She’s Not Herself Right Now
A Femgore descent into PMDD's monthly madness and a monster moving in.
I hear booming laughter coming from the attic. You're upstairs playing an online video game with colleagues. With only an hour or two left in your workday, you’ve logged on to save hostages with your teammates. Male voices pour into the house. The tone shifts from excited to a deep, baritone chorus. Someone has messed up the mission and is getting scolded. You raise your voice, and the keyboard taps quicken.
Lately, my hearing’s gone strange. I catch the faintest scrape of your mouse across the desk, each movement grating like nails on chalkboard. You are wearing a headset with a mic, but still, I can hear your colleagues as if they’ve taken up residence. Under your command, they move through the walls, scrambling down the pipes and pace the floorboards to eliminate terrorists. The stomping of feet builds with the urgency of your mission. I close my eyes, focusing on the noise, unsure if I’m conjuring it up, simply because nothing else happens to me these days. You have your hostages, your teammates, your headshots. I have PMDD.
I open the front door to golden light and the soft murmur of drunken voices and birdsong. It’s June 2020, and the weather’s been glorious for most of spring. The road is quiet as if time has paused. No cars pass, no one needs to be anywhere. On this Friday evening, everyone on the terrace sits on their front steps, glasses of wine raised to the sunshine. I join my next-door neighbours briefly for a chat and a drink, each of us keeping to our own porch.
‘You alone?’ my neighbour asks.
I nod toward the attic. ‘He’s still at work.’
She glances at her watch, then hands me a bowl of nuts, keeping her distance as we laugh at the fumbling exchange.
I pour myself another glass of wine. Sunshine does that to me. These days I just want to drink. With no real routine now we work from home, we find ourselves shaking Long Island Iced Teas on a Tuesday night.
By seven, I’m still alone on the step, the sun lingering above the hills. I head inside. It feels dark and dingy. The wine has warmed me from the inside out. The low buzz of the fridge rises in pitch until the room spins. What felt pleasant an hour ago, now feels like it’s smothering me.
When I feel low, she finds her voice. It’s a sunny Friday night, yet you’re cooped up inside.
Limbs twitchy, skin stretched tight, like I might erupt. I need to be in the open air, soaking up the last of the sun in one of the newly opened beer gardens, surrounded by people. Instead, I’m here alone, trapped in my living room as the air thickens and the walls close in. The smell of stale food wafts from the bin. It hasn’t been emptied in days.
Upstairs, the crack of gunfire.
I peer into the fridge. Its sparse contents are overwhelming. My stomach growls, but a deeper ache twists in my lower abdomen. Something is clawing its way out.
And so, she makes herself known, physically now. First, as a heat rising from my pelvis to my face, radiating to my fingertips, making them tingle. I’ve drunk most of the bottle on an empty stomach. Not a wise move at the best of times, let alone on Cycle Day 23. With each aching wave, the anger simmers, hot and uncontrollable, as if she’s stoking a fire beneath my skin. Her clammy hand settles on the back of my neck, demanding attention. I grip the cool surface of the kitchen worktop and breathe.
You come down half an hour later, and she retreats to a dark corner. Over the rim of my glass, I watch you move around the kitchen and living room, as if searching for something. We exchange pleasantries about our workdays. You sit down, then get back up to open the fridge. Finding it empty, you resume pottering around the kitchen table.
The ball is in my court.
'Have you had a drink of water at all today?'
I bite my lip. You nod and rearrange the objects on the kitchen side and start unloading the dishwasher. I break the silence and suggest a beer in what’s left of the sun at our local pub. ‘It is Friday, after all.’
‘We can pick up some food afterwards,’ I add, already exhausted.
The laughter in the beer garden fades into the background, and we toast to the weekend. The sun has dipped behind the hills and a breeze picks up. You talk about the game, your voice rising with excitement as you list the benefits of recent updates. I nod, distantly aware of the forced smile being pulled into place by invisible fishhooks. I feel myself drifting, as though I’m watching the scene unfold from a distance.
There I am, holding a pint and sitting pretty in a full face of make-up. The mask of foundation and powder cracking, cheeks red hot. You sit opposite, talking to me but looking past me, gesturing at no one. I’m staring at your face, your mouth moving, but your voice is drowned out by whispers and a high-pitched buzzing.
Why does he still have his sunglasses on?
I shift forward in my seat and gently pull them off. You frown and quietly rub your reddened eyes. I smile at the bar staff collecting our empties and focus on the panting husky at the next table. You continue with your story, eyes searching for mine. They’re a pale shade of green and a little close together, which I usually find disarming. I study your lips, the way you tilt your head back when you laugh, so open and infectious. The blonde hairs on your cheeks endearing. We could be happy together, planning our future while hiking through mountains.
