Ebb and Flow
Now that I’ve rejoined the menstruation club (see “Starting over at 38”), I’ve also been reconnecting with its related emotional and energetic cycles. Not that I didn’t have my share of inspirations, feelings and meltdowns when I was pregnant and nursing, but not with this intensity, and not on a predictable schedule. PMS for me can look like everything from manic creative energy to over-the-top emotionality to barely suppressed rage.
Every time I get into this issue I always feel a bit wary - as though acknowledging that women’s cycles can take us to some pretty crazy places plays into the age-old bias of women being “hysterical” (I believe that the root of that word is actually Greek for “uterus”) and therefore not fit for roles of major power or responsibility. Obviously that’s not the case, but speaking personally I can tell you that there are some days when I’m way more on those types of
balls than others.
The other piece in this topic that I want to look at is the idea that if only we have the right attitude or eat the right foods or get off pills or tampons or whatever, then our cycles and periods will miraculously become pain-free or even pleasurable. On this point I have to say that I have a ton of sympathy for women whose cycles are a nightmare who choose to use hormonal suppression. It’s not always a picnic, whatever your choices or orientation. I’ve spent a good part of my adult life dealing with other women’s periods, and yet I can still have trouble with my own! That said, making the switch to Lunapads way back when did me a world of good when it
came to how I felt about bleeding.
There can be a funny (not necessarily of the ha ha variety) kind of truth-telling around my own PMS times. My theory on that is that in our daily lives (assuming that your life, while illuminated by moments of harmony and perfection, also has its share of disappointments and unhappy run-ins with the rest of the world) we take in so much - from the media and others around us - a good portion of which can be kind of hard to take (reading a newspaper, for example.) And yet, for all those moments at which one wants to weep at the state of the world, missing or murdered children, appalling accidents, or just someone’s lousy attitude coming your way at random, for the most part we don’t sit down and let ourselves really have those emotions at the time. My thought about PMS is that that barrier - whatever it is that allows us to temporarily stuff those feelings - gets a little thinner about once a month. We therefore find ourselves bursting into tears over something seemingly trivial. The thing is, it’s not actually about that - it’s all the other things we have stored up, not to mention mourning the loss of a potential child on some level (Suzanne’s observation.) At times like that I feel like I’m weeping for the entire world.
My other thought at this time has to do with moving on - what happens at the other end of our periods, once we’re spent and have come a little closer to letting things go. As I write this I am about a week past my bleeding, and have recently had a good cry with a good friend. I’ve been trying to do some creative work for a few weeks (including coming up with some new blog entries!) and have been a bit stuck. I just can’t fake that stuff, so I’m happy to report that it seems like I’m clear and inspired again.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses on this topic!
August 31st, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I know this post is a bit old, but still…What worries me about this sort of theory is that men don’t have a cycle that allows them to make their “defense barriers” thinner. I really believe that we, all humans, have the ability to feel empathy and respect towards the rest of the inhabitants of the world. Linking this ability to our cycles can be read as buying into the idea that we are much more “nurturing” than men are, which, as you rightly point out, has been used to keep women out of positions of power. What worries me though is the whole idea that empathy is more of a female issue, and I don’t think I need to recall the names of prominent female politicians who could be said to be a perfect example of anything but empathy toward their fellow human beings. I also get uneasy about the whole “mourning of a child” thing. I can see that there might be some religious undertone to this (for example, the concept of “tuma” in judaism), but we should once again question how this is gendered: do men mourn the loss of a potential child every time they masturbate or use a condom? I really don’t think so, and at least in my case, thanks to the gods and godesses that invent(ed) contraceptive devices (may my prayers be with them for allowing me to dissasociate my sexuality with reproduction) I do not think of my menstrual blood in terms of a “loss of a child”