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.

My Life is a Trampoline

One thing that I get asked a lot is where I get my inspiration from.

A pretty common question for an author, I suppose.

Well, the answer to that is easy. Inspiration comes from life. My life, other people's lives...doesn't matter. Anything can spark that creative flame a'roarin'.

Take my book Not By a Long Shot, for instance. The main character, Natasha, was dumped by her boyfriend in a text message after three years. I was dumped by my boyfriend in an email after two years.

In Some Like 'em Thick, Oasis is one of the top furniture salespeople in the area. So was my father.

In It's All Right...Now, the two main characters, Monica and Ivy, are loosely based on me and my friend Charlotte, who I've been friends with since third grade. Most of the story was fabricated, but a couple of the things in the book actually happened.

The character Thurgood West in Get Right is greatly based on my pastor, Danny R. Nance. Sitting in service one Sunday morning listening to him preach is what sparked the idea for that book.

In Decisions and Consequences (the sequel to Not By a Long Shot), Sharif and Davion are pretty much a combination of my idea of the ideal man.

The idea for Take One For the Team literally came to me when I was at the gas station. I imagined meeting someone across the bays of the station, just like Van met Grant in the book.

I was riding to my aunt's house for Thanksgiving a few years ago when I got the idea for She is Me. The main character, Tonnette, is a low-key homebody, just like I am. And she honed her alter ego, Toni, in Barbados, which is a place near the top of my travel wish list.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. My own life or the things I see around me is usually the jumping off point for my stories. It can be the smallest thing, like going to the gas station. Or it can be therapeutic, in a way, like how it was dealing with the breakup from my boyfriend (getting dumped in an email is not fun...and did I mention that we were planning to get married, just like Natasha and her man had been in the book?). Writing that book was actually very healing, in a way.

Plus, when you're writing the story, you can make it turn out the way you want it to. A real-life crappy ending can become a happy ending in your story. Or vice versa, if you want to twist it like that.

Or, you could get that revenge on someone that's been clouding your brain since they wronged you.

But I digress.

My point is, when it comes to this book-writing thing, imagination definitely plays a big part, but don't underestimate what's going on in your own life...there's probably a ton of good material right under your nose. And if you have a large family or a bunch of friends or even an interesting job, then that's even better. You can get loads of inspiration just by watching other people.

Not to mention watching the news, watching movies, listening to music, reading (a writer who doesn't like to read doesn't make sense to me...it's like a babysitter who doesn't like kids).

So yeah, pay attention and I bet you'll be inspired, too. Whether it inspires you to write a book or do something else, it doesn't really matter (as long as you're not inspired to break the law or hurt somebody).

Can you just walk straight on a trampoline? The slightest bit of movement causes you to bounce a little bit, doesn't it? As long as you're living or moving, you're bouncing. And even those little bounces can be the springboard to something great.



Speaking of It's All Right...Now, you get a free PDF of that book when you subscribe to my email list on www.jessicaterry.com. You can read it and try to guess which parts are true and which parts aren't. ;)