Thursday, October 18, 2012

Are you fucking kidding me???

Dear imbecilic researchers,

Fuck you and your research.  You are talking shit.  Spend a few months in my body and then tell me that it's imagined or a reaction to society's views on female cycles you fucking jerks.

"PMS doesn’t exist. Period.

Don’t blame premenstrual syndrome for feeling depressed, stressed and irritable. Turns out it may be a myth, according to a recently published paper in the journal Gender Medicine by a University of Toronto-led research team.

The researchers don’t dispute physical symptoms linked to menstruation, such as bloating or abdominal pain. But after reviewing 47 studies they found no clear evidence to support the idea that a woman’s menstrual cycle puts her in a negative mood in the days before her periods.

“This puzzlingly widespread belief needs challenging,” concluded the authors of Mood and the Menstrual Cycle: A Review of Prospective Data Studies. 

Gillian Einstein, one of the report’s authors, told the Star, “We have a menstrual cycle and we have moods, but they don’t necessarily correlate.” 

So why do women attribute feeling down to their menstrual cycles?
For one thing, PMS is a social construct, rooted in negative feelings many cultures have toward menstruation, a natural female function, said Einstein, a neuroscientist and director of the Collaborative Graduate Program in Women’s Health at the university.

Another possibility, she suggested, is that “this is the time of the month when women are given permission to not be sweet, docile and cheerful — expected attributes of women.
“It may be the time of the month when (women) feel they can say what’s on their minds.” 

Or as comic Roseanne Barr once put it, “Women complain about PMS, but I think of it as the only time of the month when I can be myself.”

PMS has long been the butt of jokes, with some referring to it as Pissy Mood Syndrome and Pardon My Sobbing. But turns out there may not even be anything to joke about.

For their review, the U of T researchers combed through studies dating back to 1806. They found 646 that dealt with mood and the menstrual cycle — but only focused on 47 that met vigorous scientific criteria. 

Of those, 18 showed no evidence of negative mood at any time of the month; another 18 found women were moody before and during their period; seven found classic PMS symptoms and in four studies women were actually crankier when they weren’t premenstrual.
A problem with much of the data was that women knew the real purpose of those studies, which may have influenced their responses. 

“What’s interesting about this review is that this is the information that the medical community, psychiatric community and people who are treating women who come in complaining of PMS — this is the literature they rely on,” said Einstein. “And, it’s not that great. Most of it doesn’t meet strong standards of evidence.”
To fill the need for more rigorous research, the team of researchers did their own studies. They found no relationship between women’s hormone levels and their moods, either positive or negative. 

Negative mood was much more strongly linked with poor health and high stress levels.

Sure, women are sometimes cranky, snarky, even weepy. But that’s more likely related to their circumstances. 

If women are really stressed out, or struggling with a bad life situation, they’re doing themselves a disservice by chalking up their negative mood to PMS, because then they won’t get the help they need, said Einstein.

“There are lots of things in the social sphere that affect women that are not completely tied to the biology of being a woman,” she said. “Don’t underestimate the power of life’s circumstances to affect how you’re feeling.”

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Regrets

 I found this in an article...

A word about regrets. Never, ever allow regrets to dominate your thoughts.  Don’t let them rent a room in your mind’s chambers and NEVER let them move in!  Think about it this way – what if it had been YOU who’d passed away?  Would this loved one have things he or she would regret?  Of course!  We’re all human, capable of human frailties and faults.  But, would you want them to be haunted by regrets or guilt?  Of course not.  You’d want to tell them, “Forget about that.  I never gave it a second thought – I know you loved me.  Only remember the good times.  I don’t want to be remembered with tears or pain – I want to be remembered positively with laughter and smiles.”
As Washington Irving said "A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts." It is indeed a great loss to lose your mother...

A Mother's Love

A Mother's love is something
that no one can explain,
It is made of deep devotion
and of sacrifice and pain,
It is endless and unselfish
and enduring come what may
For nothing can destroy it
or take that love away . . .
It is patient and forgiving
when all others are forsaking,
And it never fails or falters
even though the heart is breaking . . .
It believes beyond believing
when the world around condemns,
And it glows with all the beauty
of the rarest, brightest gems . . .
It is far beyond defining,
it defies all explanation,
And it still remains a secret
like the mysteries of creation . . .
A many splendored miracle
man cannot understand
And another wondrous evidence
of God's tender guiding hand.

Friday, October 12, 2012

My dream last night

My mom sent me a single pale pink rose in my dream last night.

"Generally speaking, a single rose can deliver the message of 'I love you'."

"In the field of dream analysis, analysts believe that dreams featuring pale or light pink roses indicate immense feelings of love or femininity as a primary focus."

"Pink roses are used to convey gentle emotions such as admiration, joy and gratitude. Light pink rose blooms are indicative of sweetness and innocence."

"These are a sweet, innocent pink. Romance is not symbolized. The pretty pink rose buds could be given to a very young girl. The open pink rose flower, to a woman whose virtues you admire. She could be your eldest daughter."

Love you too mom.  Forever.

The worst thing that could ever happen has happened

And then I got this email from a positive thinking website that I subscribed to that tells me:

"There's nothing unpleasant, unkind, or unjust that has ever happened within all of time and space, Robin, that I won't eventually undo, reverse, and make right, one billion times over. 


Guaranteed."

I'm just wondering when the unpleasant, unkind, and unjust is going to be reversed because right now nothing feels like it will ever feel even the slightest bit better, ever, let alone a billion times better.