Sometimes being a woman sucks. I recall many years ago, maybe in the 1990s, Oprah covered a story about how most medical research, including for breast cancer, was done on men because women’s hormones made research too difficult. Yeah. Welcome to my life — to every woman’s life.
I had my first period when I was 12. My mom and sisters congratulated me on this milestone while I laid on the couch in pain. It didn’t seem like cause for celebration. I was one of those women who had bad cramps, sometimes debilitating, especially as I got older.
At some point, I think in my 30’s I started getting drastic mood swings, often leading me to believe everything in my life needed to change, sometimes requiring the expenditure of large amounts of money. I was cognizant of these moods enough to know it was PMS and if I just waited a couple of days, all would be back to normal.
I didn’t trash my life or go on spending sprees — but I wanted to. Going through those times was tough because in the moment, things felt bad, really bad. Knowing it was temporary helped, but it was hard to reconcile “right now” with “in a few days.”
Many of the worst of those mood swings were helped by regular doses of Evening Primrose Oil, suggested by my doctor. Forward to many years later. At 48 I had a partial hysterectomy due to a…
