Arlenna at ChemicalBiLOLogy just posted an excellent reflection on what it means to be in a position of leadership when you know you aren't at your best and that there's nothing you can do about it.
Specifically, for many women this feeling of the inability to be who you actually are corresponds to nearly a quarter of our adult lives...you all know what I mean. She is bringing up a topic that makes me really uncomfortable. So I am blogging about it to try and sort all this out.
Discussing the role of hormonal cycles in the way women lead is as close to a taboo subject as I think we can get. I am squeamish discussing it because even acknowledging that the fundamentals of our female-specific biology can influence our critical thinking skills and our interactions with others opens the door for all that not-lately-dead criticism that women are unpredictable and irrational (if only at certain times of the month) and therefore should not be trusted to leadership positions. If we allow people to believe it is true that women can lose control of their abilities to behave in a rational manner and think clearly due to something as uncontrollable as hormones, then I can understand why we have still not elected a female president of the United States.
It is classical sexist drivel for anyone to suggest that a woman is doing poorly at her job because of her hormones. Any man with a modicum of sense knows better than to suggest that it might be that time of month when a woman has a tough time holding it down emotionally...even if that is precisely the reason that she is having a tough time. Yet, if we publicly acknowledge that this is the case, we are validating this idea that women are somehow weak and sometimes incapable of maintaining their rationality.
It affects us all differently so I would be loathe to imply that because I become hyper-emotional, and I take everything personally, and I feel that I can do nothing right, and I feel so out of control for a week out of every month, that every woman must also endure this same reaction. I would never want to give anyone license to assume that all women experience such a loss of control...perhaps some never do. So I never, ever talk about it.
[Warning: This is about to get personal...if it's too much info, feel free to stop reading here. I am telling this story to illustrate a point, but don't feel compelled to read if you're not interested.]
I've never been regular. I used to go for 6 weeks or 6 months without menstruating. It's idiopathic. No idea why, nor whether it will affect my fertility. My doctor is concerned that I produce insufficient hormones to manage my bone density so I am on contraceptives, essentially as hormone replacement therapy, which makes me very regular. You could set a clock to it. When I am not taking drugs for this, I don't cycle often so I rarely experience the kind of mental and emotional haywire symptoms that we're talking about here.
It's taken some time to find a drug and a dose that does the job, while leaving me with side effects that are at least tolerable. I've been through three different drugs in different doses before settling on one regimen that I can live with.
I was still trying out different doses and meds early in my grad school career. In fact, I cleverly agreed to go on a new regimen three weeks before the oral section of my candidacy exam...which means going through the hormone withdrawal phase of new drug the week of my exam. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The oral section of the exam is extremely stressful. Imagine standing in front of 4-5 faculty members for 2-3 hours attempting to answer any question they decide to ask about your knowledge of your subfield. Theoretically, this exam is supposed to cover what you learn in your course work, plus fundamental concepts in the field that may or may not have been discussed. But since most of the faculty don't teach, they tend to ask questions about their own pet interests as they relate to subfield - in short, they pretty much pull questions out of their asses and you are expected to apply your fundamental knowledge of subfield to answer these questions.
I felt very well-prepared for my exam. I had read and practiced. I consider myself to be pretty good at thinking on my feet. But I was still pretty nervous considering that the three of my cohorts that had already tested received conditional passes on the exam.
Still, I felt ready and confident walking into that room. They started me out with a nice warmup question: describe in detail signaling pathway X, then discuss how it functions in regulation of process Y. I could have done this in my sleep by this point, so away I went.
Then, inexplicably, half-way through my explanation of signaling pathway X...
What's this? Why is my face wet? Are these tears trickling down my face? Am I crying? What the fuck!?!? You've got to be kidding me! OK, help!! What's going on? Pull yourself together AA, you're still talking about the signaling pathway and you're doing fine. Breathe. Don't hyperventialte. Why can't I stop the water works?!?! What's happening to me!?!?
All the while not missing a beat on answering the question...all I can say is that it's a damn good thing I had practiced so well. One of the exam committee members asked if I was OK and all I could say was, "Ummm...I don't know. This has never happened to me before. I think I'm just really nervous. I'm sorry, this is so embarrassing. Let's just continue so we can get this thing over with."
I continued to answer questions on total auto-pilot while the waterworks continued for the next two hours. They passed me, and said they were impressed that I did so well answering their questions when it was clear that I was having a tough time holding it down emotionally - that I must really know my stuff to still be able to pull it out in the midst of all that.
The whole experience was terrifying and mortifying and it took me quite some time to realize just what had happened. I had an anxiety attack in the middle of my exam. Seeing as I had never experienced any such thing before or since, I think it's safe to blame the hormones. (I did not stay on those drugs for much longer.)
