I don’t generally do a behind the scenes on anything I word vomit on this screen…I apologize, shitty marketing strategy: I do not generally do a behind the scenes on any of the shit I shit out on this itchy assed blog (for good measure poop)… but this is one I’d like to.
Since August of 2017, I have been tracking my periods. During that time, I have been looking for patterns to my moods, behaviors, etc. Just by knowing my period was coming, I had fewer panic attacks and anticipating depressed episodes. The part I have never completely been able to understand is the manic part of things. I’ve had it from time to time, and I had manic psychosis once now, but more often than not – every time I feel remotely happy, I get worried I’m manic and ruin my own good time. Alternatively, I just go with it and that’s that. I don’t know what else to do at this point.
Anyway, I started to notice so many trends during my period. Forgive my nerding here, but before I spent a month running around my town convinced the government was going to kill me and hacked my phone and everyone was laughing at all of my snapchats and the radio was making fun of me….I was a data analyst. Also, I love psychology. So I kind of guinea pig myself. I just study everything and see what I can find. Sometimes understanding alone changes everything. I’ll save a lot, but my emphasis here is the profound effect a woman’s period has on her mental health.
The frustrating part, for me, is feeling out of control. I often feel as though I get 1 good week a month, and everything else is cyclically driven bullshit. On the positive, I’ve gotten to be more detached to all of this and it doesn’t scare me as much. On the negative, I tend to spend all my “good” time catching up from all my “bad” time. On the even more negative, sometimes I am just as bad as I can be. It is what it is.
Anyway, I’m starting to figure out my different types of mania. The one I have right now is mixed, so it’s manic and depressive episodes together. It’s rapid cycling, which means yesterday I slept 20 hours, and when I was awake, I was shaking with anxiety. Today is better, but I still feel like my bones have been replaced with an impressive collection of vibrators. The kind you’d probably plug into a wall and lose a tooth kind of vibrators. This happens basically every time I have my period. Occasionally, I have “fun” mania and I’ll be happy and gay (literally or metaphorically?) or possibly destroy my life. One can never tell.
I have gotten involved with a meth head who crashed my car during good times. I have done soooooooo many drugs during good times. I have had soooooo many good times during good times. The scary part for me now is looking back and wondering which were good, and which were manic. It’s not necessarily that there is a difference between the two, but there is a lot to worried about if there is. That is to say, what if mania drives me to be or do things I wouldn’t want to? What if I have had sex with people I wouldn’t have? I kept trying to repair a relationship with a severely toxic person because I was convinced we were meant to be together. This narrative only occurs if I’m manic. Any other time, I see it as it is, but if I am manic, there are storylines in my life that do not exist. It just seems as though sometimes someone else drives the wheel of my life. That someone is crazier than I am, and I’m still convinced that all of the best parts of me are the same as the worst parts.
I don’t know if that makes sense, and I’m past the point of caring. I can’t keep this insanity inside of me anymore, and I’m tired of every fucking medicine I take getting to the point of killing me. I turned to medicine to see if it could alleviate this because I can’t control my gender. The medicine seems to make it worse, or maybe it makes it better, I cannot tell because every time I seem to get stable, a medicine does something fucked up, something fucked up happens, or my period comes every 3 weeks. And since I’m apparently having some sort of pity party for myself, I will also whine that I currently look like I have polka dots because of the exertion of existing bruises me. If you look at me, you will bruise me. I’m what would happen if an avocado fucked a banana in the back of a hot car.
Did you know Jeff Goldblum does not know how to cut an avocado? See more here….
I don’t know what to do anymore, but all I know is that the only way I can calm myself down is to write. It does not matter what I write, or how I write it, but I can’t stop shaking unless I’m typing or journaling.
That poem was written after I gave up trying to empty the dishwasher because I was shaking so bad that I was concerned I’d break some dishes. I had written the short story I posted earlier, and I wanted to get some shit done around the house. I just couldn’t. Actually, that is not true: I got a load of laundry started, I cleaned a sink, and I think I made the bed. I also worked on my daughter’s shithole she calls a room, which is more akin to a dumpster dive then actual cleaning efforts.
These are the battles I can get into. I tell myself I’m not doing enough, but I feel as though everything I am doing is requiring the maximum amount of effort, yet I am amped like I took a whole bottle of Adderall.
I’m finally telling my husband when things are awry, even after all these years and hospitalizations, I try to keep it to myself. Today is the first time I described a mixed episode to him, caught it as it came on, not after the fact, and have been able to cope as best I can without escapism. Ahem, without too much escapism. There is a drunken yoga faceplant that I am currently nursing a wickedly attractive egg on my forehead from. If writing counts as escapism, then that’s that.
I do not know what makes me want to hide this so much. I do not know why I feel so ashamed that these things are occurring when I’m handling them as best I can. I can empathize with how embarrassed I feel as I see the past through understanding, but I also see how much pain and confusion and hell I was in. I’ve been through hell with this, and it is okay to say that. I do not know why my first instinct is to pile guilt on myself the second I feel as though I’m not living up to a standard that I will never meet anyway. I do not know why I can spend so much time writing then stop for months. I was terrified yesterday when I realized I had forgotten to post because 1 day can turn into 1 year like that for me. I literally forced myself to sit in my chair and write one of the short story ideas I had journaled a few weeks ago. I’ve basically been here in this computer chair or wandering around my house hunched up like a 103-year-old woman, in layers bc she’s freezing and confused because she forgot why she even came in the damn room in the first place.
This poem and the short story came out of me trying to deal with me. As an aside, the short story was inspired by a truck ride and a conversation about starting a Post Mortem Dick Sucking business. I have already patented that shit, so get up off it.
So, there you have it. That’s my “Behind the Itchy Behind”. Oooooh look at that shitty marketing degree make bank!
Me in musical form:
Mah Butt Itches 
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