Okay guys, you can skip this one, we’ll be talking about woman things so go crack a beer and watch a game somewhere.

Are they gone?

Okay.

For the past several months I have been experiencing bouts of moodiness. Extreme moodiness which usually include crying jags on the couch, self hatred followed by watching chick flicks with Ben and Jerry. If I wasn’t crying I was yelling at someone or yelling at myself. These bouts of moodiness were usually accompanied by my period which had become irregular in the past several months. I assumed I was in perimenopause but didn’t do much more than ride the storm out and buy a lot of ice cream.

Two weeks ago I blew up at my ex husband because he offered to paint my deck for me.

I have no idea why.

After scaring him away he texted me and asked me if I was okay, he also said he would install my air conditioners and do some wiring for me.

Apparently I scared the hell out of him because while he has always been helpful he has never offered to do so much.

I texted him back that I was not okay, that I was pissed off for reasons I didn’t understand, that I needed chocolate and a hug. He offered to get me chocolate and a bucket of chicken which just sent me into a new tizzy.

That’s some insane shit. I’ve been moody before but never so irrational. However, I knew the mood would subside as my period ended. Which it did until this past weekend when the whole thing started all over again, and accompanied by my period.

I tried to muddle through the whole thing. I took my daughter the the mall to see a movie and do a little shoe shopping. I should have been on top of the world and I was until I had a near panic attack in the shoe store. It wasn’t a panic attack, it was a hot flash. It freaked the hell out of me though and nearly sent me into a full blown panic attack which if you have ever had one you know they can be pretty scary.

We left the shoe store without any shoes which was pretty depressing. I spent the rest of the weekend carb loading and lying on the couch. I had no motivation to do anything and didn’t see the point anyway.

Motivation has been lacking for a long time as well. Work had become work, I had to force myself to do anything on the computer and I was ignoring the phone whenever it rang. I was also ignoring my kids and cooking had become a thing of the past. We were eating fast food or frozen pizza because I just couldn’t bring myself to cook.

On Monday I decided I didn’t want to live this way anymore so I called my endocrinologist and told the nurse what was going on. I told her I wasn’t sure who I should be calling, my OB/GYN or someone else but I had to talk to someone and right now. She said she had an appointment for 11:30 that morning and wondered if I could make it.

“Yes, but it cuts into my nap time” I said only half jokingly.

That’s how insane I have become.

I quickly got dressed, even threw on some mascara and drove to my appointment.

I was quickly called back to the exam room which made me wonder if they don’t deal with this whole perimenopause thing a lot. I wondered if they didn’t have a standing order to get the middle aged women out of the waiting room as fast as possible so not to scare the other patients.

After getting on the scale, seeing that I was up five pounds since my last visit in October and being rather surprised it was only five pounds because of all the carb loading and couch surfing I had been doing, I sat down and filled out some questionnaire which determined I was really depressed. I wasn’t suicidal, I didn’t want to end my life I just wanted to make everyone else’s miserable.

I met with my doctor and explained everything to him. I told him that nothing major had happened in my life, things were actually pretty good and I had no reason to be so down. He asked if I was having any ‘ups’ or just ‘down’ and ‘normal’. I was having no ‘ups’ which I suppose means that I am not bipolar. Realizing that some people were having ‘ups’ and I was not was just one more thing to be depressed about. I had mounds of laundry that needed to be cleaned and put away, I could really use an ‘up’.

I told my doctor everything. I told him about the late night eating I have been doing for months and couldn’t seem to stop even though I knew I shouldn’t be doing it. I told him about my lack of desire for anything, that I didn’t want to do anything and that I felt horrible because I didn’t want to go out with friends or have fun of any kind. I told him that my moods were having an impact on my kids and that was what I wanted to end the most.

I asked him if he could write me a prescription to a week in Tahiti. Without my kids.

He said that wasn’t really an option at this time. This admission nearly had me in tears. I fought them back but wondered if I shouldn’t just let them flow because this was the kind of thing I was dealing with and maybe he should see it. I wanted to go to Tahiti, sort of. I didn’t really want to go to Tahiti because I don’t know anyone there, I look horrible in a bathing suit right now and I don’t have the money or the time to go to Tahiti. I also am pretty sure I don’t like to fly anywhere and I know I hate packing so really the whole thing sounds like a lot of trouble.

See? This is the kind of shit that goes on in my brain…

ALL. THE. TIME!

After sitting there for a few moments in silence my doctor finally suggest I take Zoloft for a few months.

To be continued….

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