This little episode inspired GrAdvisor's "AA has a victim mentality" binge -- he said that he wouldn't have passed me for "playing the pity card" -- and I never felt that I could tell him what really happened. I don't like the fact that he thinks I cried to manipulate my exam committee into "going easy" on me (in truth I don't remember enough of what they asked me to know if they did). But I'm just not comfortable giving him the details of my medical history, especially concerning my sexual and reproductive health. And even if I were, I wouldn't want to give anyone fodder for the "women operate under the tyranny of their hormones" fire. But sometimes it's true. And it sucks.
I hate that I'm sometimes not in control of my thoughts and interactions with people. I have enough discipline to moderate my outward actions - I try to avoid putting myself in situations where I might be tempted to snap when it's that time of the month. I try to carefully censor the words that come out of my mouth. But my internal monologue is coming from someone I don't recognize. It's frustrating and sometimes terrifying to feel so out of control. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that it doesn't last any longer than a few days at a time.
I think we all keep it under wraps so no one knows that we're sometimes not in control and not entirely rational...it's a hard enough thing to admit to ourselves, and downright dangerous to admit to anyone else.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
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46 comments:
You get it.
The scariest part of it is the vulnerability it implies, and the physical outcomes that sometimes break through the surface past the wall of control--like the story you told.
And the results of those breaches in the wall: nobody who sees them will ever quite understand, even if they have felt something similar. You're right--it's never safe to even talk about this stuff because of all the weight of history and implication, so WTF do we do aside from keep on keeping on and hope it doesn't jump up to bite us in the ass at the worst times.
AA, I am reposting my comment I left at Arlenna's place on this issue:
Well, regardless of your hypothesized hormonal basis for this kind of day-to-day variability in emotional and intellectual capacity, there is no doubt that men experience the same thing. Women do not have a monopoly on moodiness, and I seriously doubt that men are systematically more even-keeled than women.
In other words, "our results are impossible?"
CPP - I have no doubt whatsoever that men also experience these kinds of things. Men have cyclical hormones too and I would be very remiss to suggest that this does not affect their day-to-day emotional and intellectual state. I know some extremely moody men so no, women do NOT have a monopoly on moody.
However, I rarely see men (even really moody ones) lose control of their tear ducts (being sad is one thing, but I have done this when I am angry, frustrated, or anxious and these are not culturally acceptable times to have leaky eyes)...this is a very obvious physical manifestation of the hostile-takeover-by-hormone phenomenon...and because of our cultural conditioning it is primarily associated with weakness which makes it a doubly dangerous thing for women.
--ooh, she's moody!
AND
--she's clearly weak.
Furthermore, it's not just moody...there are times when it really does feel as if someone else has commandeered your head (wow, who just said that? oh, it was me? crap! who is this other person in my head?)...I don't have any idea whether men experience this sort of mental hijacking on a regular basis. Because it's just not something that we talk about.
Arlenna - is that what he's saying? I don't think it is. Our results are our results...but he's saying that maybe they are not exclusive to our own cohort. This doesn't change or devalue the fact that what we experience is very real...just that it may not be our exclusive experience.
I am disinclined to believe that men struggle with this as frequently as women do, or to the same magnitude. However, I don't actually know since my judgment here is based solely on my personal experience...and I have no personal experience being a man. I think that is a big part of the reason why this is such a difficult discussion to have.
There is one observable difference though and that is the waterworks. I have NEVER seen a man lose control of his tear ducts in anger or frustration. It doesn't happen to me often but when it does it is mortifying to me and to everyone who witnesses this and all hope of salvaging rational discussion is gone at that point. Not to mention the aforementioned concern re: being perceived as weak.
Tricky.
I don't think he's really trying to say that.
But the problem with talking about this, as you noted, is that it becomes a "yeah well everybody has bad days" conversation. When there is a lot more to it than that. He is, after all, an expert on being a man (more than we are) but we know our own data better than he knows it. So My comeback is about standing up for my interpretation based on what more I know about it than he does.
I think it was in Anne Fausto-Sterling's book Myths of Gender that I learned PMS to be imaginary. Don't quote me on it though, I read a lot of stuff on gender and it could've been in a couple of different places. But I'm pretty sure it was that book.
In any event, what I learned was that there has never been any research that confirms the existence of PMS.
To assume that it is your hormones that make you feel "off" at any given time is to subscribe to the belief that women are subject to their bodies moreso than men. And we are not.
What you had, AA, was an anxiety attack. Probably due to the overall stress of the situation and its importance. Your body manifested that anxiety with tears. I highly doubt it was due to hormones.
Now if you said you were pregnant, I would believe it was caused by the pregnancy, because that affects everything in your body including neurotransmitter levels in the brain. I also might believe it was the drugs you were taking, because stuff affects things that we don't always know about.
