I'm ready to get off the mood swingset, now, please.

In all honesty, I think being weirded/squicked out by bodily functions is a bit silly - bodies can be a little weird and a little gross, but we all have them, we all deal with the gross bits now and then, there's no need to make a big deal out of it. Still, in deference to social convention and recognition that not everyone feels the same way, I'm putting a warning here - some discussion of mental health and girly issues to follow.

I'm not sure how much it's come through here on LJ (probably more on Facebook), but I've been having some pretty nasty mood swings of late. The thing about the shoes, while a real bummer, is not normally the kind of thing that can send me into a spiraling funk wherein I'm constantly listening to the full-on Not Good Enough Bell-and-Anvil Choir. Similarly, while I've been known to occasionally have moments of anxiety (usually after too much coffee), an entire day perched on the edge of a full-on anxiety attack is extremely unusual. Or I thought it was, until I had three of them in a two-month span.

The anxiety especially has been nasty. Not because it's worse than being in a depression, but because it's self-reinforcing. See, while I seem to have pretty well lucked out when it comes to physical genetics (women on both sides of my family tend to be long-lived with few major medical issues), mentally things are a little more iffy. Some of you might have heard me talk about my aunt before, who's a very sweet person but quite literally can't deal with the world without an entire pharmacopeia and an extremely protective religion to guarantee her safety. I have a family history, especially a female-family-history, of depression, manic-depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other various nasty mental issues.

So you can see how, when I've been going from depression to anxiety to perfectly fine to (occasionally) absolutely blissfully happy, I'd be a little concerned. I know most of these illnesses present at puberty (which, thankfully, I'm well past), but data does not equal anecdote. Everyone's brain chemistry is a little different, and for a while (especially yesterday, in the midst of another anxiety-laden day) I was halfway-convinced that I was well on my way to the nuthouse.

Then, while I was working with Julie (owner of Blissbee, one of the galleries I work at, and a lovely woman who reminds me quite a bit of my own mother), I mentioned some of this to her, and she asked something that made it all click into place.

"What kind of birth control pills are you on?"

Longtime readers might remember that, shortly before moving to Arizona, I got a birth control implant so I wouldn't have to worry about scrambling to find my pills while everything was in an uproar. (And ended up paying through the nose for it, too, as Alaska was at the time one of the few states that didn't require health insurance plans to cover birth control as well as prescriptions, but that's a separate rant.) The implant's been fantastic; I haven't gotten pregnant, I haven't had cramps or even periods, and frankly I haven't thought about it at all, aside from letting people feel it through the skin of my arm at parties. But the not-thinking-about-it also meant that it never occurred to me that it might be affecting my moods, even though I've started to have (very minor) periods again.

It's not supposed to need replacement until October, but given the evidence I think I'm going to see about getting a new one put in. Though I'm halfway tempted to get a custom t-shirt made, since I love how futuristic/dystopian this phrase sounds: "I'm not crazy, I just need my implant replaced!"

In all seriousness, though, I'm not sure there are words for how relieved I am. Though I suppose it's perfectly possible that "relief" is just going to turn out to be another mood swing...

I'm ready to get off the mood swingset, now, please.

In all honesty, I think being weirded/squicked out by bodily functions is a bit silly - bodies can be a little weird and a little gross, but we all have them, we all deal with the gross bits now and then, there's no need to make a big deal out of it. Still, in deference to social convention and recognition that not everyone feels the same way, I'm putting a warning here - some discussion of mental health and girly issues to follow.

I'm not sure how much it's come through here on LJ (probably more on Facebook), but I've been having some pretty nasty mood swings of late. The thing about the shoes, while a real bummer, is not normally the kind of thing that can send me into a spiraling funk wherein I'm constantly listening to the full-on Not Good Enough Bell-and-Anvil Choir. Similarly, while I've been known to occasionally have moments of anxiety (usually after too much coffee), an entire day perched on the edge of a full-on anxiety attack is extremely unusual. Or I thought it was, until I had three of them in a two-month span.

The anxiety especially has been nasty. Not because it's worse than being in a depression, but because it's self-reinforcing. See, while I seem to have pretty well lucked out when it comes to physical genetics (women on both sides of my family tend to be long-lived with few major medical issues), mentally things are a little more iffy. Some of you might have heard me talk about my aunt before, who's a very sweet person but quite literally can't deal with the world without an entire pharmacopeia and an extremely protective religion to guarantee her safety. I have a family history, especially a female-family-history, of depression, manic-depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other various nasty mental issues.

So you can see how, when I've been going from depression to anxiety to perfectly fine to (occasionally) absolutely blissfully happy, I'd be a little concerned. I know most of these illnesses present at puberty (which, thankfully, I'm well past), but data does not equal anecdote. Everyone's brain chemistry is a little different, and for a while (especially yesterday, in the midst of another anxiety-laden day) I was halfway-convinced that I was well on my way to the nuthouse.

Then, while I was working with Julie (owner of Blissbee, one of the galleries I work at, and a lovely woman who reminds me quite a bit of my own mother), I mentioned some of this to her, and she asked something that made it all click into place.

"What kind of birth control pills are you on?"

Longtime readers might remember that, shortly before moving to Arizona, I got a birth control implant so I wouldn't have to worry about scrambling to find my pills while everything was in an uproar. (And ended up paying through the nose for it, too, as Alaska was at the time one of the few states that didn't require health insurance plans to cover birth control as well as prescriptions, but that's a separate rant.) The implant's been fantastic; I haven't gotten pregnant, I haven't had cramps or even periods, and frankly I haven't thought about it at all, aside from letting people feel it through the skin of my arm at parties. But the not-thinking-about-it also meant that it never occurred to me that it might be affecting my moods, even though I've started to have (very minor) periods again.

It's not supposed to need replacement until October, but given the evidence I think I'm going to see about getting a new one put in. Though I'm halfway tempted to get a custom t-shirt made, since I love how futuristic/dystopian this phrase sounds: "I'm not crazy, I just need my implant replaced!"

In all seriousness, though, I'm not sure there are words for how relieved I am. Though I suppose it's perfectly possible that "relief" is just going to turn out to be another mood swing...