PMS, PMDD, or Insanity? Take Your Pick.

DAD ALERT – this may not be for you.

Everyone else, Hi! Things have been up and down here at the ranch. I am busy, but bored at the same time. We had a few days of sunshine, and the rest have been rainy, cold & dreary, which just compounds the overall cloud of BLAH that is hanging over my head.

The past 2 months have been especially difficult. Work, money, drama, illness at home, missing my friends… there are good days and bad days. If it’s about 9 days before my period, I should have Police Caution Tape wrapped around my head so people can see me coming and take cover before I unleash the unholy.  

Let me give you an example, just so I feel better. Our poor, 88 year old Aunt has been sick for a few weeks. She’s had a nasty cold – congestion, gross cough, no appetite. We’ve been cooking and serving her meals in her hotel bedroom, to keep the germies sequestered. We are talking breakfast (bagel, toasted twice, let it cool so the margarine doesn’t get the bread soggy, with either jelly or cinnamon and sugar, but not too much, and coffee, and juice) and lunch (turkey sandwich with margarine, just a little, and chips on the side, and a glass of room temperature water that she will refuse to drink) and dinner (whatever I feel like making that is not spicy, or too hot or cold, or has any fat on it, but mostly she wants pasta) and possible a snack later on. I mean, really!

So, this servitude had been going on for a few days, and I was pretty much OK with it. Chip, unfortunately has to do the b’fast and lunch since I am at work (YES!), and I didn’t want to catch whatever bug she’s hacking all over the house.

Then, in creeps the grip of the PMS/PMDD devil. After I had a hellacious day at work, and rushed home to whip-up a dinner that met everyone’s requirements, I spied my loving, generous and mostly kind husband cutting up a piece for chicken for Aunt Mabel. I mean she is SICK, I get that. But she is not paralyzed! So, I get even MORE agitated, and I FELT it coming, so I tried really hard to stuff the emotions down to a place I couldn't see. I ran to the bathroom and popped a few Midols. He brought the ray of food down to her and returned to say… wait for it… “I think I’ll go out after dinner [in the POURING DOWN RAIN, mind you] to get Aunt Mabel an ice cream. She really isn’t feeling well.”

I’m not really sure what happened next. I remember, calmly, stating that I had been sick in bed for 3 days, just 1 week prior. Everything after that is a blur. I reminded him that one day I sat on the bed at 7pm and didn’t get up until the following morning. ‘Still had my socks and shoes on! One day, he woke me up from a 4 hour nap to ask me what I was planning on doing about dinner… and HE WANTS TO CUT HER MEAT AND GET HER ICE CREAM! HE LET ME SLEEP IN MY CLOTHES! WTF??

And what was the response, “OK, so you are jealous of an 88 year old woman? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard” or something like that. You know, when you are suffering from a mental disorder, you don’t always never get it right.

THIS month, Chip decided to tell me, whilst in the midst of an outrageous and uncontrollable mood swing, “Look, I know this is going to start a big fight, but don’t get all crazy because you have issues, but I wish you spent as much time on me as you do your little projects.” (This came after I told him that I had a Relay For Life meeting later in the week.) I couldn’t tell you anything that happened after that, but it wasn’t good. Did he really think that I would, or COULD, say, “Oh, I’m so sorry dear. You are right. I need to pay more attention to you. What can I do to make it better?” Hell no! All I heard was, “You are a sucky, selfish wife.”

URGH. You know, women are expected to do it all. Smile always. Cart around the kids. Work when you are sick. Coddle men when they are sick, if you are sick, too. Make dinner, clean, do the shopping, send the birthday cards, have a career, smell nice, have fit bodies, take the pets to the vet, be involved in the community… it’s freaking too much!

So anyway, the period is now 2 days away and I am feeling better. Not sure he is, but I am. Aunt Mabel has been in the hospital for 6 days, and we hope that she gets released. I do feel a little stupid for being jealous of her, for sure.

I’ll try to do a little better at keeping in touch. Promise. Again. :-)