Hormonal Attribution Error, or Stupid Week on the Wunder Channel

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, yesterday came at the end of a really bad week. In only six days, it seemed that I had fucked up everything I touched: I made a stunningly stupid mistake in chem lab, I didn’t study enough for one exam, I was spacey at work over the whole weekend (probably from staying up and studying for my other, much harder exam), screwing up several orders and forgetting to do a bunch of miscellaneous tasks, and some of my past procrastination was catching up with me at the same time.

I nearly reached my breaking point on Monday morning, after making some other silly mistake in my other part-time job and having to remake a solution. I was almost ready to cry, for I was clearly incompetent, scatterbrained, and a nuisance to others. But then, something sane inside me reminded me of the date–the time of month.

I was PMSing. :smack: Clearly what I was perceiving as a week of destruction, incompetence, and idiocy was little more than a normal week, filtered through a hormone-induced, unhappy confirmation bias.

I should have been relieved. My actual reaction?

Why didn’t I realize that? I am so fucking dumb!

Thankfully, as I compose this post, the tides have gone out, so to speak, and I am sane enough to see the humor in the situation. I don’t know if there’s a moral, though, other than that it sucks to have a human brain coupled with a human body.

2

I tend to be susceptible to seasonal affective disorder (although for some reason it hasn’t hit me yet this year). Some days I’ll be dragging my butt along, low on energy and unable to concentrate, and I’ll suddenly remember, “Oh yeah – it’s January.” I bet PMS and SAD together must be hell.

3

I pay attention to timing so that I know when it’s coming and expect my moods and emotions to be out of proportion to any stressful situation or problem. I warn my partner to ignore me and then try not to give in to the urge for drama and tears, or to take any actions based on how I feel that will be hard to undo. If I still feel that way a week later when I know that I’m reasonable again I’ll deal with it then. If it catches me by surprise then I get to be a loser and complete failure at everything for 3 days a month.