But hormone levels due to menstrual cycles don't do anything according to science. What does happen is that you experience physical symptoms that make you feel like shit, and because you feel like shit, you act the way that people act when they feel like shit and can't do anything about it.
Have you ever had a headache or some other pain that was driving you crazy so much that you cried? It's not hormones that made you cry. It was the fact that you felt like shit.
Okay I think I've reached the point of blabbering, so I'm going to stop. Just don't be so quick to blame female hormones for the way that you feel.
Yes hormones make women lose control of their tear ducts, but men also control with their hormonal fluctuations. Its just the manifestations are more acceptable. They get very short, angry, loss there tempers, perhaps throw something or break something. It ok b/c the guy is either a jerk, or "difficult" but he would not be emotionally unstable.
JLK, if you have never felt what you're calling "PMS" and if you can so glibly dismiss someone's pill-related breaking points as anxiety attacks that have nothing to do with their hormones, you are one lucky fucking lady.
Taking birth control pills COMPLETELY fucks up your hormones--they ARE hormones. Having body chemistry change in waves causes anxiety. Anxiety is a general, generic, non-specific term for exactlyfuckingwhat we are talking about.
If you have never felt that, then I repeat: you are damn lucky. Hope for yourself that never changes. "Quick" to blame?? I've been mulling this one over for fifteen years.
A quick search of Pubmed gives us some info. I don't know the field, so my ability to evaluate these journals and articles isn't the best, but here are a couple of abstracts:
J Reprod Med. 1996 Sep;41(9):633-9.Links
The female brain hypoestrogenic continuum from the premenstrual syndrome to menopause. A hypothesis and review of supporting data.
Arpels JC.
Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
OBJECTIVE: To propose a theory to help unify the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), postpartum blues and depression, the perimenopausal transition and menopause. STUDY DESIGN: A review of supporting data is used to explain the possible neuroendocrine mechanism upon which the hypothesis is based. CONCLUSION: The brain in women has been shown to be an estrogen target organ. Common symptoms are shared by women complaining of PMS, postpartum blues, the perimenopausal transition and menopause: depression, sleep disturbance, irritability, anxiety and panic, memory and cognitive dysfunction and a decreased sense of well-being. The antiestrogens progesterone, progestin and tamoxifen may also elicit these same symptoms. It is proposed that whenever brain estrogen levels fall below the minimum brain estrogen requirement, for whatever reason and at whatever age, brain center dysfunction may ensue.
Int J Psychiatry Med. 1993;23(1):1-27.Links
Altered serotonergic activity in women with dysphoric premenstrual syndromes.
Halbreich U, Tworek H.
State University of New York, Buffalo.
OBJECTIVE: Dysphoric Premenstrual Syndromes (PMS) are quite prevalent and in some women they are severe enough to warrant treatment. Their pathophysiology is still unknown, despite increased interest and research. Here we review the possible role of serotonin in the multidimensional interactive pathophysiology of PMS. METHOD: Over 170 articles are reviewed. An extensive library search has been conducted and articles are included because of their relevance to: 1) the phenomenology of PMS; 2) the putative association of serotonergic (5-HT) activity with syndromes that occur premenstrually; 3) changes in 5-HT activity along the menstrual cycle, especially the late luteal phase; 4) influence of gonadal hormones on serotonergic functions; 5) endocrine strategies for assessment of 5-HT abnormalities; and 6) treatment studies of PMS with serotonergic agonists. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: The data presented here suggest that post-synaptic serotonergic responsivity might be altered during the late-luteal-premenstrual phase of the menstrual cycle. Some serotonergic functions of women with PMS might be altered during the entire cycle and be associated with a vulnerability trait. It is hypothesized that gonadal hormones might cause changes in levels of activity of 5-HT systems as part of a multidimensional interactive system. Strategies to evaluate 5-HT activities in the context of the menstrual cycle are discussed--leading to the conclusion that the most promising approach is active stimulation with specific post-synaptic serotonin agonists. Treatment outcome studies of some imperfect compounds that are currently applied as a symptomatic treatment of PMS support the notion that 5-HT is involved in the pathophysiology of these syndromes.
@JLK - I call bullshit. Hormones and their effects ARE my research subfield so I'm going to try and straighten this out here:
1 - No studies have confirmed the existence of PMS, therefore it is a myth.
False.
First, there have been such studies...and some countries like the UK are taking them seriously enough to allow some severely affected women to get treatment via the NHS. AFS is a really smart lady but your information is out-dated. Also, there are were no studies linking thalidimide to birth defects until a few decades ago either...does that mean that thalidimide did not affect prenatal development prior to the studies? Lack of evidence is exactly that - a lack of evidence...you cannot disprove your null hypothesis based on a lack of evidence.
2 - What I had was an anxiety attack.
True.
