riding the mood rollercoaster again

My life at the moment is a series of punk rock lyrics. I'm going from apathetic inertia to hyperactivity, and back again.

I was supposed to be going to the Tate Modern today, but I couldn't wake up. I mean, I couldn't - my alarm went off every ten minutes from 12.30pm to 2.20pm and I was no more awake after 2 hours than I had been at first. Usually, if I'm tired in the morning I can at least wake up enough to make coherent phone calls and maybe drag my ass into the shower, but this morning I couldn't even string a sentence together. I rang Richard and said "uh... help... dontfeelwell... uhhh" like I was drugged, but it was just exhaustion. So I blew my friend out because my body wouldn't co-operate, and I feel lousy about that, but he has chronic illnesses himself so he should be able to understand.

( More stuff that happened today )

I'm sick of losing 1 week in 4 to being completely non-functional. I'm really sick of people dismissing my mood problems as soon as I try to explain them - everyone knows someone who has PMS. But most people don't have it quite this badly. I'm not trying to say that other women don't suffer - of course they do - but feeling bloated and irritable isn't quite the same thing as panic so bad you can't leave the house and terrible self-harm urges that pop up from nowhere - cutting a bread roll in half and suddenly having to put the knife away and get out of the room or else you would have to cut yourself. Feeling disgusting and worthless and knowing it's just fucking hormones and I should be better in a few days, but what if I'm not - what if it spirals into another episode of depression that lasts for months?

lj obsession depression

I'm glad livejournal is working again. I was having all kinds of trouble posting my last entry because the cluster I'm on was being upgraded. Unfortunately, I didn't think to check lj_maintenance until my journal had been in read-only mode for an hour and a half. Yes, I suck.

livejournal seems to have stopped sending out birthday reminders again (I think it was too big a hit on the database, for some reason), and so I've been forgetting to wish people happy birthday. Sorry :(

grrr... this made me angry

I found an article about premenstrual dysphoric disorder online which was written by a woman who had somehow entirely failed to get the point. Despite writing about the disorder in detail, including the fact that it can make a sufferer suicidal, she had still failed to understand that it's a real condition.

Whether or not PMDD is just another "hot diagnosis" and whether or not millions of women are indeed suffering from it, (...), millions of people will continue to "buy" the notion that the days prior to the onset of menses are a problem that needs fixing.

I have always loved sensing the cyclical changes in my body. Nothing makes me feel more like a woman that the breast tenderness and swelling I experience right before my period. I love telling my partner, "Be gentle. They're extra sensitive now. I'm getting my period." I say it with an air of authority I take on during those days. (...)

According to DSM-IV criteria, I might have a bit of PMS, but nothing that would require treatment. I think of a friend of mine, who says she suffers terribly, both emotionally and physically, the week before her periods. She might call it a disorder and gladly swallow a little pink and purple pill just to get through that week. But me, I'd rather call it one of the joys of being female and swell and cry and cramp up and bleed without pharmacological intervention.

For fuck's sake! Feeling so awful and ugly and useless that you want to die is "one of the joys of being female"? What is this bloody woman on?