riding the mood rollercoaster again
Jun. 20th, 2002 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronMy 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.
Got out of bed at 7pm - just as well I wasn't supposed to be working today - and sat in front of the computer doing not much for a while. I wanted to write about how I was feeling but I didn't have good enough control over my hands to type. (Couldn't play the cello either, which upset me). Eventually the food I'd eaten started to give me some energy and a hot shower got my body temperature up, so we were going to go shopping, but then I got panicky again (as if I hadn't had enough panic on Monday and Tuesday) and couldn't face going. Then I figured we had to go because I needed to buy food to eat. We got as far as the supermarket, and I bought most of the things we needed, except I couldn't find any shoe brushes and that was enough to trigger an attack of wobbling - except I managed to avoid too much visible wobbling and just freaked out internally. Bah. And then the Night Bus was late. So we got home at about 3am - Richard went straight to bed and I sat up watching videos all night. "Better Than Chocolate" is a damn good film, if anyone cares.
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?
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.
Got out of bed at 7pm - just as well I wasn't supposed to be working today - and sat in front of the computer doing not much for a while. I wanted to write about how I was feeling but I didn't have good enough control over my hands to type. (Couldn't play the cello either, which upset me). Eventually the food I'd eaten started to give me some energy and a hot shower got my body temperature up, so we were going to go shopping, but then I got panicky again (as if I hadn't had enough panic on Monday and Tuesday) and couldn't face going. Then I figured we had to go because I needed to buy food to eat. We got as far as the supermarket, and I bought most of the things we needed, except I couldn't find any shoe brushes and that was enough to trigger an attack of wobbling - except I managed to avoid too much visible wobbling and just freaked out internally. Bah. And then the Night Bus was late. So we got home at about 3am - Richard went straight to bed and I sat up watching videos all night. "Better Than Chocolate" is a damn good film, if anyone cares.
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?
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no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 01:21 pm (UTC)The problem is that progesterone sends me insane. And the way in which the Pill acts as a contraceptive is to stick a load of progesterone into your body to fool it into thinking you're already pregnant. Not perhaps the best idea for someone who seems to be extraordinarily sensitive to it. I was on an antipsychotic for a while which screwed around with my hormones and stopped my periods altogether, and that was wonderful - but it's not the world's safest drug - not something that I could be on for the rest of my life.
I'm waiting to see a psychiatrist and see if they have any idea what to do. Apparently a recent treatment for bad PMS has been to give SSRI antidepressants to women only in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle. I've read a couple of the studies and they're fairly conclusive that it helps - but women with major depressive disorder as well were specifically excluded from them. I can't find anything in the literature to say what should be done with someone with major depression and PMS together.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 01:32 pm (UTC)You might look into some of the herbal stuff...if I can find the sheet that my gyn gave me, I'll let you know. I know she had me up the calcium and magnesium in my diet, and I tried a couple of different herbs, but I can't remember. Soy might help too, though I didn't try it since it tends to make my digestive system very unhappy.
The older pills have higher doses of estrogen and lower progestrone doses. The specific combinations vary from pill to pill (I know the one I'm currently on has a lower progestrone dose than my old one, and my PMS was milder, cramps a big calmer and period has been a bit lighter.) My PMS symptoms are less severe on the pill, certainly, but not gone entirely.
I know what you mean about incapacitating PMS though. It's rendered me non-functional at times.
no subject
Date: 2002-06-20 01:43 pm (UTC)gah, why isn't there an lj-cut tag for comments ? i've just deleted a tmi paragraph about pms and periods ;-)
-m-
no subject
Date: 2002-06-24 05:15 am (UTC)FWIW, I've had pretty bad PMS from time to time, including agoraphobia and anxiety attacks, but only when I was also having 14-day heavy-bleeding periods.
Going on "the" pill fixed it; first pill I tried, too. Minulet. Haven't checked what's in it, but after years on it I have finally come off it and my body seems to have stopped screwing itself up. PMS can create a negative feedback loop. So if you fix it long enough, you might be able to stop taking the fixing drugs after a few years. You never know.