I have been in other more stressful situations (even more stressful oral exams) and not had an anxiety attack...what makes this situation different? Exogenously-provided hormones at a a level that my body was not previously accustomed to dealing with. Sure, my sample size is n=1, so I'm not about to run out and publish this finding but it is a compelling correlation. You are willing to believe the "drugs" I was on caused the anxiety attack...the drugs were estrogen and progesterone.
3 - Pregnancy affects you at the neurotransmitter level, while your normal menstrual cycle does not.
False.
The effects during pregnancy at the neurotransmitter level that you mention are mediated by hormones...the very same that are involved in your menstrual cycle. The only difference is the ratios.
4 - Hormone levels due to menstrual cycles don't do anything according to science.
FALSE!
If that were true then I wouldn't be studying them. Hormone levels do to menstrual cycles do LOTS of things according to science. Not least of all, jump-starting the gonad-hypotahlamal-pituitary signaling axis. I won't get into a repro bio/endocrine lecture here, but all you've got to do is pick up a text book. (I don't know how extensive your bio background is, so if you already know this I'm not trying to talk down to you; but if you don't - gonad=ovary/testis, hypothalamus/pituitary are in the brain). Oh, and those physical symptoms that make you feel like shit? What do you think is causing them? Hint: it's hormones. Morning sickness during pregnancy = nausea during PMS...just a different level/ratio of those pesky hormones. Other things (like headaches) can also make you cry and feel like shit but that does not exclude that fact that hormones can also elicit physical symptoms.
Nothing personal JLK, but you're wrong on this one. If you like AFS, you might also like this one: It's called "Woman: An intimate geography" by Natalie Angier...an excellent pop-sci take on biology and sociobiology of all things female...she does a great job of presenting hormones and their effects in a way that won't make a non-endocrinologist gag.
Arlenna - nice finds...there are 1000s.
Just to clarify: I was not in any way trying to discount anyone's experiences. I was trying to point out that men get absurdly moody, too, but our moodiness is never attributed as some essential feature of the "male nature", while women's moodiness is, whether on hormonal bases or otherwise.
CPP - Point taken, and agreed.
Boy don't I know it that men can be absurdly moody--I have experienced this from both my lovely husband and one of my postdoc PIs. The husband one I can understand and am ready to be there for, but the postdoc PI's moodiness was seriously unfair and unprofessional.
I am pretty sure that's exactly what it was: moodiness. I observed enough of it over the years, and watched his behavior phenotypes pretty closely. But others said he was just a jerk, or that maybe he was right about something he saw in people that made him be rude to and about them.
Holy shit, ladies. Seriously.
Totally didn't think everyone was going to flip the fuck out because I bring up something I read in a book. Let me provide you with a couple of quotes which will hopefully enlighten you as to what I was trying to get at:
"Woman is a pair of ovaries with a human being attached, whereas a man is a human being furnished with a pair of testes." - Rudolf Virchow, MD.
"Estrogen is responsible for that strange mystical phenomenon, the feminine state of mind." - David Reuben, MD., 1969.
"Men and women differ in their hormonal systems...every society demonstrates patriarchy, male dominance and male attainment. The thesis put forth here is that the hormonal renders the social inevitable." - Professor Steven Goldberg, Sociology Professor.
Rather than inundate your comments section with the information I'm trying to convey, I'm gonna leave you with that and go post this stuff on my blog.
JLK - All those quotes are valid points about how our society at large tends to pigeon-hole women into being slaves to their ovaries and therefore are seen as less valid as independent thinking human beings. Right on the money.
But your original comment brought up the reactionary viewpoint, which is often colored by some fundamental ignorance regarding basic biology: if we don't want to be treated as slaves to our ovaries, then the solution is to assert that the ovaries have no overt effect on our behavior - they are inconsequential. And any biologist can tell you that this just isn't true - ignoring the fact that your hormones exist won't beat them into submission.
Which gets at the underlying question that Arlenna and I started -- hormones DO affect us in ways that we don't want to admit or acknowledge because it feeds the gender-based pigeon-holing shit that we'd all be better off without.
Disingenuous, JLK, disingenuous.
What you meant was very clear from what you wrote, it wasn't hard for anyone to figure it out.
You have to remember that you are entering the fray with scientists, who fight their debates with studies and evidence, rather than quotes. Quotes only illustrate perception, they do not demonstrate mechanism. Here, we are talking about mechanism as it relates to our own perceptions of ourselves, not someone else's perception of us as stereotypes.
This is a very private, under-discussed issue - and one that's still pretty taboo.
Whilst I accept that men also have hormonal upheavals, and mood upheavals, I don't know enough to know if they are cyclic and frequent, in the same way that the female hormones are? And are there places where male moodiness is treated as evidence that the male is less competent or as a reason to dismiss his views, in the same way that female moodiness, especially cyclic female moodiness, can be?
