Welcome To The Fairytale

PMS is a delibitating illness. It targets your self esteem, shoots down all the hard work you have spent building it and stomps all over your confidence and self image like a barbaric neanderthal.

We can try to fight it off with herbs and pills, in my case red clover blossoms and plenty of calcium. Whilst it does take the edge of the PMS bite, I am learning that it doesn't really tame the beast within. Without anti-PMS herbs = Medusa on a bad sulphur trip. With anti-PMS herbs = Glenn Close boiling rabbits. Ie. not as scary, but still as psycho.

It is a curse, I tell you. At my age and correlating baggage size, PMS begins two weeks before the actual event. That's two whole weeks of griping with emotions, moods, insecurities, unresolved issues and a steady bloating of the belly. Then D-Day announces its arrival with a huge splash of red that despite years of this monthly torture, still never fails to shock when you go to the loo and it glares its angry surprise back at you from your knickers.

Then come the cramps. OK, I must admit, my period pains have noticebly numbed post pregnancy, but still, cramps are cramps - numbed or otherwise - and it makes you want to crawl up in bed (not snuggle) , tenderly nest over a hot water bottle and drift into a semi conscious state of hopelessness and helplessness, ie. hell.

This lasts for another 3-4 days and it is of no help that you have to visit the loo every 3 hours if you are tamponing or have to walk around with a big fake smile on your face so as to not give away that there is a loaf of a pad wedged between your legs as you bleed out.

Finally, as the period wears off, so does this PMS beast and you return to 'normal' before it begins all over again in less than a week's time.

And so, it brings me back to the person who asked me this question when I was a pre-teen, "would you rather have been born a girl or a boy?". With hindsight, I conclude that this person must not only have been of the male gender, he was also mocking me despite my naivete - not only revelling in the fact that we live in a man's world, but rubbing in what he already knew was coming - that I was on the brink of experiencing PMS for a good three weeks every month for the rest of my god-damned life until finally, even menopause is welcomed with open arms.

Have a nice week girls.