Every month, around the time of the full moon, my uterine lining separates from my uterus.
The reason my uterine lining needs to separate its self is because it has grown and become a flourishing nest in anticipation for a fertilized egg. The fertilized egg is not gonna happen to me unless some miraculous event occurs, no, not sex, although…, giggle, giggle, snort, snort. I digress yet again, what was I saying? Oh yes, a miracle…my eggs are useless, completely useless! I am very sensitive (not emotionally, except once a month). I can physically feel the growth of my eggs in my ovaries. My ovaries become very large and I itch, I can feel them expanding with fruitless effort. My eggs are released and get absorbed into my body. They do not find my fallopian tubes….and if they ever do I will have to kick someones ass ‘cause I’m 39 and single/divorced…I don’t need to be pregnant, plus I like the shape of my hips…I’ve become used to them.
The uterus clears its self of the lining, this is called our period, cycle, the curse, the gift…
I woke up this morning, many hours before dawn, with 'discomfort' in my abdomen. I’m trying to find the words so my male readers can fathom this pain and maybe feel compassion for me/us. If you live or have ever lived with a woman you have inevitably seen all this…but you didn’t feel it like her.
The sensation is that of an invisible hand squeezing your insides, a chocking grasp that can last one minute and sometimes up to fifteen, to the point you are doubled over in agony.
You want to call it a cramp? F*** that!
It doesn’t just happen once, it happens over and over. Some women, like myself, get to experience this for days.
Before the agony the hormones barrage through us like a torrent creating emotional instability.
Wanna know why we turn in to raving, hysterical bitch’s that want to rip the throats out of anyone that says anything remotely close to what we conceive as inappropriate, wrong, stupid…
…and don’t you DARE say to us…
…”Oh, it must be that time of the month.”
We can’t stop it! You think we like it? We know it’s gonna happen. The hormones and the excruciating pain comes once a MONTH!
The word “hysteria” comes from the Greek word hystera, meaning "womb.” If you didn’t know, the womb and the uterus are the same thing.
"1. Originally "hysteria" designated a link between certain nervous disorders and diseases of the female sexual and reproductive organs. It was thought that there was a direct connection between these physical pathologies localized in the female organs and certain nervous symptoms.I just copied that almost word for word from 'Lecture Notes: Freud, "Aetiology of Hysteria" (1896)’
2. This explains why hysteria has commonly been conceived as a pathology to which women are exclusively susceptible. If it is based in a physiological source that is gender specific (the uterus), then the illness itself could only occur where this prerequisite physiology is present.
3. Hysteria defined (Webster's): "A psychiatric condition variously characterized by emotional excitability, excessive anxiety, sensory and motor disturbances, or the unconscious simulation of organic disorders.”
Giving credit where credit is due.
And I now move on from hysterics…to sociological and physical aspects of chance, celebration and ceremony related to our cycle and the ‘magic’ that it is.
The Ceremony...
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is a marvelous novel about Dinah, daughter of Jacob and his four wives Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. (Recommended reading;)
Ms. Diamant discribes brilliantly life for girls and women in ancient times. How girls waited with anticipation to become women. (This boggles my un-clean brain.)The red tent is where the women would go, not allowed to leave until seven days after her menstrual cycle is complete. She was, and even now Hasidic Jewish women are considered un-clean not allowed to have sex, or touch anything for it would become un-clean.
They (to this day) are not even allowed to touch their husband.
They bath themselves in the mikvah to become clean again.
Societies through out time and all over the world have the similar ideas to varying degrees as the Hasidic Jews. From the Japanese women not being allowed to visit Kami’s (Holy Shinto shrines), Hindu, Buddhist…to societies in Africa and the Aborigines in Australia…
The Celebration...
Then there are the very ancient groups that viewed a woman during her ‘Moontime’ as a someone to be frightened of for we are more powerful and can call on the wrath of any God/Goddess to do our bidding.
(Do you wanna mess with me right now? I wouldn’t suggest it.)
I do celebrate it and use it. I’m powerful on a regular day but on my special days (after I have consumed absurd amounts of motrin) …I grin like a cheshire cat…Purrrrrrrrrr…with big cat tendencies and claws and teeth able to rip through any obstacle.
The Chance…
F1, F2 and I spend so much time together our cycles are in sync. Yes, when women spend all their time together they become a gang of un-clean women to some, to others that can see us, really see us, we are a force of nature not to be reckoned with.
I was once told by a doctor (a man, no less) that ovarian pain is more intense than if a man is hit in the balls - so there's a description that the men can relate too! Also, The Red Tent is on my all time favorite list :)
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