grrr... this made me angry

[baratron]

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?

Comments

[quiet000001.livejournal.com]

If she enjoys it so much, can she take my monthly suffering, too?

I don't even get anything that bad- cramps, but no mood swings or anything, and I still say- thank fucking god for pain killers. :P

[jenett]

Ok. This annoys me too.

I don't have *nearly* the problems you have, H-L - but I used to have cramps that would take me out of doing anything except curling up with a heating pad and over the counter painkillers about every other month.

This woman enjoys getting her period? Fine. I've got no problem with her enjoying it and not taking medication to deal with it.

But at the same time, she should respect the fact that not everyone's body responds the same way, and that for some women, it's a really serious choice between 'be incapacitated but smug about following natural cycles without bio-chemical interference' and 'getting on with their own lives without serious interference from their bodies, using bio-chemistry'.

I also think that most of the people who say things like that, if they were actually spending a week every month unable to do much of the things they wanted to do - never mind things like actually *work* efficiently, even if they ditched every other external obligation for that week - would give up pretty darn fast if they actually had to deal with seriously PMS.

I know for me, I was much more able to tolerate taaking a day off when I was in high school and college - but there's no way I could do it any more, and no way my jobs in the past would have tolerated it either, if it was an every-month problem.†

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Yes. My problem with the article wasn't so much the fact that she has no premenstrual distress (after all, it is only 30-40% of women who get PMS), or even that she felt her hormonal changes made her feel more female/feminine. It was the patronising way she put down her friend: "she might call it a disorder". Even after researching and writing about PMDD, she couldn't accept for herself that it could be a genuine disorder causing people real pain.

I was also rather squicked by the whole middle paragraph as I quoted it. If I read her correctly, she feels that she has some sort of special authority towards her body when premenstrual which isn't there at other times of the month. Personally, I have a right to say "No" or "That hurts" at any time of the month.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

Ick. Ick. Ick.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

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?

You know, this sounds exactly like the old Freudian theory that women are naturally masochistic. "Ooooh, I'm in pain. I feel so... so... so feminine."

Which, whatever. Her kink is okay. But it doesn't make her more of a Real Woman, damn it.

[juudes.livejournal.com]

Well I do hope that if she ever has children she refuses all forms of pain relief, otherwise one might be tempted to call her a hypocrite.

Like so many

[hiddenpaw.livejournal.com]

It never ceases to amaze me how so many people seem to be under the delusion that deep down everybody feels everything the same way they do with regard to everything and anybody who claims not to is just in denial. and believe me this doesn't just apply to physical things.

[ailbhe]

Hypersensitive boobs != screaming agony and temporary blindness and agoraphobia.

[rowan-leigh.livejournal.com]

*gack*

In short.