No, This Isn’t PMS. You are Just Really Annoying
I did an about face this month. I decided to stop believing in PMS. PMS and Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder weren’t actually included in the DSM until some time in the 1970s (and against protestations of many psychiatrists). Before that, we have the Victorians, Freud et al, to thank for notions of female hysteria and humors. Isn’t it possible that what we are dealing with is just straight depression? Real anger? I do find myself occasionally breathless with annoyance, my voice rising an octave or two. But when I think of this as PMS, it is usually just a coincidence, and the thinking, the “noticing,” only makes it worse, heightens the sense of crisis. So, I am no longer going to “notice.” I will deal with and process my annoyance, rather than sublimating it. And if it gets really bad, I will see a therapist, not a bottle of Evening Primrose Oil.
Liz Lawler, on the Lilith blog