I started menstruating over 20 years ago. I am currently researching periods and am immersed in research, comments and data surrounding periods.. I am tracking my period on 3 different apps and they have been reminding me for a few days that my period is coming up (although the apps have differing opinions on the predicted start date)…

Yet I was feeling cranky and upset and tired all of yesterday and couldn’t work out why…

Until this morning.

This happens to me rather frequently. One day before my period I cannot put one and one together to realise that the symptoms are most likely due to my upcoming period.

Once I realise this it rather upsets me more. I keep wondering if it’s just me, maybe partly because of my Attention Deficit Disorder… that I should really be able to read the symptoms and make that connection. That way I would at least be able to put my upset, raging mind into perspective.
Reflecting on this now makes me realise that I need to learn from my research to not be so hard on myself when this happens and instead accept it as part of my cycle.

Edit 16th December 2021:

After further reading into autoethnography as a research method (Chang, 2008) I wanted to revisit this post to further reflect on the cultural implications of the intensity of my frustration when I realised the cause of my mood.

From other contextual reading it is clear that Western society sees menstruation as a weakness, even though women are idealised as mothers for which menstruation is vital (Roberts et al., 2002). Roberts et al. conducted a study in which a woman either dropped a hair pin or a tampon. The woman was viewed as “less competent, less likeable, and tended to be both psychologically and physically avoided” (p.136) when dropping the tampon, a symbol for her reproductive abilities. 

The stigma of not publicly discussing menstruation when I was growing up in combination with the subconscious fear of being seen as less capable probably feeds into my sense of wanting to control that aspect of my body. Of course menstruation is often not a pleasant experience but I do value it as part of my womanhood.

Most people suppress their menstruation – so many people are taking a pill so it is controllable so you can move it around if needed. There is also something else about fitting it into the male system by being able to control when it comes.

– from conversation with Helga Schmid

I would also never de-value anyone’s character for being grumpy that one time, so the fact that I de-value myself for this shows how hard I am on myself and that some part of me still sees menstruation as a weakness. And since there is so little discussion around it, it’s hard to put my own symptoms in perspective. I assume that many other persons that menstruate feel a similar self-targeting frustration around their symptoms.
From my survey it became clear that there is also a high level of frustration towards society and how little consideration there is for the physical and mental impact menstruation has, which, in my opinion, is a much more appropriate target.

References

Chang, H. (2008). Chapter 3: Autoethnography. In Autoethnography as method (pp. 43-57). Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

Roberts, T.-A., Goldenberg, J. L., Power, C., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). ‘“Feminine Protection”: the effects of menstruation on attitudes towards women’, Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26(2), pp. 131-139. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00051