By Shelby Spear of shelbyspear.com
So I don’t swear. Often, anyway. Except for the 3rd week of the month, give or take a week, or on overlapping weeks, depending on the almost always irregular occurrence of the thing women should never ever have to deal with once the prospect of having kids ends. Period!
You know the week I’m referring to. When the sons of female dogs, doo doo, promises of damnation show up unannounced in and around our general orbit. Don’t even pretend you can’t relate. I’ve heard your rants in crowded malls, long lines, and church parking lots when Suzie Scripture Seeker cuts you off after Mass.
For short, let’s call this week Projectile Menacing Sentiments week, or even shorter, PMS.
Most of us aren’t proud of our potty mouth during these days. I’m ashamed and offended by myself. I mean, here I am, a Christian wife and mother, writing about kids, life, and Jesus and behind the screen, like a second ago, I cursed the computer because a page didn’t load fast enough. What the &%$# is wrong with me? For real?
To help us all, I’ve been paying attention the past few months, trying to figure out what gives. The majority of the time cuss words don’t enter my mind space. But during PMS week it’s like I have dueling urban dictionaries perched in my amygdala, pounding out expletives for cash. And the four-letter gem benders go hand in hand with intense doses of sarcasm.
Cue the article you are reading from a woman who just got her dot at the end of a sentence.
After doing some research, such as Googling “does PMS cause you to swear?” I’ve learned several interesting facts about raging hormones.
All signs point to no regarding a cussing hormone, which I think we all can agree is bull%&%#. Because we know all too well something insidious swirls inside our souls during PMS week, causing bad language to burst forth from our forked tongues when we least expect. Are you with me, fellow PMS victims? Don’t say no, because again, I call bull&%#*.
However, I did learn something interesting about swearing: doing so is a natural pain release. Some study showed people who placed their hands in a bucket of ice water tolerated more pain and kept their hands in the water longer by swearing through the process as opposed to prim and proper people who controlled their emotions. Therefore, we should all become superfans of the research and roll forward with the physiological benefit of swearing to release strong emotions. Thank you, science.
The truth is, we all know PMS is beyond a painful circumstance, even worse during perimenopause. Just ask anyone who lives with my 47-year-old self. Often, my last hope is to lock myself indoors for seven days, away from other human beings. Up to this point, I’ve found no cure to stop the flaming darts from flying out of my mouth.
In the meantime, how about we start a rumor of the legitimacy of a cussing hormone? You know how rumors go. This person tells that person, whispered conversations ensue around water coolers, and before you know it, the rumor etches itself into a wall of truth. Or at least on the backside of a women’s bathroom stall.
What I’m hoping happens next, for all of us PMS sufferers, is that the graffiti causes people to begin doing their own research, trying to prove or disprove our claim. If I were a betting girl, I’d put all my money on red and say the terrorizing hormone indeed exists.
Then all of us can swear without scorn. Hallelujah. One less thing to feel guilty about.
Bite me, PMS!
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About the Author
Shelby is a Christian mom to three beautiful knuckleheads who have left her with an empty nest in which to ponder what the mom thing has (done to her) meant over the past twenty-two years. You can read her open book of revelations, screw-ups, gaffs, and joys at http://shelbyspear.com