👀 What's this mess? PMS

#245 | Feeling all the feels

Hello,

Ever had a day (or a couple of days) where you feel gloomy, and then pissed, and then listless and then weep to a commercial about cockroach killers on TV, and then write an effusive gratitude list before you finally coax yourself to sleep?

If this sounds to you like a bit too much to experience in a short span of time, you probably don't have a uterus. And let me tell you something: GOOD FOR YOU. You don't know how lucky you are. 

If you don't have a uterus, it means you don't menstruate, and if you don't menstruate, you don't have to endure this curse of a condition called PMS.

PMS, or Pre-Menstrual Syndrome, is an entreé your body serves you before your menstrual period. This exquisite entreé is carefully prepared by the chef (in this case, biology?), and has notes of depression and anxiety, a strong hint of irritability and fatigue, with a dash of insomnia and social withdrawal.

Scrumptious, isn't it?

Some menstruators experience a whole bunch of physical symptoms during PMS too. Muscle pains, headaches, bloating, acne, diarrhoea- all the fun stuff that really drives up the excitement for the actual period!!

As for the period itself, don't even get me started. If you menstruate, I feel you. If you don't, get educated so you don't end up killing your menstruating family members based on wildly ignorant assumptions.

If that sounded like an extreme and unhinged sentence, please read this.

Anyway, back to PMS.

I'm one of the lucky ones whose PMS and period are pain-free (touch wood). Physical pain that is. When it comes to my mental landscape, PMS makes sure to make its presence known.

The blues hit me like a truck, and I go flailing through a multiverse of inexplicable emotions, only to fall with a loud but silent thud onto a cold, hard floor of emptiness.

Yes, I'm PMSing at the moment, which is why my description is a tad too dramatic - but it really DOES feel like this man!

Per usual, I turn to art in times of distress. Today's thing is the work of semi-anonymous Canadian artist Ambivalently Yours.

I have been their fan for almost a decade now, finding comfort and solace in their wistful depictions of paradoxical mental states and feelings. The illustrations are interwoven with fragments of poetry on soft pink and blue backgrounds. 

Here are some of my favourites:

You can explore more of their work on Instagram.

Here's to the ambivalence of our hearts - whether PMS induced or not. 

Proiti