HOW TO TELL IF SHE HAS PMS

What I am about to give you is likely the most important hormonally related information you will ever have received. I am about to put in your hands a no-fail tool to help you indentify whether or not a woman’s angst is brought on by PMS or by something you are doing. In other words, if it’s real or not real.

You have probably already discovered all of the wrong, terrible and backfire-ish ways to determine this. The first and foremost being to say something like, “Honey, is this your time of the month?” or “Could this crying and throwing things possibly be hormone induced?” No. Don’t ever do that. You need to be waaaay more covert than that to keep yourself safe. Here is what will happen if you outright ask a distraught female that question: 1) If she does NOT have PMS, she will immediately resent you for doubting the validity of her misery and amp up the rage. 2) If she DOES have PMS, she will immediately resent you for doubting the validity of her misery and amp up the rage.  See? It’s lose, lose.

I came upon this method purely by accident. I was raising my very own young woman and observing PMS from the outside looking in, for the first time in my life. Ivy was having an ultra-angsty day. She was moody and snippy and was crying over silly things. She came to my room in tears and said, “Mama, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just feel so upset (sniff, sniff). I feel super mad and like I wanna cry but I can’t figure out why.” There were a few key words in her communication that tipped me off: “so upset”,  “super mad”, “wanna cry” were my first clues. I knew she had no idea what PMS was and IF that’s what it was, I did not want to overwhelm her hormone-pickled brain with that information right then.

So here’s what I did instead. I grabbed a pen and paper and handed them to her. I said, “Honey, I want you to sit here for five minutes and write down what is bothering you. Maybe if you get it all out on paper, we can see it there and work through it together.” She nodded and I left the room for five minutes.

When I returned, she was sitting there forelornly, with a blank paper on her lap, the pen in her hand and tears in her eyes. “Honey!” I said, “You didn’t write anything down!”

“Mama, I couldn’t. I just don’t know…I just can’t…I just don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

That settled it. It was PMS. Any time a woman is given an open door to air her grievances and cannot think a cohesive thought for long enough to put a single word down on paper, it’s PMS. “Sweetheart” I said, “I know what’s wrong with you!”

“You do? What?” (sniff, sniff)

“It’s PMS! That stands for pretty mad syndrome and it happens to girls when they start to grow older. From now on, for one week of the month you might feel super weird and you won’t be able know why you are upset. The only thing you can do is eat chocolate and watch movies. And the best part is, it’s not even real!”

She looked so relieved to hear a diagnosis for her psychosis and even happier about the cure. I whisked her off to the couch, put on a movie and headed to the grocery store for the chocolate.

Here’s why I believe that I stumbled upon a fool-proof method for diagnosing PMS. By asking your dear woman to TELL YOU about the issues at hand instead of starting off by questioning their very validity, you prevent being hated. You have aligned yourself with her in the solving of her problems and made yourself available to hear anything she needs to say. If she says nothing coherent and cannot make a case for her mental state after given ample time, then just take her in your arms, dial up a movie and pull out her hidden stash of fun-size snickers.

Conversely, if you give her a few minutes to try to pull her angsty thoughts together and she jots down a five point essay on your faults and shortcomings, she does NOT have PMS and you can consider this an opportunity to learn and grow. Press in, dear one. Hug the fireball.

For self-diagnosis I have developed a covert strategy to be able to tell if my own rage is hormone fueled or not. If I feel myself ramping up – you know-feeling the urge to draft confrontational emails, angry vacuuming or crying at Stove-Top Stuffing commercials – I simply reach down and poke my own boobs. If it hurts, then I know that nothing is real. I then put down the vacuum, back away from the computer and put on The Notebook.

So there you have it. A fire-proof way to get the lay of the land in regards to a woman’s hormones without risking your life. You’re welcome.