The Gift of PMS
/As I sit and type the tears roll down my cheeks. Great heaving sobs leave my body. Four days ago I was as happy as I could’ve been and yet today I sit here a broken shell of a woman. Nothing has happened, my life is exactly the same as it was all those four days ago. No major disasters have occurred, no life changing losses. I am still blessed with three beautiful children, one shaggy dog, a warm cosy home and a flexible well paid job.
The only difference is that, yet again, the Hyde to my Jekyll has risen it’s ugly head one more soul destroying time.
Every month the same.
Some months it will be crying based, some months it will be irrational yelling. More often than not though it’ll be a potent and noxious cocktail of the two. The one thing that can be guaranteed is that it will, without fail, always be laced with a heavy dose of self-doubt, loathing and anxiety.
The prelude to this one particular crying episode was the simple event of a glass jar of peanut butter smashing after being being dropped on the floor. This event occurred just one single day after smashing a glass and throwing a cereal bowl down the stairs. None of these events were intentional you understand. All were caused by my premenstrual inability to actually hold things in my hands like a normal human being. Not only does my brain turn against me during this time my hands appear to have now chosen to join in the fun as well.
“What is wrong with me?” are the first words to run through my mind.
This is typically the opening gambit to the monthly Self Destructive Pity Party. Other familiar and regular guests swiftly join in …..
Miss Bad Mother starts proceedings -
“ Now the children have no peanut butter – you’ve well and truly failed them.”
Master Crap Dog Owner has his own opinions -
“ No doubt you’ll miss a bit of glass when clearing up and the poor dog will be maimed for life”
Mr Suck at Life leaps at this opportunity to inform me -
“ You didn’t renew his insurance did you ?? This will cost you. You’ll probably have to remortgage. Worse still you’ll have to sell a child” Miss Bad Mother rubs her hands with glee at the thought of a failing on this level.
Sir No one Likes You pitches in -
“ Who wants to be friends with someone so clumsy. Look at the disgust and disappointment in the dogs eyes, even he thinks you’re a hot mess”
Meanwhile Mistress Rubbish Housekeeper has spotted something ominous under the washing machine -
“ Is that furry thing under there the half eaten pizza crust that we mysteriously lost 3 weeks ago?”
These guests, along with others, tend to accompany me for at least ten days of the month every month. That’s a third of the month. That’s 120 days of the year. That’s the grand total of 3600 days since I started adolescence. 3600 days that I have lost to feeling fearful, wracked with social anxiety and insecure.
That’s a lot of life.
During this time I find being in social situations incredibly hard, I become an apology of my 20 days of the month self. The desire to hide behind locked doors until the madness has passed is overwhelming. The need to wrap a duvet around the feelings and smother them in a smog of sleep is intense. To create a big fluffy wall of duvet protection for not only me but also to protect the poor innocent people who have no choice but to endure me during this premenstrual distortion.
My poor children, the ones that I have to sincerely apologise to at the end of each day for being a snappy version of their normally fun, kind and loving mother. My poor friends who, in the best half of my month I make wonderful well intentioned plans with only for the event to come around falling slap bang in the middle of my period of complete inability. Another poor and feeble excuse has to be created for my lack of attendance at an event that I was previously so looking forward to.
It is like a prison that releases you on parole one month only to drag you back in kicking and screaming the next. You know what’s coming. You know the darkness that is about to descend but you can do little to stop yourself becoming cornered by it yet again.
There are of course things that you can try to help release its hold on you. I’ve tried exercising my way out of it, medicating my way free, bathing in various potent herbal concoctions of desperation, drinking milk from organic pink toed Himalayan Goats milked at midnight under a full moon.
You name it, I’ve tried it.
Despite embarking on all these methods with gusto and hope little has worked and like a familiar foe every single month we reacquaint ourselves. The black dog that comes and settles at my feet. From the outside looking in it appears tame enough, I continue to succeed at work, the children still get fed, albeit not peanut butter this month. The inner fear, weight and despair that it brings with it, however, has without doubt dictated the majority of my life and relationships.
It’s for this very reason that I thank it. Not right now because right now I still have irrational tears rolling down my face but I do. I truly thank it. It has provided me with an insight into a very dark place but fortunately one that I inhabit for only a maximum of ten days of the month. Like some form of diluted Bi Polar it ebbs and flows teaching me the stark contrast between the radiant joy of life and the dark treacly anguish of the lows.
It is a lesson that has helped me considerable in my career as a Coach and in my role as a Samaritan. It has aided my empathy towards friends who are trapped in the despair of depression, those who don’t have the luxury of knowing that the end is, at most, ten days away. For me they are dark days when they are here but without doubt they are the days that I have learnt some of the most valuable lessons of my life. They have carved a core of strength in me that without them I just wouldn’t have.
If I have to stop and look the beast in the face, rather than do it with fear and regret for all it has taken, I choose to do it with thanks and gratitude for all that it has taught me.