Real Talk: That Time my BFF Had an Intervention for My Terrible PMS

I have terrible PMS. So much so that my best friend had to intervene. I remember the day well; it went something like this:

I woke up wondering what cosmic joke the Universe was playing on me with the rash of red bumps scattered across my forehead and cheeks.

The entire bag of Oreo’s that I’d eaten a few nights back probably didn’t help. But, in my defense, those ASPCA commercials had me crying buckets of tears and drawing up plans to adopt every animal possible.

The cookies talked me down from the 31-year-old cat lady ledge.

After an hour of being literally disgusted by every article of clothing in my wardrobe and reapplying eyeliner and mascara seven times (Damn you, Sarah McLaughlin and your beautifully sad, lilting voice!), I laid on the floor staring at the ceiling, not unlike Rose Dawson floating on that broken door, hoping to see another day.

So, when my best friend called to see if I was ready to go on our weekly brunch date and learned that I was, not only not dressed, but was randomly baking my third batch of chocolate chip cookies (yes, I am a cookie fanatic), she was irritated to say the least. She came and helped me find a suitable outfit. I say “suitable”, but, honestly, I only tolerated it because it was her birthday gift to me last year.

When we finally sat down to eat brunch, she ordered her normal toast, eggs, and mimosa, but she seemed on edge, which was more like me and less like her.

I ordered pancakes a la mode with extra caramel, strawberry, and chocolate sauce with extra, extra whipped cream, nuts, and cherries. I cackled like a lunatic at the proverbial finger that I was giving my diet.

With a look of deep concern and, I guess, pity, she said the four words I dreaded the most.

“We need to talk.”

Uh oh.

This can’t be good, I thought.

She told me that the second week of every month, which was the week prior to the week that our synchronized periods started, I would act…how did she put it?

“Like a crazy friggin loon” were her exact words, I believe.

How dare she? I thought. Like she was perfect! Like she didn’t get a little crazy from time to time.

I felt hurt, judged, but, mostly, disrespected.

I left my partially-eaten breakfast on the table and stormed out of the restaurant, crying like I’d just heard that someone close to me had died. I’m so glad my bestie knows and loves me because only she would follow me down the street like a begging lover seeking forgiveness, me howling, snotting, and falling as tears blinded my vision.

After a good 25 minutes of that, I started to think that maybe I should hear my bestie out. Despite the heightened emotions (and maybe even because of them), I knew deep down that she didn’t mean me any harm and only wanted the best for me.

Once we finally sat back down to the table, she told me that she’d made an appointment for me to see someone. I had to stay my instinct to feel betrayed or attacked and went with her.

The doctor that we saw was very nice. She gently asked me questions about what I did from day to day, writing things in her notepad here and there.

After a very cleansing conversation with, of course, lots of crying on my end, she gave me some suggestions that she thought might help.

She encouraged me to make sure that I was getting all of the vitamins that I needed in my diet and suggested a blood test which would tell me the levels of vitamins in my blood and whether there were any deficiencies which needed to be addressed. She mentioned that many women who seemed to have more problems than others handling PMS benefited from an increase in folic acid, calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, vitamin b-6, and vitamin E. She cautioned that eating too much salty foods (she didn’t say anything about cookies!) drinking alcohol and coffee seemed to make symptoms worse.

She also suggested regular exercise. I thought she was saying it because the only jeans that I could find to wear still left my stomach spilling over my waistline in true muffin top fashion. But, she assured me that she would recommend this even for women that she didn’t basically call fat with her eyes. She mentioned that 2 and a half hours per week of moderate-intensity activity or 1 hour and 15 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity would help me to feel better both physically and emotionally.

I left, hopeful and excited to implement the suggested changes.

A full 24 hours later, my boobs hurt, I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years, and my body feels like it’s going into traction from the advanced step class that almost killed me.

So, either I’m dying or I am going to murder someone.

Either that or I keep following the doctor’s recommended advice and see if things don’t improve.