Wednesday, February 22, 2017

My PMS Wears Brass Knuckles

Brace yourself; this might be a semi-TMI post.

I tried to tell you up front.

All right, you're still here. So basically, for whoever doesn't know, PMS is Premenstrual Syndrome. (I shouldn't assume you know that). It's those wonderful few days before a woman's monthly cycle begins where hormones are fluctuating more than a man who can't commit.

Every woman is different in what symptoms they get; the most common one you hear about is cramps. Thankfully, I no longer get those. I have the fun of having fatigue, irritability, lethargy, wanting to eat everything in sight, and tender ta-tas. Anxiety, the inability to concentrate, and depression are also frequent visitors. (I've shared about my battles with depression before; you can read that here).

And I always say that I'm gonna deal with it better next month. It's not like I don't know it's coming. But every month, that claw grabs me again and it's hard to pry myself free without a lot of torn clothing and gauges and bruises (figuratively speaking, of course).

So this month (yesterday, especially) was particularly hard for me in that I felt especially hopeless and irritated with everything. There are many things going on in my life right now that I wish would improve...some that I have control over and some that I don't, and when I'm PMSing, my reaction to them gets amplified times ten. All I wanted to do was be left alone so I could be the center of attention at my own pity party.

When my son asked what was on the agenda for the day, my response was, "Nothing. I just wanna lay here and melt."

And I tried to do that. I curled into a ball in the far corner of my comfy couch and tried to block out everything. Slept for a while. Then I went to my bedroom and tried again. Slept some more.

I don't even wanna think about how much weight I've probably gained in the last few days. Not only has my appetite been through the roof, my back has been hurting so much that I could hardly even stand up straight, so I couldn't work out for a good four days. Which only added to my frustration (and discomfort), of course.

My career seems to be on a treadmill to nowhere, and when you try and try and try and make little to no progress, you end up at 'What's the Point?' Avenue and 'Why Even Bother?' Circle. Especially when you see so many other people lapping you, seemingly effortlessly (even though it probably isn't), and you just want to yank them by the hair and sling them back a few yards to give yourself more time to catch up. (Rational thinking kind of goes out the window, too, in case you haven't picked up on that).

I seriously just thought about giving up altogether and resigning myself to a life of slightly-above-averageness.

Needless to say, this is not a fun time. And this February round of PMS has been particularly rough. It hit me so hard I feel like I'm just starting to recover from the knockout punch.

Why am I sharing all this?

We all go through tough times. It can be from PMS, or just life in general. It happens. But it's all in how you deal with it. We might get knocked down with the proverbial brass knuckles, and it might hurt like the dickens and we wonder how we'll ever get up from that, but we can. It might take some time, but we can totally recover.

I'm certainly trying to now.

I finally was able to do a short workout earlier today. My back still hurts, but not nearly as much as it was. Progress.

And afterwards, I came across this journal someone had given me a while back:




"Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything."

That comforted me. So much to the point where I got on my knees and prayed right then. And I know that when you pray, you have to pray believing. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

I'm definitely a believer. God always makes a way. Even when you've been knocked out for a little while and thrown off kilter.

I'll tell you what, though; those brass knuckles hurt.


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