P M S
i realize that at the moment this blog is being read primarily by guys (which is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself). but stick with me for a minute.
in the last year and a half i've become much more aware of how i'm affected by my hormones. at first it was just good information to have: i knew that the feeling that the world was collapsing was only temporary, and i knew when to give myself some space. but after a while i started resenting how predictable it was. how frustrating is it that there are a few days a month that i can't interact with people without being a bitch? how agonizing is it that there are regularly times when i'll cry out to my father to comfort me, and feel like it's completely futile? every month i feel like i come back to the same struggles, to find them just as debilitating as they were the month before.
it's really easy to begin resenting the fact that guys don't experience this cyclical hell as well. my friend, erika, and i have spent a lot of time shaking our fists at how unfair the curse seems to be. it's not bad enough that we have to deal with pregnancy and labor, we have to have this monthly plague as well.
in january i screamed into my journal at God: what about pms? do you go there, too? how do you redeem that?! i scream at God a lot. and, in testimony to his incredible graciousness, he usually gently allows me to see the answers.
i've been realizing over the last couple of years how amazingly capable women are. they can do a lot, and what they can't do, they can figure out well enough to get by. they are more willing to put up with doing things it's killing them to do than men are. (i know these are generalizations.) it's really easy for women to believe that they can hold it all together; that they can save and sustain everyone.
and then pms hits, and they lose control, and they hurt the people they care about--the people they're trying to save and sustain. and they realize their need for a savior. pms is God's monthly mercy to women, calling them away from self-dependence and into dependence on him. that, at least, is what he's been showing me over the last six months. my regularly scheduled breakdowns are usually the times i come crawling back to him with fresh repentance. they're usually the times when i'm broken by my sin and the fruitlessness of my coping with it.
so, six months after my screaming episode, i think i can say: praise him for pms. his mercies are new every month.
posted by michelle @ 1:22 PM
23 comments
23 Comments:
WOW! Monthly repentance would be a grace because I know how often I operate out of presumption with God rather than repentance.
:) i read your blog, and i'm a girl. i love you michelle!
~tkb
All I can say is a big amen - I've never seen it that way before, and I'm going to begin looking at it in this whole new light. Thanks!
wonderful! wonderful! how is it that you managed to make pms poetic:o)?
-shar
oh, bravo.
i'm a girl, too.
-amy
ooh! hello, girls!
so, i had a guy tell me that cycles aren't a uniquely feminine thing--that guys have hi's and low's and ups and downs, too. how would you respond to that?
i certainly have hi and low cycles. can't say they're quite as predictable by using a calendar as yours are, but they're more predictable than you might think.
on the whole cycle thing - I've been thinking about the cycle of light to darkness in the context of the Summer Solstice. Light has reached the zenith of its advance against darkness, and now darkness advances until it reaches its zenith on December 21, at which point light is on the march again. Ecclesiastes talks about the continuous, seemingly fruitless cycle of things on earth..."there is nothing new under the sun" kind of thing.
But...redemption/consumation is different. There is no darkness in the new Jerusalem of the book of Revelation. No cycle from light to darkness...only light, all the time. The end of pms, maybe?
i've thought a little about what womanhood looks like in the new creation--as in, if this is the curse, then what would things look like without the curse? because there's also a certain measure of feminine identity in pms. (dan, how do your cycles compare to your wife's?) (that's rhetorical, by the way.)
it's our intrinisic and kind of earthy/mystical connection to the life cycle. every month the female body prepares to give life... and every month it expels the life-giving blood that hasn't been used. i'll spare any more details for the sake of you guys, but really--be in awe of the female body. it's an amazing and delicately balanced creation.
so what does it look like for that to be redeemed/consummated? i'm not sure... something full and feminine and life-giving. and lacking the emotional trauma because we'll no longer need to be drawn into dependence on Christ.
thanks for the comment, dan. it'll give me something to think about for a while.
Can't say the blood thing has ever figured heavily into my appreciation of the female body ;)
Wow, you know guys who talk like you. Who'da thunk.
Anyhoo, see? That's two guy testimonies for you (assuming Dan isn't really a female English major in disguise). Nobody said we get PMS, just that the experiences you described in your post (emotional cycles with accompanying spiritual ups and downs) don't sound particularly unique to women.
Is it necessary to view PMS as some kind of blessing from God leading women from darkness to light, from repentance to forgiveness, from feisty independence to healthy dependence? Call a spade a spade. God didn't design PMS as a way of getting women closer to him, or at least I very much doubt it. It's just one of those hard things that people who experience it have to learn to cope with.
And yes, I did only read this entry because the title was "PMS".
And yes, I sincerely hope all the women reading this are mid cycle.
Stephen.
