Irritable Male Syndrome

Punch me in the gut and call me Gucci! I have got the male PMS and it just isn’t funny. Now, I know what many of you will say. Male PMS? Come on you must be kidding me? Well, I kid you not, it’s true and it does exist. Recent research discovered that many men do suffer from a condition similar to PMS which they have dubbed Irritable Male Syndrome (IMS) and it is linked to the drop in the male hormone testosterone. The same as women, men have hormone cycles too. But unlike women who once a month have a crime scene in their pants, men’s IMS can manifest at any time and without any warning. Just falling short of being on my period (which I am sure I will have if it lasts any longer) I have been suffering from IMS for the past three hellish days. If you have not had it before, here is what you can expect when you do.

Now, normally I am a tad of a bitch. I just can’t help, it is programmed into be genes. But roughly around mid morning on Monday I noticed a distinct change in my normally sunny but with scattered thundershowers disposition. For no apparent reason I found myself in a foul mood: I was irritable, hypersensitive and slightly anxious. At first I thought it was due to the fact that I only got to bed at 1am that morning as we were out celebrating the victory of our friends who had just won an international competition. But, not really having drunk all that much the night before I could not blame my dismal mood on a hangover which could easily have been fixed with a Bloody Mary. I was feeling like crap, slightly bloated and as emotional as a nun who just lost her virginity. What made it worse is that I didn’t know why.

A few emotional outbursts and going from happy to crazy in 6.5 seconds, the rest of Monday was pretty much a total waste. The whole of Monday night and the early hours of Tuesday morning I was tossing and turning and only got about 2 hours worth of solid sleep. Needless to say when I eventually got out of bed to go to work, I absolutely hated everything. I hated all the clothes in my wardrobe and was ready to take a pair of scissors and/or canister of gasoline and torch the lot. Or at least that’s what crossed my mind and what I pictured in my head. But I managed to stop the crazy train just long enough to get dressed in something cheerful in the hope that the calming and happy pastel colours of my outfit would magically and positively transform my state of mind. But it didn’t.

Some people get road rage, but when suffering from IMS I get road emotional. Ordinary I will be the first to admit that I am an aggressive driver. After all in South Africa you have to be. Not only do you have to be vigilant for bad drivers you also have to avoid getting hijacked or smash-and-grabbed, dodge pedestrians and taxis on the fucking highway and tolerate being harassed by beggars at traffic lights. Under normal circumstances I am really good at doing all of that, but not on Tuesday. Tuesday I found myself to be one of those annoying people with a social conscious. I actually felt genuinely sorry for all those people who I never pay any attention to begging next to the road. Consequently my drive to work was like a bad Hallmark movie as narrated by Oprah Winfrey – a real tear jerker. It was then that I realized something was terribly wrong with me. I mean honestly, I never cry, I don’t even think I have working tear ducts left anymore. But the best was yet to come.

The whole day on Tuesday I felt lethargic, depressed and still reeling from the morning’s unexpected emotional trauma. I pushed through the day and with great effort I tried my utmost not to bite anybody’s head off. Later that evening while hubby was in the shower a KFC add came on to television depicting an old couple who relive their years together just by smelling fried chicken. I balled my eyes out and after that was done I was freaking starving. Starving for fried fucking chicken and a happy fairytale ending - not quite the thought pattern and/or behavioural process I normally have. So came Wednesday I knew I must be suffering from something like PMS. Either that or I was pregnant!

So I did what I usually do, I consulted Google and lo and behold I discovered I was suffering from IMS. “Fucking great!” I thought “Just what I need right now in my life! But at least it’s not menopause, I am way too young for a midlife crisis. Too young and in no way rich enough!” So I knew what was causing my mood swings and also learned that it would only last a few days. I just had to ride it out for a little while longer with as few casualties as humanly possible.

The biggest breakdown I had was on Wednesday during the apex of my IMS and it was with an unsuspecting telemarketer. I answered my phone and once I realized it was a telemarketer I said in my version of a straight accent and in my outside voice “If you are selling something I am not interested!” to which the guy insistently responded “But Mr Pierrie le Rocks, you don’t even know what I am offering you”. I loathe it when people pronounce my name and surname wrong and that guy unwittingly double crossed the line. I completely lost it! The profanities that left my mouth even surprised me and half way through screaming at him in a high pitched voice like a psychotic raving bitch, I realized that the guy had hung up on me. As I stood there staring at my phone in my hand, realizing what I had just done, I was praying for my IMS to just go away. So I went to the fridge, grabbed a large jar of pickles, got some peanut butter, sat flat on the kitchen floor and felt sorry for myself for a good hour.

I have IMS and it sucks worse than a geriatric blow job. Having gone through the last couple of days being all hormonal and shit I have a new found respect for all the women out there. I do not know how you gals do this each and every bloody month and after all this, I now know that I just would not have coped. Looking back at the last week I realized that my unexpected rendezvous with IMS may have been brought on due to a lack of sleep, the change in my diet and/or underlying stress. I guess my testosterone cycle is as a pedantic bitch as I am; a bitch’s whose routine is best kept and not messed with.

Till next time.