Don't Forget To Take Your Happy Pill

I have another confession, while I'm feeling all vulnerable and transparent again...

Some of you might recall my post about Pre-Murder-Syndrome, awhile back?  Well, it was all the rage for about seven minutes.  Anyway, PMS has been a seriously debilitating issue for me these past few years and I wanted to give you a little update on my recovery. 

After trying all sorts of conventional methods to treat  my homicidal condition, I am happy to announce I have finally found a solution that works! Wait for it...

Prozac. 

There. I said it. After much meditation, prayer, exorcisms, exercise, dietetic and homeopathic trials, I have settled on a drug.  Let the shock ruminate a little and continue reading, please. I can justify.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E.  That's where my mind was about every twentieth day of my woman-cycle.  I'm telling you, I was seriously, seriously contemplating, no, fantasizing about it, every month!  Logically, it made no sense. I mean, my husband is a dream.  I won't even tell you how wonderful he is because it would make you green with jealousy and risk you missing the point of my disclosure.

Now, anti-depressants carry a huge stigma in our society, I know.  Everybody's medicated these days. It doesn't help that I am grossly prideful, overly-logically wired and previously judgy of those who partook in the mind bending drugs.  I also have 'control' issues and like to fancy I can outsmart my emotions. But Hormones have proven too powerful a force for me to reckon with.  

Unfortunately, for about ten days every month, these little buggers also cause me to think irrational, selfish, mean thoughts that feel every bit as real as the air I breathe.  I noticed myself crucifying my kids for as much as blinking.  I'd even threaten to put them up for adoption or throw them off a bridge, okay not really, but I don't know how else to paint the extremes of emotional torment I was suffering every month. I'm not the touchy-feely or reactive type, I was out of character.

Expressing my emotions is more of a private thing for me so losing my composure has been immensely embarrassing.  These last few years I have been humbled by my lack of emotional restraint come hormone hell-week.  Guilt, resentment and shame were also part of the cycle.  I mean, I am a happily married woman!  How could I consider breaking up our family by caving to these unreasonable and very temporary feelings?! I was desperate.  Prozac had to be better than divorce, right? 

About two years ago my doctor suggested I take it for just two-weeks a month to see if it would tame the beast that raged within me.  I tried it for four days.  Nothing.  It didn't work.  I couldn't 'feel' anything.  "Phew," I thought smugly.  "I'm sure glad I'm not one of 'those' people who need drugs to control my emotions."  So I went on with my PMS and just tried to warn my family when I saw it coming.  But eventually, suffering through my tyrannical rampages, the tears and overwhelming 'feelings' took it's toll.  So I went back to my Doctor a few months ago and agreed to give the drugs another try.  

This time, I started taking them before I felt the PMS creeping up on me.  Lo and behold, eight or nine days later, Aunt-Flo showed up unannounced, without her usual pomp and circumstance! No temper tantrums, no thoughts of burning my house down, AND NO SIDE EFFECTS.  None.  No weird high, no jitters, no rapid heart beat or suicidal tendencies.  The only way I could tell the pills were actually 'working' was by the lack of my usual Jekyll and Hyde transformation.  Once menses started, I quit taking the pills about two days later.

I am now on my fourth cycle and feel 'safe' to tell the world that drugs fixed me! I am no longer ashamed.  I realize my emotions are due to hormone imbalance and Prozac works to correct the endorphin levels that have gone haywire with my age.  It's certainly not the answer for everyone and I suspect my condition is closer to PMDD than PMS, but I am all better now!  And I thank God for that, not Prozac.

What methods do you use to combat PMS? I'm always open to new drugs ideas!