I had a hard time thinking what to write about today. I don’t have a theme for Thursday. This week hasn’t been very remarkable. We were out of work on Monday and Tuesday because of the snow. On Wednesday, the students weren’t there, but we were there two hours late. I spent my entire day yesterday scheduling make-up classes for all of the ones that had to be cancelled because of the weather. The usual people at work irritated me, but the irritation wasn’t too bad. Every text alert I got made me hopeful that one of the people I listed as a reference had gotten a call from the place where I interviewed and she was letting me know. Has to be a good thing if they’re checking references. It’s only been a week, and they said they had more interviews, so not time to panic yet about not getting notified.
I spent my time at home mostly scrolling reels on Instagram about putting in your resignation at work. When it wasn’t a reel about that, it was somehow tattoo related. I have an appointment on Sunday for my next tattoo. I’m a little nervous because it’s going on my leg and from what I’ve seen from others, the legs are quite a different experience than having your arms worked on. Makes me a little nervous.
But this afternoon, as I was scrolling videos again and getting that dopamine hit from how much I relate to the ones I was seeing, I realized what I wasn’t feeling. Intense emotion. And that’s a good thing.
This time last month I was experiencing a week of emotions that were confusing to me. Confusing because they were so intense. I joke about my perimenopause rage and how her name is Betty. But this was more than rage. The rage was more frequent and more deep. And it was followed by crying that was distressful. And wild feeling. Like at any moment I felt like I could lose complete control of my emotions. It felt dangerous. It felt frightening. It did not feel like me. And it didn’t feel like anything I had felt before. I was well aware that my period was imminent. But this felt like more than PMS. It honestly scared me. So I made doctor’s appointments. Two of them. One with my obgyn doctor and one with my psychiatrist two days later in case my obgyn doctor couldn’t help.
What I found out is that I was right. It wasn’t PMS. It was PMDD. The wicked stepmother of PMS apparently. I was prescribed a low dose of birth control pills, which I haven’t taken in over a year. This was to keep my hormone levels regulated throughout the month. My psychiatrist raised the dose of one of my medications. Though she admitted it would be difficult to tell which actually helped, the birth control or the higher dose of mental health meds. I have follow up appointments with both of them next week.
And I’ll have good news to share with them. It is now only a few days before the expected start date of my period and I feel fine. One or both of the changes to my medication routine have had its intended purpose. I was slightly down last night. Didn’t feel like doing much and went to bed early. But overall, I’m fine. And I’m incredibly grateful. PMDD is serious stuff. I don’t want to feel like that again. It wasn’t me. It was intense and it was scary. I didn’t like it at all. It was more than just crazy perimenopause emotions. And I’m just very very glad that I’m not experiencing it again this month. I’ll always be grateful for modern medicine and having health insurance that pays for it. It makes me grateful I’m no longer a Catholic school employee. They didn’t cover birth control. I was on my own for that since they condemn its use. I don’t pay anything for it now.
So, I’ll go into work tomorrow and repeat the routine of doing my work and hoping for good news about a new job. And I’ll deal with whatever annoyances come up without crashing out over it. Thank goodness!
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