I’m lying in bed feeling angry, irritable, but unable to explain why. Tears well up while I become increasingly frustrated at the world.
What is wrong?
My breasts hurt, I feel bloated, and the only tangible thought on my mind is how much chocolate I want to eat.
PMS: it’s a bitch, right? Well, no… apparently not. According to some members of the scientific world, PMS is a myth. It’s a fabricated disorder. Sorry, women of the world, but supposedly we’re making it all up.
A few years ago, a study by the University of Toronto found there is "no clear link between women’s negative moods and the pre-menstrual phase of their cycles". After analysing 41 previous studies that tracked women’s emotional states through their menstrual cycles, they concluded PMS doesn’t exist.
This isn’t the first study to produce this result. In 2012, a New Zealand research team, led by Dr Sarah Romans on the University of Otago, reviewed 47 studies into PMS. Eighty five per cent of them found no link between a woman's menstrual cycle and mood. Surprisingly, nine per cent of the studies reviewed found the subjects' worst moods occurred outside their premenstrual phase.
So if it’s all a lie, why is it that 90 per cent of Australian women are claiming to experience at least one symptom of PMS during most months of the year? Why, then, do I seem to cry every single month for a reason that's entirely unclear to me? (Post continues after video.)
Top Comments
I never had PMS before, but now I'm older, I've started having it. It's really weird. I feel all teary for no reason I can think of, and get filled with anger over the littlest thing that normally would be no big deal. I thought I was going crazy. Then I realised it was happening just before my (erratic) periods, so I assumed it was PMS, which makes it easier to deal with (nothing wrong with my head!). I do question the "Only Western Cultures" experience this, because in some countries, your priority is staying safe in warzones or feeding your family in a drought etc, so they are not going to be polling women about their feelings near their periods. Also, I think people dismissing women's anger as "That time of the month" is dismissive and rude, because there might be a good reason to be angry. And I agree that not listen to women's experiences is also dismissive.
Yes I have experienced PMS and had it before I realised my periods were coming. if it was not real i doubt people would experience it when they didn't know they were about to have their periods.