Then it happens: a peristaltic tightening at my throat, pressing against words left unsaid. I flinch, one hand twitching towards my neck. The skin burns.
‘Who were you playing with tonight?’ I ask, trying my hardest to keep her at bay.
I’ve been sketching a future, drawing a dream, projecting it onto the man in front of me like tracing paper.
Face blank as you rattle off their names: Tom, Reuben, Mark, Zahir, Jasper… Ant and Dec. Who cares? The mechanical buzz is back.
‘They’re probably all still playing,’ you laugh.
‘Is that what you would like to be doing, on a sunny evening? Play games in a stuffy attic?’
My elbows slam onto the table. The words are out before I’ve fully registered them, hanging between us. For a moment, I can’t tell if I’ve actually spoken, or if it’s just another echo in my head.
You look up in surprise, your brows quickly furrowing. A flicker of satisfaction runs through me, having gained your full attention.
‘I need to be around people,’ I say, straightening the menus on the table. ‘I’m bored working from home.’
‘I’m wiped, come Friday.’ You glance at the couple behind us.
‘Yet, you’re happy to log on for hours.’
‘We were just blowing off some steam.’
My jaw tightens. When resentment festers, she strikes. Feeding off it, growing stronger, until there’s nothing left of me but her.
‘Should you even be doing this during working hours?’ I continue, unable to let go.
‘Why can’t I just have fun with my friends?’
I’ve hit a nerve. He shrugs, studying his fingernails. He looks hurt and I just want to hug him, but we are in too deep.
We are so utterly broken. Might as well kick it all to the curb. Set fire to it. Burn it all to the ground. It’s all fucked and there is no turning back. I don’t even resist anymore. I’m going to dismember our relationship and chuck the pieces into the canal. Have done with it.
‘When did it all go so wrong for us?’ I shout.
I may have lost control of my free will, but at the same time I thrive on her power. She lifts the veil, forcing attention on what’s been unseen. And I relish the intoxicating feeling of finally being heard, even if it’s through destruction.
We finish our drinks in silence and head back up the hill, unable to let go of the painful conversation. Heading straight back home feels like failure.
‘Why don’t we ever have any plans?’ I persist.
‘We don’t always need plans. I’m happy just going with the flow.’
‘You might be, I say, my voice tightening, ‘but I’m always the one who has to make something happen. It’s exhausting.’
We stride down the busy high street, shouting over each other beneath strings of festoon lights that glow above outdoor tables. People glance up from their drinks, unsure what to make of us. Me: six feet tall, face full of makeup, flushed and overheating, teeth clenched. Him: shorter, younger, still wearing sunglasses, pacing ahead like he can outrun the scene.
‘But I can’t relax when I always have to decide on what to eat.’
‘It always works out. I really don’t see the problem.’
‘It works out because I’m the one keeping it together.’
Unable to sleep, I scour social media to distract myself. Instagram has been bombarding me with makeup tutorials lately, and I’m almost convinced I can erase my discontent with the latest full-coverage foundation. I end up buying the retinol under-eye cream that’s been popping up for a while now.
A week from my period, I can’t stop scrolling, even though I know it’s doing something to my brain. My feed is full of plastic surgery techniques: forehead reduction in Turkey, needle-free lip fillers, something for my upper eyelids I can’t pronounce. I know I should put the phone down, read a book, rest. But I can’t. The compulsion to stay plugged in – to this moment, this feed, this flickering now – has its grip on me. What do people want now? Why don’t you want anything? What do I want?
I just want to rest, but it feels impossible to get there.
At night, when the room is at its darkest, she materialises by playing with my limbs. Her energy is stronger when the clock strikes four. My legs begin to vibrate, as if a current is running through my muscle fibres. It spreads slowly. A subtle tingling that crawls upward. An ache settles in my groin, as if my hip bones no longer fit in their sockets. I feel an overwhelming urge to contort myself into unnatural shapes. My joints crack under the pressure of her demands.
Then she gets to work on my memories: rewriting, distorting, replacing facts with doubt. Did I push too hard? Was I always the problem? Her voice coils through me, soft and reasonable, telling me I’ve misunderstood everything. That I have done life wrong. She reshapes the past to strengthen her grip, until I can’t remember who I am and what’s true. Until I question whether I ever could.
And then: blood. And with it: relief. It oozes out of me, thick as tar, clotted and dark red – a bitter offering that buys me silence. She retreats. The static fades. The current dies down. I am myself again, but only just. I know she’ll come back. She always does.