My lips are visibly redder during the middle of my cycle. They look pale and drained when I’m bleeding.
It’s really strange to see myself in the mirror and look so different week over week. Now, when my lips aren’t as red, aren’t as full, I feel like my whole look is off… but I still dislike lipstick, so I don’t really do anything about it.
I wonder if anyone else notices, and I’m sure they do… but I’m sure it’s subconscious. I ought to take a couple of photos.
I think dogs like me better since I quit the contraception.
I just started running again in the mornings, and the hellish attack dog on my route (okay, it’s actually some rich person’s husky) doesn’t come after me anymore.
When I thought about it, I don’t think any dog has barked or reacted negatively to me in the last 3 months.
…because of this blog, I know that it’s been at least 27 days since my last period started. It might be more.
Maybe I am just wussing out this month and it *feels* worse because of other things I have (or don’t have) going on right now in my world.
I’ve been doing a lousy job of tracking, but it feels earlier this month than last month. It definitely came on with a vengeance this time, straight into heavy.
I had been optimistic, since my body went straight to nice monthly cycles with tolerable periods upon quitting, that as an adult, rather than a teenager, I could have tolerable monthly periods for awhile. Maybe I am not so lucky.
I can’t decide if I want someone to rub my back, my uterus, my boobs, or just pet my head. Probably all of the above. An absolute winner would be all of the above while not making fun of me if I start crying uncontrollably.
I had a 2 hour orchestra rehearsal for a children’s concert I don’t particularly want to play tonight. I am so absolutely stubborn, I have no idea how I made my wretched achy body *behave* and *sit in that chair* for that time. I have no idea how I’m going to do it tomorrow.
I’ve got a work commitment now that requires me to be at work at 9am instead of 11am, and my pill taking routine has been absolutely gutted.
On one hand, I forget to take my other drugs (so if I seem irritable, real life friends, um, yell at me, alright?) on the other hand, if I had been taking the pill while I tried to adjust my sleep schedule by 2+ hours?
Man, that would have been a special kind of bodily hell. I guess I know I’m now knock-up-able, as opposed to being in limbo like I would be otherwise…
I read something in passing on the internet about an experiment they did where they gave women electronic pill packs to measure how often they missed pills as opposed to how often they *thought* they missed pills…. in adjusting my routine, I have no idea most days when I wake up, like a zombie, if I’ve taken my drugs or not.
I always felt so rock solid about my pill use, like my uterus was invincible, but now it seems so fragile.
My body chemistry has started to somewhat stabilize, and while I’m still feeling some crippling anxiety, my appetite is returning to normal.
Being a “normal” young woman, raised in our culture, I’m a little bit disappointed, honestly.
However, this weekend pre-period? Food tasted aaammmmaaaaazing. I didn’t even eat really amazing food. Eating was just an immensely pleasurable experience for a few days.
Can I also say, while I’m talking about it, that I was expecting my PMS to be way worse than it is? What a lucky surprise. My memory of PMS is of horrible death cramps, turning into an irritable monster, and eating french fries until I puke (usually from the pain.) I was irritable and anxious, but it was mostly controllable, and I could counteract most of my discomfort with the joy and endorphins from eating. Ordinary food even!
My two periods so far have been surprisingly timely and surprisingly reasonable. I was expecting it to take more like 6 months for my body to remember what to do, and I have had two 28 day cycles so far. I remember having periods as a teenager every 21 days that would last a week, and my period in January was 5 days, and right now I’m on day 4 of bleeding and drying up. I think it’s possible, since I was/am a vegetarian and didn’t think much of it back then, that I might have been stuck in an anemia downward spiral and wasn’t aware of it. It’s hard to break out of being anemic when you bleed for a week or more every month.
I did have a couple of hours yesterday, while heavy bleeding, where I had cramps so bad I had to take a break and walk it off…. but it was only a couple of hours. Not a whole day. And I wasn’t chained to my desk or stuck in a class, I’m so thankful for the freedom I have to go take a walk when I need to during the day.
….before the first time found myself without a tampon and with no other option (fuck hanging out with dudes all the time, really), and had to like, wad up toilet paper and hope I reeeaallly wasn’t flowing that quickly, but nope.
I am a total amateur. This is only my second real period as an adult and I already had a near bleed out.
Cramps. Irritable. Told someone arguably more important than me that they were WRONG in a meeting yesterday. Brutally messed up someone’s name in a meeting. Gonna maybe punch someone.
I just wanted to throw up a quick update, because I’m ovulating again, and moreso than menstruating, this is the most amazing part of the birth control quitting experience.
I feel like a pheromone super hero - the way I’m able to get people’s attention and hold on to it, like I never ever have before. The way I recognize a sly smile from a man is flirtatious - the way you just know it - is an entirely new sensory experience I’ve never had before.
I played in an orchestra concert a couple nights ago and while we were tuning before the 2nd act (for those of you uninitiated the concertmaster stands in front of the orchestra and leads tuning so the conductor can still make an entrance) I got this brilliant sly, secret, directed smile from concertmaster. A few months ago, I might not have even noticed, and if I did, would have ignored it. This week, I felt it.
We’re all such animals, I wonder if he even knew he smiled at me.
In a sense, I’m also understanding the pattern that was … I think introduced to me as appropriate? … when I learned about birth control. Be off while you’re single, and go on when you have a stable partner and want to boink all the time. It doesn’t matter if you attract or notice those sly smiles when you have a partner. But it certainly does matter and help when you’re looking for one.
The pattern described above, though, is completely at odds with our current dating culture - which moves much faster - and where women are expected to control fertility for both partners - I wonder if the pill had anything to do feeding our current dating and sexual culture. Not because of the freedom to have sex without getting pregnant whenever you felt like it, but if it fed into the performance of sexuality that women are now expected do, that our culture enforces - is partially because we can’t negotiate the beginning stages of sexual courtship at a chemical level when women are expected to disable their pheramones.
Like, I can’t communicate with the animal part of you to let you know I want/I like/I need, so I have to engage in sexual performance to connect with the mentally conditioned part of you?
For the first time in a long time, I believe and know I can be sexual without performing female sexuality. (I’ve mostly quit wearing makeup. I don’t go out dancing anymore. I have completely stopped shaving.)
Woke up this morning to my first period of my new life! I was really hoping I’d get lucky and be dry for 2-3 months like I’ve heard happens to people.
No such luck. It’s exactly the 28th.
Currently experiencing flow comparably to heavy day of my every-4-months-or-so pill periods. (destroy a tampon every 3 or 4 hours.) It’s the first day…. I’m a little concerned. Blood. Lots of it.