(ducks for cover)
here's my list:
-mike
-picking classes
-work
-laura
-finishing my room
-bethany
there..i'm done with you, you old nag
here's a story for you: yesterda my sister broke down and cried for 15 minutes because she couldn't find her hair straightener. she was sobbing. there was snot.
in three days, she'll be annoyed that the straightener has disappeared, but it will in no way move her to tears. yesterday, she knew she was crying because she was hormonal, but that knowledge did nothing to lessen the tears. in fact, she sobbed harder because she knew it was irrational and there was nothing she could do about it.
i can't view life as just a series of trials and hardships that i have to learn to endure as best i can. there's no hope in that. i have to believe that everything in life has been given so that i can know God more.
that's my hope. and i'll call a spade a spade: pms sucks. it sucks to have no control. it sucks that a list like the one above is only overwhelming and disabling on certain days during the month. and i don't think that healthy dependence is the only reason women deal with pms every month. that would be ridiculously simplistic. but i do think that seeing it that way has made me able to--in a small way--praise God in the midst of it. and for that i'm grateful.
"so, i had a guy tell me that cycles aren't a uniquely feminine thing--that guys have hi's and low's and ups and downs, too. how would you respond to that?
I'm sure men experience highs and lows of their own, but it can't be compared to the monthly havoc that hormones wreak on the female psyche. We're not talking about being affected by the highs and lows brought on by life circumstances. Like the hair-straightener story, this comes out of nowhere and for no reason. Based on the initial (and all female) reponse to this post, it looks to me like you hit a nerve that the guys just aren't getting.
~sarah
stee from Dublin says:
"God didn't design PMS as a way of getting women closer to him, or at least I very much doubt it. It's just one of those hard things that people who experience it have to learn to cope with."
mm replies:
"i can't view life as just a series of trials and hardships that i have to learn to endure as best i can. there's no hope in that. i have to believe that everything in life has been given so that i can know God more."
I find it odd when people say, "God's purpose for situation X is/was Y."
If PMS is a hard thing that people have to cope with, that's by God's design. If it brings Michelle closer to God, bully for her and that's by His design too.
I tend to think that when PMS came into the world, God had absolutely every experience of every human from Creation to eternity in mind, He knew all of its effects through all eternity, both good and bad, and all those things happen according to His will. Is PMS part of the curse? Almost certainly. Is there hope in that? Not particularly--curses are bad. Can God use PMS for good in the life of a Christian? Sure; he works all things for the good of those who love Him. Does that mean PMS is some great thing whose ultimate purpose in all of eternity is making Michelle know God more? I don't think so.
Can't God do things for lots of reasons at once? Or do I have to go around saying, "the reason God made the sun is so my geraniums grow"? Do I always have to reduce God's incomprehensible wisdom to a set of platitudes about me? I don't get what good that does or why it's supposed to offer more hope than "someday I'll die and be with Jesus." Why not just say, "well, PMS is here and it's hard and unpleasant, and someday I'll be rid of it, but in the meantime if God uses it for good in my life, I will be thankful"?
btw, I love the story about your sister. I hate to think less of people because of some chemical handicap, but I gotta admit that I lose a lot of respect for girls about the time they let emotions override their brains. If you *know* it's irrational, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER! It doesn't have to feel good, but can't you at least grit your teeth, swallow, and say, "now I will be rational, even if it hurts"?
andrew,
your nerve is unbelievable. have YOU ever had PMS??? HELL NO! have you ever bled for 7 days straight? HELL NO. should we as women use PMS as an excuse for any behavior? absolutely not. but the truth is it's real, you as a man don't understand it, and it's hard. you CANNOT ever say to just get over PMS. ever.
anonymous,
be nice.
btw,
I can't say I've bled for seven days, but I *have* spent the last three years in constant, gnawing (though not intense) pain, and I have woken up every morning in the past three years with eyes so dry I have to flick layers of crusties off them and blink through my entire shower before I've cleared away the semi-opaque glaze of snotty film so I can see properly, and I could describe less pleasant things than that. You suck it up and say oh well and you go write some code. Anyway, we're not talking about the bleeding. We're talking about getting all emotionally wack before the bleeding. And I'd wager that sometime or another in my life, I've been as emotionally wack as the average girl during PMS, and I maintain that I could choose not cry about a hair straightener. Who knows, maybe not.
i can't view life as just a series of trials and hardships that i have to learn to endure as best i can. there's no hope in that. i have to believe that everything in life has been given so that i can know God more.
I guess that's one way of looking at it, but I find it easier not to bring God into every hardship, even if God is present in it all. Some day when people find a solution to PMS the voices of countless generations will cry out from the grave - "God, why did you not help us out with suffering PMS while the people of today do not suffer?" and God will say "That's not my job".
I read this while in the midst of pms...It is comforting to know that someone out there feels the exact way that I do...today I felt like the world was crashing down all around me...thanks for posting this.
My hormones make me break out - painful, ugly buggers! I feel ugly and I act ugly and after 13 years of having a monthly cylce, I have found no solution. Yes, there is self-control, but whether or not you use self-control, there is still all the nasty inner thoughts and feelings that make the whole thing suck witout God. Michelle, thanks for redeeming this ugly monster for me.
My hormones make me break out - painful, ugly buggers! I feel ugly and I act ugly and after 13 years of having a monthly cylce, I have found no solution. Yes, there is self-control, but whether or not you use self-control, there is still all the nasty inner thoughts and feelings that make the whole thing suck witout God. Michelle, thanks for redeeming this ugly monster for me.
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