In our co-ed world there are certain things that we aren’t supposed to admit to. These include the fact that pregnancy reduces your ability to think and that women like a good fart too (only we’d rather poke our eyes with leftover pizza crusts than indulge in public).
There’s something else too – PMT is real. It makes us crabby, humourless and short-tempered, such that our nearest, dearest and, actually, anyone else even relatively close had better watch out.
What it doesn’t do is make us insane, irrational or somehow lacking a sandwich in our lunchbox.
Oh yes. The monotonous beeping noise from the metal detector toy the toddler isn’t playing with but won’t allow to be turned off is irritating. Picking up towels and turning off lights after people is annoying. Being yelled at from another room does my head in. Being asked five times to do the same thing that I’m already doing drives me nuts (only metaphorically) and being expected to magically divine the location of things is a little trying. But none of that will vanish next week.
It’s just that today my normally, ahem, boundless patience is a little depleted. So the rage is nearby, probably lurking under another dropped toy.
My hormones do something to my ears – I can’t stand the bloody noise and I just want everyone, including you James Naughtie, Fireman Sam and the entire cast of Lemonade Mouth to shut up. Now, please. This makes me possibly a little grumpy but certainly not out of my mind.
Mother Nature must have had a reason for doing this to us. She usually does. Can’t imagine what though unless it’s her way of preparing us for the menopause. You see, PMT gets worse as you get older so by the time a hot flush hits, you may well be very glad to see the back of menses and all that goes with it. So, I’m looking into hormone replacement therapy just to get rid of this attitude I have when I’m experiencing PMT. Unfamiliar with the therapy? You can learn more by clicking here.
Or it could be her way of saying you need to get out more. In younger, less predictable days, life was so all over the place and up and down, there was nothing much fixed to measure mood against. These days it’s the same old dirty clothes, overflowing in box and emergency in Pontypandy.
Whatever. The thing is just because PMT makes reactions a little, perhaps, more intense than they were last week and will be next week, we are actually still the same people. So any man who even thinks “oh hell, she’s batshit bonkers this week cos the painters are due in” – and we know you do – best think again. We are simply the same woman, only slightly enthusiastic about some things – like yelling.
Don’t say: “Oooh, are you due on? I’d best keep out the way.”
Do say (probably from a safe distance): “What can I do help you and make you feel better?”
In my case, since you ask, I’d like a gin (yes I know it’s 9am), a large bar of Green & Black’s Maya Gold and to be left alone with my new copy of Myslexia.
Gin and Maya Gold? You could actually be me. Sometimes we think scarily alike.
Mind you, I'd probably go for Total Politics rather than Myslexia, but two out of three isn't bad:0)
Caron, maybe we should have a totally silent gin and Maya Gold party?
I might woowoo you out on this one, but you asked what Mother Nature's grand plan was? I think if we allowed ourselves to go into that solitude, quiet space we crave we'd find we were particularly psychic and might be able to download all sorts of useful information to take us through the next 3 weeks. but then again, perhaps I've been reading too many historical novels regarding the Red Tent and similar…
I'm horrible with PMT but I know that if I was on my own, with the quiet and darkness I craved I'd be really lovely LOL! Like you, I want everyone to go away and leave me alone – not too much to ask, surely…
Mrs Green, you may have a point. We read Red Tent at book group and all wondered what the point of the synching of bodies was. Interesting book although I was getting a little tired of that pair of bricks by the end!
Elsewhere in the nature the female selects a partner that is up to her standards before getting pregnant. If the male cannot please you in every way and build a perfect nest, he must go. Only with PMT we cannot stand these things that annoy us in order to put things right ready for babies. I just made that up, but do you like my theory?
Jansku, I love the theory – maybe it's the reason. If you can stand him when you have PMT, he's a keeper.