Don't Mind Her; It's Just Hormones

Men may balk if they see this is about periods, but they really should read it, methinks, for a little perspective.
Yesterday, during the afternoon of my Shitty, Shitty Day, I got my period. In the space of about 30 minutes, my eye infection suddenly started flushing itself out, and my emotions just totally took a chill pill. It was an amazing emotional about-face within about 90 minutes.
It’s not that often that I get all homicidally tense with my PMS, but I was getting there yesterday as just one thing after another added up into a really crappy day. After I wrote my whining post, for instance, my website wouldn’t load for me (making me think it was down) and I discovered I had a big (like 2-inch radius) infected bug bite on the inside of my knee. Plus an eye infection? Plus my just-verified cockroach infestation? Plus my yeast infection?
My friend was visiting and I literally looked skyward and just bellowed at the rhetorical gods, “REALLY? I really needed THIS too today?”
My friend cracked up, as did I, but I sure as hell meant every word. Then he left, I got my period, and I suddenly felt mellow again. Poof. Like that.
So I think the only analogy a guy might understand about that is, “Take the exact opposite of the release from an orgasm, and that’s that.” Like, instead of a build-up of pleasure you can’t take anymore, with PMS, it’s a build-up of angst and depression and rage and confusion that can’t be taken anymore. (Not by all women, and not all the time. But it can happen. Me, maybe 2-3 times a year?) And the release of the tension provided by the orgasm, the bliss that comes with, that’s the emotional equivalent of what happens when the period arrives. Both literally and figuratively, after one of the high-pressure, volatile PMS episodes.
I’ve had times when I’ve been so angry and didn’t know why, and then I’ve gotten my period and mentally go, “Yeah, okay, now I get it. Now it makes sense. [beat] I need chocolate.”
And men, they sit around and flail hands at women on periods and go, “We don’t get it!” Well, we do? We understand why we go completely mental? We understand why something as stupid as this invisible, intangible concept of hormones can be used as a justifiable defense against murder? We understand why we get needy and insecure and short-tempered?
We don’t fucking get it. It baffles us. We spend our whole lives, practically, at the mercy of these stupid hormone things, batted about like toys in a toddler’s hands, and we never, ever really understand how it can affect us, Sane Strong Women, to the extent that it does.
But we learn to accept it and even recognize it when it’s happening. If I see I’m headed down Bitch Lane, I just try to clear the path a little, you know what I’m saying?
Maybe, just maybe, if more men stopped trying to understand periods and women’s hormones, and just started realizing that it pisses us off and baffles us too, and just cut us a little slack when these phases transpire, life would be simpler for both of us.
See, this is when it’s good to be single. Or else I’d probably be apologizing to someone today after a day like yesterday. Ha.
Fucking hormones. (But, then again, I had hormones with a side of staccato-fire reality. Never really a good combination.)
Today, however? Much, much better. Funny how that works. See? I’m not trying to understand it, just accepting it, and now I’m going to go make a frittata. Happy weekend, minions.
It’s good to be On the Other Side.

9 thoughts on “Don't Mind Her; It's Just Hormones

  1. Kat

    Its funny that. I thin the only thing about my period that I dont like is this disassociation with my emotions. Instead of being this ball of emotion or angst….I just have no sex drive. No interest in much kissing and no interest in anything sexual. Its not even a case of the blood being the problem. Its simply “I cant be bothered with it”.

    In my entire time of having periods, this is really no problem. The disconnected feeling does bother me since Im usually so open about desire and sexuality. Only 2 times has this been a *real problem* and it was becaus the guy didnt understand how a woman could get so completely disconnected with emotion. One thought I was just lying. That did evoke anger in me so I guess I am not completely emotionless.

    Kat

  2. Mary Jane

    It must be something going around the globe. Today I was greeted with the biggest cold sore I’ve ever had in my life and incapacitating period pains on top of that, and I left a big red stain in a chair in a restaurant of the fanciest hotel in London 🙁

  3. a

    i have heard a few opinions about WHY women tend to get seriously bitchy and/or weepy.

    one woman that i know who is a bit of a “mouse” and represses all her anger and frustration becomes the most evil woman possible when PMSing. whereas a woman i know (as well as myself) who is pretty well in tune with her anger and lets it out in regular doses gets weepy rather than violent. i wonder if some of it reflects some of our societal “norms” and “gender roles”.

    ….but then again, hormones do tend to seriously fuck with us sometimes.

  4. NerdGirl

    And guys is it really necessary to say “What’s your problem – you on the rag?” I mean why are you surprised there is a fork stuck in your neck after that comment?? hehe

  5. Invisible G.

    There has to be some noxious gas seeping into the Vancouver air. A good friend of mine is having a raging eczema breakout. He hasn’t had one this bad since he was six years old. Could it be our air quality is altering for the worse? [shudder]

  6. Dorimander

    Hans, not every woman get PMS. Some of us do not have period-related emotional swings.

    Women on the pill tend not to have these sorts of problems, for instance. I’d so go for menstrual suppression if I was in that kind of position. Flying to China or Japan or Africa while menstruating? Bleah. Even of Air Force One or Two, bleah.

    Besides by the time most women get to the point where they are a legitimate and viable choice, they’re post-menstrual anyway. (Not that women of menstruating age can’t be viable and legitimate choices. How old was Shirley Chisolm? And my granny didn’t go through menopause until she was over sixty. [Oh, my god.])

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