[ previous: "minidrama" ] [ return to the present ] [ next: "masochistic streak" ]

21 January 2002 (Monday): PMS!

It took me a long time to notice/acknowledge that I get PMS. I've been a sort of tomboy all my life (if a girl can have no particular interest in sports and enjoy baking cookies and still call herself a tomboy. Well, at least I climb trees), so I was rather chagrined to find that my emotions are sometimes beholden to my menstrual cycle. That my irrational spells fit a neat four-week pattern. Grrr.

Still, the correlation eluded me for years. I am exempt from cramps and other nasty physical symptoms, and my crankiness is still a lot more subtle than most of my womenfriends'. (When Ava had PMS, she'd snarl at me when I told her she had a message on the answering machine. It was kind of cute, but I was careful not to tell her that.) And at first I didn't take it out on anyone except myself, in private, and tried to reason through my unhappiness logically, which was always bewilderingly difficult. Thing is, PMS doesn't pluck fears out of thin air -- it just takes something that was already hovering in the back of my mind and amplifies it until it becomes a major issue. I can't dismiss its legitimacy entirely, nor can I give it the full weight it's asking for. But let me struggle with it all long enough and pretty soon you have me saying things out loud like "I wonder if I'm just worthless." Blech.

I'm having a day like that today. Luckily I've got it under control, for most part. You've got a case of the mental flu, I tell myself. Just drink a lot of herbal tea and take it easy. It'll pass.

posted by enjelani @ 11:17 AM PST