Taking Charge of Your Insanity

So, about that Oscar the Grouch post that's been decorating the top of this page for the past way too long: I was feeling mighty grumpy that day, as the title suggested. The day after I wrote it, I went around kicking random household items for being so goddamn IN MY WAY all the time. I came close to crying about thirteen times the week, including the moment that I found out there was no new episode of The Ultimate Fighter and when I realized we had no iced tea mix. And then (gentlemen folk avert your eyes) I got my period. Collective palm to the forehead, if you please.

After nearly thirty years (hear me saying the number out loud?) of being a lady-type person you'd think I would be able to recognize some good old fashioned PMS, yes?  But now that we're here in TMI territory, let me tell you something else: I kind of sort of went off the pill in May.

Before you start clapping your hands and throwing pacifiers at me, please know this: we are not "trying." Yet. But, at some point in the soonish (but not TOO soon) future, we would like to maybe think about doing that, so I figured I'd stop taking the pill just to see what would happen. Plus, my prescription ran out three weeks before my annual lady appointment and I didn't feel like calling the office ahead of time to request a special advance refill, so there was that. 

I had credited the pill with keeping me to a handy and convenient 28-day cycle and preventing babies, and not much else. And then I stopped taking it, and you guys... it's been bad. Thanks to your comments on this post I have procured and almost finished reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility, so I understand that my body is a scientific marvel of feminine power, blah blah blah. But tell that to everyone who has to interact with me when I'm riding the hormonal roller coaster, because hoo boy. I turn into this caricature sitcom version of a PMS-fueled bizzotch and even I don't want to be around myself. I have to stifle tears over everything from SPCA commercials to perfectly benign emails. The cat yowling when I get home is enough to set me into a three-day rage over how nobody appreciates anything I do. I watch Bobby Flay's Thanksgiving Throwdown Special and suddenly have an insatiable urge to eat an entire pan of roasted brussel sprouts, despite the fact that I've never before had brussel sprouts or pancetta in my life. After about five days of feeling like a bona fide crazy person I'll start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, please dear baby Jesus, my homicidal mood swings might mean I'm about to get my period.

And then, yup. DURR. Well, who'd have thunk it?

I'm not really sure what the point of this whole story was, but one thing has become pretty clear: when we do decide it's time for babies, I am going to be one fun pregnant person.

Comments

[nancypearlwannabe]

All I can say is, thank god it's not just me. EVERY MONTH. Every month I'm taken by surprise. So I feel you on this one. Solidarity, lady.

[Aly]

I am SO with you on this one. Ugh. I hate the evil, evil person I turn in to - even though I know it's coming {if it DOES come, but that's another effing story, ugh} I am still surprised by it.

No pacifiers here, just lots of emphatic nodding.

[HollowSquirrel]

Yay, you and your MattDamonLooking hubby are KNOCKING BOOTS! BRING ON THE BUN and ACCOMPANYING CRAZY! xoxoxo

[Stephanie]

Oh man. I have the crazies tooooo. I think in my head that I really might divorce my husband because he is driving me batshit crazy. Then I have to buy tampons and I realize that I do love him!

I stopped birth control about a year ago because I decided "why am I taking a hormone I don't need?" Not that I really even know what is in birth control besides little spermy killers. Then my face went to shit. It erupted and I am just now getting it under control.

So basically I am not taking the glorious emotion stabilizing, face clearing little pill because I don't want fake shit in my body? WTF?

Best part - we aren't even thinking seriously about boom booming for reals until late next summer. So I can look forward to this craptastic skin for about another year because surely it gets better when you are pregnant, right?

[-R-]

Ok, I'm not excited, but I am prepared to be excited when you tell me to be.

I am also seriously disturbed because I just read the phrase "boom booming."

[Janssen]

I went off the pill a couple of years ago for the same reasons (prescription ran out, also we switched insurance and suddenly the cost QUADRUPLED) and dude, I was SO much more of a pleasant person. I cannot believe Bart stayed married to me for an entire three years of me on the pill because wow, it made me insane.

[heidikins]

Oh man, I am *so* with you on this one. Really, I would like to chop out my own lady parts after a few days of Teh CraZyy.

Sometimes I just can't handle me. I really don't know how on earth a Man Person will ever put up with me. Sigh.

xox

[Erika]

I feel you...I went off the pill about 6 months after my husband underwent...ahem...more permanent birth control...and I was six kinds of nuts. So now I'm back on the hormones for absolutely no reason other than my compulsive need to stick to a reliable schedule.

[RA]

Sweet Jesus, I thought this was your quirky way of making The Announcement.

My pill doesn't make me crazy (I think). At least, I don't feel very different. Maybe I am just a naturally horrible person to be around, and JG is not telling me otherwise.

[Liz]

"I went around kicking random household items for being so goddamn IN MY WAY all the time." - I LOLed on this one because that is me, most days, now that I'm off the BC too. Stopped taking it around the same time as you, pretty much for the same reasons. And now? Now I don't even know if I want kids (gasp!). I'm so stressed out all the time, my skin looks like shit...I think I'm going to go back on it. You know, to restore my sanity and protect the non-lives of the inanimate objects that are forever IN MY GODDAMN WAY all the time. ;)

[Operation Pink Herring]

Aly - yes, if I had any sort of indication that ye olde period was forthcoming, maybe I could be prepared for the impending Mood Swings of Doom. However, Ms. Taking Charge of Your Fertility and her handy dandy charts don't account for those of us with sine curves instead of "cycles." I'd like to take her 40-day chart and shove it up her sanctimonious "everyone is different!" throat. Ahem.

Stephanie - OMG, the skin. I can't even talk about the skin.

RA - I remember the first pill I took (the ones they handed out practically for free at the student health center) made me completely insane. I had convinced myself I was bipolar (the problem with being a psych minor) because I'd be all, I'm so HAPPY! Life is GRAND! I love everyone! one day and weeping uncontrollably over the tiniest things the next day. Then I switched to a lower-dose pill and everything was fine. And now I have no artificial hormones and it turns out, YAY, I'm just naturally a hormonal bizzotch, GIMME UR BRUSSEL SPROUTS, BOBBY FLAY.

[Mary]

After threatening to divorce her husband every 28 days (when she wasn't plotting his demise), my friend finally got a script for PMS Prozac. It's not a lot, more like licking a Prozac, and only for the week or two leading up, but it definitely kept her from losing her mind every month. I know it's not for everyone, but it's good to know there are options out there. Also, she's had 2 kids, and obviously does not medicate when pregnant, and her pregnancy hormones make her the most laid back person around.

[beth]

I empathize a million times over. Especially the crying part. I want to scream/cry/die when I have to awkwardly reach into the back seat of my car to get something, or, if I can't find something immediately. Back in the US, btw. Catching up on all my online reading...

[janet]

I have vowed to never use the Pill again. Then again, even off the Pill I am Teh Crazy every 26-ish days. Can't win!