I'm not academically knowledgeable in this sort of biology, but I am a scientist, so naturally I tend to collect data... I can track a series of physical and emotional fluctuations which clearly and directly relate to the stage of my menstrual cycle, and which affect my ability to deal with events like negative criticism - or indeed to undertake fieldwork (there are a couple of days every month when I need to, erm, visit the bathroom to change things every 1.5 hours. This is hard enough when I'm teaching a heavy schedule - but on open moorland with no bushes or rocks to lurk behind? Just grim!). I'm good at coming up with business and rescheduling things like appraisals. Challenging as my cycle is 28+/-4 days long, not absolutely regular.
As for leadership - well, I have it on good authority (Former Head of Department) that I lack all leadership skills anyway, so I don't need to worry there! :-)
I'm not going to get in the middle of any arguments, but as with several of the commenters, I also DEFINITELY experience both physical and emotional upheavals each and every month, without fail. Call it PMS, call it moodiness, call it whateverthefuckyouwant, but it's real. Complete and utter physical exhaustion the day before followed by emotional instability and decreased cognitive function for the next couple of days ... every single month, it doesn't vary. I don't give a flying fuck what the various studies claim, I am my own goddamned case study and observing these symptoms every month for 25 years yields a sample size of at least n=300. That's pretty conclusive evidence for me.
I'm going to repost as well (I posted on Arlenna's earlier as neuropostdoc) and then add some:
I have the exact same problems...luckily my cycles are highly predictable which has helped a great deal in my ability to deal with them (i.e., I'll only feel like a stupid idiot for about 3-4 days and then I'll feel fabulous for 3-4 days and I know when those days are and can plan accordingly--I can deal with that).
Interestingly, my (male) mentor and I have mood cycles together which makes lab entertaining sometimes...
I'm really glad that you and Arlenna have blogged about this as it's something that most people don't discuss. So here's my oversharing: I actually have bipolar disorder that cycles with my menstrual cycle (this is not to say that every woman that has emotional issues that cycle with her menstrual cycle has a similar disorder, just that mine are severe enough to be classified as such)--the mood cycling was so frequent and severe that at one point my OG-GYN and psychiatrist and I discussed a hysterectomy (I was only ~24 years old at the time). Luckily we found a different solution that worked for me (IUD, only releases progesterone locally--doesn't appear to cause the depression that depo-provera or oral progesterone caused) and caused the cycling to only occur once a month. I'm relatively stable now, with only minor normal mood fluctuations every month, but at one point the bipolar disorder was so bad that I had a clear depressive episode followed by an even clearer full-blown manic episode every month (my labmate used to be able to predict the episodes as they were so regular).
Anyway, there was a point to this--oh yeah, hormones can and do fuck with your brain. Although, I might argue that, just like anything else, some people's brains may be more susceptible to it than others (and no, I don't mean female vs. male; I mean me vs. my highly stable female best-friend, etc.)
You know what? Let me try this again because I get really pissed off when what I'm trying to say isn't coming across.
It's not that PMS is a "myth" - it's that it is a catch-all category used to describe any behavior by a female that others consider to be "off."
I get that I'm debating with scientists, Arlenna. But I am also arguing with scientists who are using anecdotal data and a couple of articles that don't do anything except attempt to hypothesize based on correlational data that is flawed to begin with because it is based on an assumption that PMS is a "syndrome" with "symptoms" like it's a fucking disease.
Y'all are debating with me on a totally separate issue from what I'm trying to address.
That's why I don't and didn't call it PMS. That term is totally fraught with the weight of sexist history and stereotype perception. The fact that hormonal cycles HAPPEN simply cannot be disputed. And while we all fully disclose that our own personal stories of it are anecdotal, that doesn't make our meta-analysis of each others' data completely bogus (only partially so).
I see what you are trying to say, and you are reacting exactly as I fully expected some people would react. Your response is WHY I wanted to talk about this. Because it is SO charged for most women and we want to find out if it really means anything to our real selves or not.
I still hold that the biology is what it is, and that it DOES affect my feelings about myself as a leader whether I like it or not. My ability to push through it anyway is what makes me special, not any claims that none of it really is affecting me from a biological, female source.
This statement:
"If it is true that women can lose control of their abilities to behave in a rational manner and think clearly due to something as uncontrollable as hormones, then I can understand why we have still not had a female president of the United States."
makes me very, very uncomfortable, because even if all that IS true, it has nothing to do with why we haven't yet had a female POTUS.
Sandy Shoes - That was intended as sarcasm...tone of voice does not come across in written media - I keep getting into trouble for that. Thank you for pointing that out - I will edit to post to make that more clear.
