Saturday, November 10, 2007

Pretty Much a Dead Dog

PMDD for short.

Hi. I'm Jane. I suffer from PMDD. My mood swings would make an angry water buffalo turn and run back to his mommy.

The first step is to admit that I am powerless over my hormones, and my PMDD has become unmanageable. (Isn't that the first step?) Whatever. My brain hates me and always has. The chemicals and I, we don't get along.

Today has been a very sucky day that way. I am grouchy and energetic by turns. The girls and I raked the yard - so fun! There are pictures!! The sun! The fresh air! Then I threw a petty fit and had to go put myself in time out. Bad Mommy. Then we played. Yay! Then I took a three hour nap. Boo. (I tend to sleep a lot when I'm depressed.) Then I made soup! Yay! Then bathtime was a disaster. Guilt. Living with me must be like riding a damn rollercoaster. The kind where you get stuck hanging upside down for three hours, or where you hit a bump and get decapitated, or where small children are thrown from their harnesses.

I am the Carnival Ride of Death. My family must love me.

I went on the Pill at 14 to help control this, and stayed on it until I found out I was pregnant with the Bear. (Yeah, you read that right.) I went back on briefly between kids, went back off, went back on after Tank was born, and then went off a year after Husband had his vasectomy. I was all, why put artificial hormones into my body, why not let my body do what it was intended to do, why not embrace all the aspects of my womanhood, blah blah fucking blah. And at first, it was not bad. My cycle finally settled back into a regular pattern (31 days exactly), my periods are shorter than ever, the cramps are almost nil. I could love this. But a week before my period, I am like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Seriously. Just that one week. For the rest of the time, I feel like I'm pretty stable. I don't know. Husband, what do you think?

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that I'm considering going back on the Pill just to control the damn hormonal fluctuations. It has worked for me in the past, but I really don't want to if I don't have to. Still, if my pretty impressive drug regimen doesn't control the raging PMS, what else is out there?

Meh.

2 comments:

Julie said...

I've been contemplating the same thing, actually. The emotional stuff for me only lasts a day or two, although I'm sure it feels like forever to my poor family. But the period itself is a bitch too -- I've actually felt faint because the flow is so heavy.

Still, to go back on those damn pills, when we paid for the vasectomy just to avoid them. Argh.

Jane said...

I know. We got the vasectomy for the same reason - I didn't want to be on the Pill anymore. I was all, like, no more synthetic hormones! And now, I really want them back, because they kept me from biting the heads off of live chickens.