Snap Out of It!

Some women use PMS as an excuse to behave like a bitch. I said "some," so don't send me hate mail. Yes, there are times when those fluctuating hormones really do make one lose control. I've had to apologize for things I've said while in the grip of spiking or diving estrogen more times than I'd like to admit. But with age comes recognition. I don't have to hear myself speaking too stridently about something and realize it's too late. I feel the intense anger at a minor annoyance and think, "Time to lock myself in the shed until this is over." Alas, I have no shed. But I usually manage to control myself, to simply not speak, to eat massive amounts of chocolate and wait for sanity to return.

And yes, it does feel like insanity (as far as I can guess what insanity would feel like) when my body rules my mind. PMS is a no-win situation. If I'm happy, and spending the day in a nice but normal way, with someone I like, doing something fun, I will likely feel like crying rather than laughing. Try explaining tears of joy to a guy who's taken you out for lunch. No, you can't. He'll think, "Nutjob!" and run for the hills. So, while you're out of control, you have to pull off a convincing acting job. "Oh my, I seem to be having an allergic reaction to something. You don't own a ferret, do you? They always make me tear up like this." Yeah, he's still not calling again.

If I'm not happy, for any reason whatsoever (I didn't hear from someone and wanted to, it's 77 freakin' degrees in January and I wanted to wear a sweater today!, etc.), I will either cry or become angry. Okay, angry, yes, angry generally edges out the crying -- at least at first.

For instance, earlier today I wasn't happy (see the reasons, above), and I went into the kitchen to get a bowl and spoon for some instant grits. Yes, I now know they're not the best, but I bought a box of 12 packets and I'll damn well eat them all. I share the kitchen with my extremely annoying landlord. The man's quirks have quirks. He can't stand it if I leave a pot or dish to soak in the sink before washing it. Perhaps it's a deep-seated fear of mosquitos, I don't know, but I will come back after leaving something and find that he's spilled the soapy water out. Since there is no logical answer as to WHY he'd do this, his reply when I question him is, "Just put it in the dishwasher."

I have tried to tell him that I don't use the dishwasher. Certainly not for a pot that I might want to use again later (when the dishwasher is run once every few days). I wash the dishes I use, by hand. John thinks that hand-washing is not good enough, unless he does it. He's a slob. If a surface is empty when he enters the room he will have it covered in under ten minutes. If something spills on the stove it will be allowed to harden and rot there until I scrape it off. Same thing when he messes up the counters, floor, fridge and microwave. He is a pig. But somehow he thinks no one but him can properly wash dishes. And here's the best part: he thinks the dishwasher "sterilizes" whatever is put in it. I can no more convince him that it doesn't than I can convince him that the flu shot doesn't give you the flu. The fact that I got a flu shot and did not get sick didn't make a dent in his thick skull.

So, today, I found that he had taken a bowl that I'd cleaned and left to dry in the dish drain, and put it into the dishwasher! It wasn't dirty. It was waiting there for me and my next bowl of instant grits. There were no clean bowls in the cabinet. I had to take a dirty bowl out of the dishwasher and re-wash it in order to use it. Obviously I looked for a clean-looking one, the one I'd already washed, but I couldn't trust that and so had to wash it again.

This, in the scheme of things, is not huge. So what, right? Took a minute and a half. But the hormones saw it differently. It took a lot of self control not to pull a couple of his favorite dishes out and smash them on the tile floor. The same amount of self control it took not to scream out loud all the profanity going through my head, possibly loud enough for him to hear all the way at the other end of the house. Over a dish.

No one wants to admit to a "weakness," especially a gender-based one (though, if you think about it, controlling ourselves while PMSing makes us stronger, not weaker). Yet I've used PMS as an excuse -- mostly for eating all that before mentioned chocolate. And for the most part I think it's real and it's something I can't control. I can try to control my reactions, but without Suzanne Somer's money I can't buy all the organic, specially made natural hormones that might make life smooth sailing.

So that's why what happened today confuses me so much. After the dish episode I moved on to obsessing about when something I ordered would be delivered. As I was dwelling on that, and becoming angry at a completely innocent UPS guy or postal carrier somewhere, I heard that a friend had experienced two losses today. She had to let go of her dear pet, a part of the family for years, and an admired friend also passed away. I felt so badly for her, and knew as I expressed my sympathy that there was nothing I could really do to help her.

And my PMS vanished. It's not just hiding temporarily, too ashamed to cause problems in the face of real tragedy. I now feel like myself again. The carb craving is gone (well, never completely, but it's not screaming), there's no voice in my head spewing illogical reasons for and solutions to any of my current concerns, and I don't want to smack anyone. PMS usually goes away overnight. I've never had it shocked out of my system before. This is both strange and encouraging. Maybe the next time I'm battling it, and it's not always the same degree of bad so sometimes it's merely a skirmish, I can remember to think about what's truly important, literally remind myself of the difference between life and death, and shock it into submission.

I'm sure the scientific types will say that spiking or diving hormones can't be manipulated with thoughts, and tell me that I happened to level out just as I heard my friend's news. But I'm a believer in the improbable being possible, and I don't believe in coincidence. So today's sudden turnaround makes me very hopeful about the future. Not hopeful enough to believe I'll never be bothered by PMS again -- I just don't have that much faith. :-)