Ovarian Mind Control

I've had a couple of requests from people to talk more about the emotional side of things. I told a friend this morning that I was having difficulty with this. Not because I don't have anything to write but because I have a hard time organizing it into a readable post. I find myself starting off on one thing and in writing about it I go off on little tangents. I have to stop, find what I was thinking/writing about and go back to it.

Since Amy specifically mentioned the anger part of things I am going to try and focus on that first. Pardon my rambling because it's bound to happen.

I said before that I never really realized just how bad things got, not until I got back onto birth control. Now that I've been on birth control for about six months and I look back it scares me a bit. I don't ever want to go back to that because it was not me. I am normally a tough gal to upset, I'm not one to just go off on people, I don't, to coin a catch phrase, sweat the small stuff. That's not to say that I never get to that point but it usually takes quite a bit. I'm usually pretty good at just finding the good or positive in things too. If I couldn't then eh, it's still, in the end, probably not going to change how my life turns out overall. I could/would weigh the pros vs. cons and let it go. Again, that's not to say that it never upset me or got to me but I would usually gripe to Joel or a friend like Steph and I'd be done with it. I also confronted people at times, but mostly in a manner that wasn't an in your face threatening kind of manner, just a, do you really want to go there, kind of manner? Or I would simply ask a question and walk away leaving them there to think about what they just did or said.

That being said, things have been a lot different the past few years. Lets start with Joel or at least use an example... a few years ago I took a bunch of little pieces of paper and wrote one word reasons on each one explaining why I fell in love with him. At the time, I did it for him just because I wanted to and who can't use a reminder like that every once in a while. I found, though, that the list/pieces of paper were also good for me. It made not sweating the small stuff even easier. Yeah, this little thing might be driving me crazy but look at all the other reasons to just let it go and love him even more. By the way, even though I didn't add to the pile (just never wrote them down for him), that pile of little pieces of paper keeps growing. So why tell you about this? Because there were more and more days that I never thought about those reminders. Instead my mind kicked those aside and would just stew over stuff. I got to the point that I seriously thought that if Joel were to make a top 10 list of important things to him that I would rate somewhere in the 20's. I failed to see what he was doing for me and focused on the things that he didn't...even if they were stupid little things like not telling me he just put the last roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. My mind would take something like this and think destructive things like...

what the hell? am I a mind reader? does he want me to fail as wife and mother? there is no way that if were to use the last whatever at work that he wouldn't tell somewhere there! how do I rate? where do I rate? does he not love and respect me enough anymore to do something as simple as telling me that he just put the last roll of toilet paper in the bathroom? what if someone stopped by and I had no toilet paper for them? if I can't keep stupid toilet paper stocked in the bathrooms what are they going to think about the rest of my life?

This would go on and on. On the good days I could stop myself and eventually let it go and some days it would be there nagging at me all day. I can kind of describe it like in the cartoons when they have the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. My angel would be the one to try and talk me back and my devil would take me off on these tangents. That poor little angel got it's ass kicked!

Side note: Joel is the man when it comes to telling me things like using the last roll of toilet paper, it makes the above that much more ridiculous!

So anyway, if I would go off on a tirade like this over something as stupid as toilet paper can you just imagine where my mind went with other things? This was on the really bad days, usually the week that led up to the start of my period. Staying positive, however, after 7-10 days of beating myself up became harder as time went on. I can honestly say that good days were down to just one or two a month before doing something about it. Here's the really bad thing, I kept this all inside. I might gripe to Steph some but for the most part I just shoved it back down inside and let it fester. Nothing like a big ol' pile of festering goo to start the day off right! It got to the point that I just shut Joel out. I may have tried to reach out a couple of times but I always pulled back. I guess that there was a always a part of me that knew this just wasn't me. Letting Joel know that I was thinking like that, or anyone else for that matter scared me. I was/am a stronger person than that, it seemed very weak to me that I let myself think that way. This, I am finding, is a very difficult habit to break. Even though I am at a better place now with my hormones being regulated I find myself heading down that irritated and angry path. But unlike before, I can quickly realize what I'm doing and change my thought process. By the way, Joel is a logic driven person, I laugh now thinking about what Joel's face/reaction might have been had I said the above TP rant out loud!

After living with crud like that filling my head I just became an angry person overall. Short with the boys (ugh that kills me to write), short with strangers, short with doctors and my dentists...seriously, people just irritated me much more than they had ever before. I also had no problem letting them know that they were irritating/angering me. Going off on them, people I didn't know, made it easier to keep it all inside and hide it from my friends and family. I remember thinking one day that it was obvious that I needed to do something when I went off on another shopper in Fred Meyers.

I somehow kept ending up in the same aisles with the same lady. She is one of those people that has no clue about the space around her...stop the cart in the middle of the aisle, maybe even askew a bit to block the left side of the aisle completely while she stands on the right side browsing the shelves essentially blocking the entire aisle. People would pile up behind her and have to ask repeatedly for her to move so we all could get by then she would finally realize that she what she was doing, give a little giggle, "he he sorry." Come on grocery shoppers, you know what I'm talking about right? Well on the third of fourth aisle of getting blocked I lost it. I think I said something like, "What the hell lady? Did you come to the store today to purposely frustrate all of us that would come into contact with you? How many times do you have to block the aisle and be asked to move out of the freakin' way before you get it? Move, move, move, move, move, puh-lease!?!?" She stood there stunned (that's a shocker no?) and instead of apologizing as I should have, I just shoved her cart out of the way and stormed away.

THAT IS/WAS NOT ME PEOPLE. As I was storming away all I could think was that I had become a totally hideous person, who the hell was I and why couldn't I control myself? I was, in my mind, turning into Jekyll and Hyde. The real me would have laughed the second time and inspected the remaining aisles before going down them and just moved on had she been down there. Let her do what she needed to do to finish her shopping and done what I needed to do to finish mine.

Yikes! That's all I have to say about that stuff for now. Who knew that my ovaries could have such control over my mind?

I also mentioned being short with the boys, I will talk about this but will save it for the next post...also know that these are just a couple of examples. I could probably blog for days about the anger/irritation that I've felt for far too long. I also want to say that I wasn't angry all the time. I also spent days just bummed/depressed. On those days you probably could have walked up to me and slapped me across the face and I would have just turned and walked away thinking that I deserved it. Then there were other days that I just didn't feel at all. I just did stuff because I had to. Fed the family because they were hungry, did laundry because they needed clothes, took the van in for an oil change because it was time...no feelings, no smiling, no laughing, no crying, just complete numbness. Like a huge dose of Novocaine had been administered in the morning, still awake but couldn't feel a thing.

Phew, that was uplifting! Go hug your spouse, friends, kids, whoever and just tell them that you love them! It's bound to get a smile or two.