tiny version of it.
But when I.
Realized that those days before my first day of my cycle, with the days that I was just losing my shit on sugar and binging, yeah, this shame and self loath and I dropped because I went, oh, oh, that's just that thing that happens for one day and I let it go on. And then it's like sometimes I just do it and I let it go and I go, that's okay because there's a reason. It's not like, oh, you've lost it. Oh you've just lost control. You're going to be a fatty hounders every day of line.
Yep. I was just trapped in that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's yeah, I was just trapped.
In there, Nicky. We appreciate you. Thanks for coming to play on the You project. Thanks Tiff, Thanks guys, Thanks so much.
Tiff.
Good to see you again.
Yeah, so good to see you. Look for to seeing you again and