It does still point out what JLK is reacting to - that some people allow this idea that women are inherently more irrational than men bc we favor estrogens to androgens (not an idea that I support by the way) - to marginalize women based on their gonads...which is no less bigoted than marginalizing someone based on their skin color.
I do NOT think that my episodes of feeling unlike myself due to my hormonal profile make me or any other woman unfit to lead...just noting that on some days it's a struggle...and on some days it is a struggle for men, and for hysterectomized women, and for post-menopausal women. It is unique for pre-menopausal women who experience these kinds of REGULAR mental-emotional "off" days. It makes us question ourselves, and it makes some days harder than others, but really that's all. It is not a judgment on someone's fitness for leader ship or anything else.
Oh phew -- thanks. I sometimes have that problem with sarcasm myself.
Holy shit, what a discussion. Work on a paper for a day and you miss a lot.
I am one of the lucky few who do not cramp, do not get moody, do not get headaches, exhaustedly tired, or anything like that on, before, or after my period. I take birth control and have for years and the only thing that happened is my boobs got pleasantly bigger. And I've been on 4 kinds of pills, all of which seem to have no effect on my general physical state except to avoid pregnancy. I realize this makes me lucky, but it's true.
That being said, as a person who does not seem to either have much hormone fluctuation or be affected by it, I seriously resent any time someone wants to tell me I'm being hormonal when I am (rightly) emotional about something or other. The pigeonhole sucks troll balls, and I hate it. But the number of times this has happened to me personally has been minimal, fortunately. Other women, however....
I know this is totally anecdotal too, but I had never heard of PMS until I was in high school or something. A bunch of immigrant Asian ladies (my main exposure to adult women as a child) would NEVER mention hormonal fluctuations, and it never occurred to me that such a thing existed. Once I heard about it, I tried to figure out if I ever got it. I don't.
Conclusion: I totally believe some women get PMS and it fucks them up. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I am not one of them. However, I know such a non-trivial number of women, myself included, who don't have any problems with PMS that I seriously resent society's attempt to foist "PMS" on any woman who is behaving "irrationally." As if men never behave irrationally. The over-generalization of symptoms in broader pop culture is super annoying, and I hate it. At the same time, I do think women are often too quick to blame PMS for whatever malaise they are feeling. I'm not saying Arlenna or AA have done so, but I think in general it's too easy, thus contributing to the societal image of women being hounded by PMS all the freakin time.
That is all.
oh yeah, 2 things:
1) i was also never regular before the pill - my cycle was often 25-42 days in range. so the pill obviously affects me, as i am now totally regular, but for whatever reason i'm the lucky bitch with no moodiness.
and 2)
CONGRATS AA ON PASSING!!!!
let's not forget, despite everything, that you passed a major milestone and deserve a pat on the back.
unfortunate, though, that now there is more fodder for your GrAdvisor to fixate on. i wish you luck with that, and also with this new set of meds, hopefully they will do the trick for you.
Thanks PD - Actually the candidacy exam was a few years ago...maybe I didn't write that story in the past tense...and the stuff I'm on now works like a charm.
Nonetheless, your good wishes and sharing in my successes are much appreciated!
WOW. I am glad I read all the posts before I started typing. JLK is obviously a bit behind the science on this one considering it hasn't been a "couple" of articles with "anecdotal data" that have been publish about this, but hundreds, and many with quite good data. I'm agreeing with Jane on this, it does not get spoken of enough. We live in a society where it is unnecessary, taboo, or gross(?) to talk about these real issues. I am a walking hormonal disaster as it is... my endocrine system has the tendency to function in its own way and that's fine. IT AFFECTS ALL! If my thyroid level goes up, I get moody. My androgen levels behaving funny... different moody. Yes yes, there is pain associated with it, but that is not what makes me cry. You are talking to a girl who tore her MCL (almost impossible) and didn't have the patience to wait for ski patrol so I snowboarded the rest of the way down. Hurt like HELL, but I don't really cry for physical pain. I am sort of a glutton for punishment. PMS, or whatever the heck it is you want to call it, happens. yes in women that usually includes tears, but I know the hubs is cyclical too. His cycles are about every 45 days. He freaks out, gets angry, and is fine 4 days later. No cramps and whatnot, but it is SOOO obvious. However, if he is having a rough day at work, right away his coworkers assume, the missus got you down? If I show up to anything moody NO ONE asks if it's the hubs, it is more is it that time of the month? Bull. Okay, my diatribe is becoming longer than anticipated. Bye.
Oops!! Sorry, it was late, I read it fast, and I knew you had a big meeting coming up so I just associated this post with the big meeting. My bad.
PD - Thanks for your kind thoughts...the big meeting is today. I think it's supposed to be an "ask for permission to ask for permission to begin writing my thesis at the next meeting" meeting...if that makes any sense.
