PMS + Life Don't Mix

So we’ve all heard the phrase that goes, “Merlot and email don’t mix.” Well, neither does pre-menstrual syndrome. With nothing. Not kids. Not husbands. Not work. Not friends. Not strangers (especially not strangers!). I cannot think of one thing. I feel like I have gotten particularly worse with suffering through PMS as I’ve gotten older. I think the obvious connection is that there is more stress in my life than say, my former chillaxin’ college student days. (And didn’t we all just love getting our periods back then, too? Yeah! The pill worked.)

Now I have absolutely no use for my period at all. None. I do not plan to have anymore children. So done. It took several months after my last child to come to that conclusion, but yes, I’ve confirmed, my husband and I are both done. It was meant to be two boys. No daughters. We’ve done our part in furthering the human race. Much to the shagrin of his elderly, fairly senile, mother, affectionately known as Granny ‘Ledo (the grandma from Toledo), who asks me everytime I see her, “Are you pregnant?” I’m the youngest of all the daughters-in-law, so apparently she’s hoping against hope for another grandchild. Ain’t gonna happen.

So here I am, monthly, raging. I haven’t had much success in the past with the pill at abating my emotional symptoms, and my sister-in-law, who has no uterus anymore, told me that she still gets highs and lows as if she’s getting her period and nothing happens. And when I use the term “raging” I mean mostly silently raging because while I’m suffering with PMS there’s the constant suppression of my emotions because if I were to blurt out everything I really want to say, I would have long ago gotten fired, or kicked out of my house. And while there’s the raging, there’s also the depression part of it. Like I-want-to-drive-my-car-off-the-bridge, kind of depression. It’s awful the things that run through my mind. Again, more suppression and telling myself “this will be over in a few days…”.

And on top of the emotional, there’s the physical. I am not kidding when I say I feel like when I look at myself in the mirror at my peak of PMS, my face has contorted. It is puffier. There’s a different look in my eyes. I have terribly bad hair days. And my skin is dry and itchy. I’m like a completely different human being. Fidgety all over, as if ants were crawling all over my body.

My husband has grown to know this about me, and I’ve gotten several reprieves in our marriage (but word to the wise husband: don’t say “oh you must be getting your period” unless you want sex anytime in the next decade). As for my kids, obviously they don’t understand, and I have to constantly stop myself from resorting into this evil wicked witch of the west, and I know my oldest is getting smarter now and I hate to think of the memories he will collect of his mother sniping at him. There’s just no way of explaining to a 7 year old, “Hang on, when I’m on the rag soon this will all be over.” I’ve gotten much better about it. I just resort to physically excusing myself to a bathroom or something and count to 10. Slowly.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the eating compulsion. For about a week, I eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So this week? This week has been one of those weeks. A particularly extreme bout of PMS. Seeing as though I’m not the only female in this world with PMS, how extreme is your PMS, and if it’s extreme, how do you cope?