rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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Jimbrowsky... that's what it is...

I�m glad my period decided to hit once the projects were over and done with. I don�t know that I would have been able to handle the stress with the monster cramps and general poopiness I�ve been enduring.

I talked to my older sister to ask her if her periods have improved or worsened with age, and she said �worsened.� This is not good.

As a teenager, I had one year of horrible, horrible symptoms (I�ve been over this before: fainting in class, hot/cold flashes like old man flop sweat, going to the nurse�s office to lay down) then my period up and went away until I was 18. All my ballet dancing put my period on hold. It was pretty cool. But not for the boyfriends who were always freaked out that I could be pregnant... I was never careless enough for that to be a possibility. Thank god. I always had condoms and sponges at the ready. I remember trying the Pill at some point for like three weeks, and deciding that I didn�t appreciate changing the chemistry of my body just so that a guy could shirk his half of the responsibilities.

Anyway.

I didn�t actually get a regular period until I was 19 or so, and even then it was hardly what I would call normal. I�d get two periods in one month, or none at all for three months, or have 6 months of regularity and then 6 months of nothing. I didn�t think too much about it; I just thought �that�s how I am.� I was exercising and sometimes dancing a lot, and I just assumed it was all interrelated.

Until I foolishly mentioned this irregularity to a gynecologist. She convinced me that I was abnormal and needed to have a regular period. So she prescribed the Pill. I took it for 2 months and wanted to kill myself. Sure, I was regular but I felt like crap, I was bloated and moody, and didn�t feel like myself. So I stopped. She was annoyed, but fuck it. It�s my body. And Terence didn�t care, one way or the other. He wanted me to feel like myself.

A different time, a different gyno: the doctor asks me about my irregular and painful periods, and I say something cavalier like, �That�s life. Every woman in my family has periods like this, whateverwhatever.� She thinks I may need bloodwork, especially after I tell that under no circumstances will I ingest the Pill.. So I have bloodwork done, and nothing comes of it. In fact, absolutely, truly, nothing. No little paper telling me what tests my blood was subjected to, no phone call informing me of the results. Nothing. I even called to inquire, to see if I could get copies or have someone walk me through the results, and no one could give me straight answer. Fucking bad American medicine.

A friend of mine, who just moved in with her boyfriend, has decided to go on The Pill. She called me the other day to chitchat, and we fell into a birth control discussion, and she said that she was starting the Pill and she hated it. She felt like crap, cried at the drop of a hat, felt fat and depressed. I told her I think the Pill is lame and I refuse to take it.

Friend: So can I you a personal question?

Me: Sure.

Friend: What do you and Terence use?

Me: condoms, and maybe sponges once they get back into circulation.

Friend: You�re not kidding?

Me: Nope.

Friend: Wow.

I am always stunned that women believe that monogamy equals Pill taking. Monogamy with an equal means you make the birth control choice together. Or in my case, I make the choice and my boyfriend agrees. Until someone invents a Pill for men--a pill that completely fucks with their psyche, makes them moody, adds inches to their love handles, makes them touchy and bloated--I�ll stick with jimmy hats.

11:22 a.m. - 2003-03-22

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