In any case, I don't feel like my project is anywhere close to being ready for that but GrAdvisor thinks it is...we'll see what the rest of the committee think,
Ditto to PhizzleDizzle's comment, in it's entirety. However, I switched pills recently and have started to think I'm getting a little PMS or whatever. I'm usually totally out of tune with my body, but lately I've had the odd string of days where I've been depressed/unmotivated for no apparent reason and then it just goes away. Could it be the pill?
When I have moments of apparently hormone-induced moodiness, I get added respect for the women in my life who deal with more severe "PMS" on a regular basis. It's hard to empathize when you don't typically have that experience.
Someone I occasionally work with gets moody one day a month. I would never put it together with the calendar to guess it was PMS, but she'll comment on it if we're working together on one of her bad days. I actually really appreciate this because it a) lets me know to tone it down a bit and b) lets me know that her behavior isn't because she's having a personal crisis or that I've pissed her off or something. But I doubt she would ever share that way with a male coworker. I don't think I would.
BTW, I'm loving the debate here. I commented a few hours ago at Isis' that women bloggers are too gentle with each other. I'm glad to know I'm wrong!
This is a good discussion. One thing I noticed, though, is the conflation of "moody" or "hormonal" with "irrational." I think that's where the problem actually lies.
I can't accurately speak for everyone, but in my personal experience and also hearing other people describe their experiences, it seems like a lot of women experience these hormonal fluctuations as a removal/lowering of their "filter." It's not that the things they think and feel make any less sense to think and feel, but that usually they can censor them, and when their hormone levels change so severely that ability is hampered. It's basically a removal of the censor. If anything, people should pay close attention to the things a woman says and feels when that filter is removed, because they have merit and deserve that attention (not dismissal).
Panic attacks obviously don't really fall into this category. Neither would the pain. And JLK, fwiw, I have had serious abdominal pain (I have a chronic illness) that made me cry, and it's not the same thing. I have also lived with severe menstrual cramps that made me cry, and I have had easier months where I didn't have such severe cramping and I was holding back tears all the time anyway. The crying just feels different when it's related to menstruation. That shit isn't random.
Volcanista - good point! I think that the important distinction to make here is that some of us perceive ourselves as irrational when the filter isn't working...not that we actually are irrational. But yes, that word pushes a lot of people's buttons and becomes both a tool and a target for fueling the fire. I intentionally dropped it into the post a few times because it is inflammatory...and while I KNOW when I'm feeling like myself (i.e., when my hormones are behaving) that I am completely capable of being rational even when my hormones are being wacky, I also know that I am incapable of seeing myself as rational when the hormones are out-of-whack and the filter isn't working...which is precisely the crux of the matter.
Volcanista's idea is interesting - I had never thought about it that way. And looking back to the days when, in my 30's the monthly pms thingy, whatever you want to call it, started for me and then gradually got worse or more apparent, maybe I was just as rational as usual, just more outspoken about irritating things. I'm pretty sure the "guys" around me thought so (that I was more outspoken), and fortunately they thought it was alright. Because of certain pills I was taking, I didn't really experience that sort of thing early on (or maybe one kind of low, quiet day), so it was a surprise to me to gradually correlate the outbursts (etc.) with time-of-month. It *didn't* feel like me then, but it would now.
Didn't I post something like that on one of these posts already? The thing is, I can't find the comment now, so maybe I just thought about it - now I'm having senior moments?!
I've been trying to figure out why so many commenters on here are telling me that I'm wrong when AA, Arlenna and I all figured out we were in agreement.
Then I realized that the agreements didn't take place on AA's blog, they took place on mine and Arlenna's.
So I would just like to mention to everyone that if you want to see and participate in the full discussion that has been taking place, make sure you visit the posts on my blog as well as Arlenna's.
Sitting here cramping horribly... but not as bad as when I was in high school / undergrad, when I would faint on a regular basis and missed at least one day of school every cycle. Ibuprofen is my friend... I worship whoever discovered and developed this wonder drug.
I do get the emotional effects too, including being very sleepy and being much quicker to get irritated than usual, for a few days before the cramps. Luckily I am usually quite good at picking up on this before I really piss anyone off - it's kind of an "oh, right, it's that time, better simmer down" response.
Right, off to find chocolate.
I'm still jealous that AA's post gets 39 comments and mine only got like 7!! SO UNFAIR that whenever I post something that inspires somebody, their post gets way more comments than mine. Just like my chemical biology post that got like 34 comments over at Comrade Physioprof's blog.
I guess all I am is a muse. I'm just not popular enough, Waahhhh.
Hey, just wanted to chime in on the irregular cycle thing. Your doc is right, it's important to take the pill because otherwise you're at a risk for not laying down calcium deposits properly, sans cycle.
