Giving birth to farm animals and such

Over the past year and a half, I've written about almost every aspect of my life, be it my marriage, my relationship with my parents, shenanigans with friends, or even a pimple on my bum. But one thing that a lot of people tend to remember (and even relate to) about this blog is all the talk about periods and hormones. That's one topic I've written about extensively, sharing openly that I go through such extreme mood swings that I've sometimes had very dangerous thoughts cross my mind, thoughts that turned out to be a major cause for concern when I shared them with my husband and close friends. I've even sat down and looked at options for therapy around these times because both Shane and I realised the severity of the situation.

I've mostly dealt with them humorously on this website because humour is a constant in my life, and it actually makes sense to me. I can't really place a finger on when exactly things started getting so bad for me but I remember that being alone has always played a role. When I was at home growing up, I had my parents around me 24X7 because my dad had retired from the military by the time I was 12 and my mom was a homemaker. I wasn't one of those kids who spent a lot of time alone and often found myself in the company of at least one parent, even while I was reading a book. In fact, I did most of my reading in the afternoons while my parents took their naps after I managed to nestle myself in between them.

One clear incident of hormonal mood fluctuation I remember is from the time I was all alone in my hostel room. My roommate was on a holiday and one morning, I woke up feeling like I couldn't possibly get out of bed that day. And I didn't. I didn't even tell my parents about it but I took the day off from college and laid in bed all day doing nothing but feeling depressed. I didn't even look at my phone or watch something on my laptop. I literally did nothing but lay still and feel like crap. Soon after that, I got my period and somehow made the connection. Then, for a while, I moved back in with my parents and almost never went through such episodes while I was there. They came back in full swing only after I moved to another country and decided to spend a majority of my time working from home. These are things I'm realising on the go, and hence this blog post.

This is what I wrote about my last episode in December:

So on Monday, when a cloud cast a dark shadow on my mood, I simply couldn't understand what was happening. All I knew was that I was seated with my husband, working on something I loved, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I excused myself from the room and tried to take a nap. Some very disturbing thoughts gave me peace and I napped well for an hour and a half. After my nap, I was feeling way more refreshed and motivated, and I even initiated to cook lunch by myself. You guys know how much I hate cooking. On a normal day, you'd never find me alone in the kitchen. But on Monday afternoon, not only did I choose to cook, but I also didn't try to get away with something easy that I could whip up in a matter of minutes. I put on my headphones, played an audiobook and made quite an elaborate meal for us. We enjoyed it over some strong tea and feel-good television. Things were starting to look good, and I'd survived that day without falling into a familiar dark hole.

The "disturbing thoughts" I mentioned there were things I didn't want to get into in that blog post because I still didn't know what to make of them. I didn't know how to make them go away either. All I knew was that they scared me and made me look up options for therapy. When I started writing this post, however, I thought I had come to terms with them enough to be able to talk about them here. But, nope. That'll have to wait.

Then January came and in the back of my head, I was on alert for these familiar feelings. January was a very busy month for us and on most days, I didn't even remember the date. But towards the end of the month, I started breaking out and even got a painful ugly bulb-like pimple on my forehead. That never happens to me and I was outraged. And then I got my period. And then, I bent over in pain.

I've also shared before that I never break out around the time of my period, never get bulb-like pimples and almost never stay in bed with a hot water bottle pressed against my abdomen. But this time, for two whole days, I suffered. While standing, I'd want to sit down. On sitting down, I'd want to lie down. On lying down, I'd want to stand up again. One minute, I'd be standing in the kitchen, cooking and talking to Shane, and the next minute, I'd be bent over in pain, forming a 90° angle with my body. And then, Shane would take advantage of the situation and use my bent body as the table we never had in the kitchen to chop vegetables.

Last night, I couldn't do anything anymore so after a few minutes of curling up in the fetal position on our couch, I retired to the bedroom to place a pillow under my belly. It was so painful that I'm sure our neighbours thought a cow was giving birth in our bedroom. And the weirdest thing was that this pain came in waves. I swear, even I thought I was giving birth to a bovine animal at the time. I mean, I've only ever read about contractions but if I started timing the waves of pain I was experiencing, I could have pushed out a calf by the end of the evening.

So, Shane cooked an elaborate meal for me and once dinner was served, he came into the room to (I thought) console me. But after he sat at the edge of the bed, I heard the sound of the camera clicking a picture. When I raised my head to see what was happening, I found out that he'd taken over my Instagram Stories to share what was happening.

And after he got what he needed from me - a picture of me dying while giving birth to a farm animal - he straight up left the room without even looking at me because he had more important things to do.

He REALLY didn't care about our farm babies. Anyway, after I was done pitying myself, I fed myself and the pain slowly disappeared. It was the most freakish thing that ever happened to me but this is what I'll say: I'll take that pain any day over the mood swings.

I'll take the bulb-like pimples, I'll take the crushing abdominal pain. I'll bend over to form a 90° angle with my body and even let my husband use my back as a table to chop veggies for dinner. Hell, I'll even give birth to a bovine animal every month if that means that I don't have to feel fucking depressed.

Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd say!