I've always had irregular cycles, with the occasional six-month hiatus that could only be resolved by getting a hormone pill at the doctor's. However, we have no reason to think our infertility issues are related to that per se. So try not to worry about it too much.
As far as hormones and PMS go--I think it's to our advantage that we feel oogy on a regular basis. If you know that it's coming, you can prepare yourself mentally to some degree: you can work extra hard at self-control when it's relevant. This helps you build up your emotional maturity. Men, otoh...
Thanks Dr. Jekyll - Interestingly, I became lactose intolerant in college and obviously cut WAY back my diary...so after a few years of that I had the opportunity to have a free bone density check - they thought their machine was broken - my bones were average density for an African American woman (I'm of an ethnicity that should be concerned about osteoporosis), which I guess is pretty dense. This is reassuring as some of the older women in my family are starting to see signs of decreasing density so yeah, keeping estrogens at a functional level for this process is pretty important to me.
Not being in a position where I'm ready to even start thinking about having kids yet, I really don't worry about it much. Occasionally this sort of thing becomes the topic of discussion and it sort of makes me wonder...but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. It is heartening though to hear someone in your situation declaring that these things (irregularity and fertility) may not be related.
Still have all my fingers crossed for you -- can't remember if I commented on your giggles post but it totally cracked me up - way to go Your Ovaries!
I have not read the comments in detail, but I just wanted to offer support to the notion that my hormones have definite effect on my work.
I am most productive in the several weeks after my period; least productive during the week before/week of my period. That's just the way it is, and I try to plan plenty of experiments for my less-productive spurts because they force me to work.
I CRY UNDER STRESS WHEN I TRY TO PRESENT MYSELF AND MY KNOWLEDGE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN CONFUSED ABOUT SELF-CONFIDENCE AND WHAT IT IS I SHOULD BE CONFIDENT ABOUT...THEN THERE IS THE PART ABOUT FEELING INTIMIDATED BY PEOPLE WHO MAY NOT KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT BUT THEY BOMBARD MY SENSES WITH ATTACK AND (SINCE MY EMOTIONS ARE SET AT "EXTREME" IN MY PREDISPOSITIONAL MAKE-UP)I FOLD AND CRY A RIVER!!!
I ALSO MADE TEARS (OVER-FLOWING) IN RELATIONS TO THE MONTHLY CYCLE I USE TO HAVE.
I AM A WOMAN.
DURING MILITARY BOOTCAMP YOUNG WOMEN MISS THEIR PERIODS. I DIDN'T MISS MINE. DURING ATHELETIC TRAINING SOME WOMEN WILL MISS THEIR PERIODS BUT I DIDN'T MISS MINE. DURING ACADEMIC STUDIES AND TESTING SOME WOMEN WILL MISS THEIR PERIOD BUT I DIDN'T MISS MINE.
DURING MEDICAL TRAINING MY PATIENT DIED...I CRIED. BUT WHEN MY MOTHER PASSED ON...I DIDN'T.
THERE ARE TIMES WHEN I AM AS COOL AS A CUCUMBER, AS THE SAYING GOES, BUT OTHER TIMES WHEN I WILL CRY A RIVER. I AM A WOMAN.
I HAVE MANAGED MY LIFE AND TIMES IN AND OUT OF UPHEAVALS AND I HAVE BOTH CRIED IN MY PILLOW AND I HAVE STOOD STEADY BY THE HELM.
I AM NOT UNUSUAL. WOMEN ARE THE BACKBONES OF NATIONS AND THEY ARE SUBJECT TO CRYING AT UNUSUAL MOMENTS. I HAVE CONCLUDED THAT IT HAS MORE TO DO WITH "MY OPERATING SYSTEM" THAN ANYTHING ELSE. SO YES..."WOMEN, KNOW YOUR HORMONES!" THEY ARE WHO YOU ARE, INDIVIDUALLY. (I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA OF VIEWING ALL WOMEN AS THE SAME SO THAT A STEREOTYPE CAN BE FORMED.)
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ARTICLE. I WILL SEND IT TO MY DAUGHTERS. IT WAS A FUN, SHARING AND CLEAR READ ABOUT WHAT GOES ON INSIDE OF A WOMAN.
AND, I'M SO GLAD YOU QUIT TAKING THOSE PILLS. WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH IS MORE NATURAL THAN CLINICAL. EVERY WOMAN'S BODY IS SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT--THUS, HANDLES STRESS DIFFERENTLY SO YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN YOUR OWN.
--MARGARET OPINE
At any rate, I liked some of the vadlo mouse cartoons!
Hey, I think it's safe to say that most violent crimes and serious traffic accidents are committed by men. For example, a guy beating up his wife sounds like pretty much out of control to me.
Whatever men are, they are not free of their hormones. (Not that "hormones" are an exucu, of course.)
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