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Jul. 17th, 2022 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[cw: hormones, (arguably) venting, (arguably) nsfw text]
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selentelechia)
It's fascinating how much person-to-person variation there is in this.
In my case, it's follicular!me that feels like the "baseline" me, the one that other phases are variations upon. I grow tired of every other phase quickly, but I could happily stay follicular forever, and if I could magic-button my hormonal profile I'd spend almost all my time in that one.
Ovulation...if it happened every once in a while, for a few hours, only on days that aren't filled with interruptions, I think it would be nice. Instead it's 3 - 5 days and hit me this month *at the beginning of a workweek*†, and now I have to try to get through my shifts while struggling to concentrate on anything but how desperately tired†† and lonely I am.
(I *have* noticed that I tend to seek out interpersonal interactions more when I'm ovulating, but I think it's, like...pica, or maybe more like subsistence. *Platonic* interpersonal interactions aren't actually what I'm craving, but they'll have to do.)
Luteal phase feels blunted, *especially* sexually: by default I pretty much don't have a libido at all when I'm luteal. At first it's something of a relief in comparison, but...I'm not *complete* like that. I used to say that if it lasted any longer I'd probably start deliberately sleep-depriving myself in an effort to feel whole again; I'd probably cope better these days, but only as a side effect of generally having more practice with paring myself down and ignoring needs that don't fit into my current situation, so I can't exactly call that a good thing.
I've never really found PMS to be a thing for me. I've met people (most of whom had menstrual cycles themselves: perhaps they were projecting) who believe that *everyone* is irritable when pre-menstrual, and I have to avoid telling them my menstrual phase because if I happen to be irritated while pre-menstrual they'll assume it's just because I'm high and won't take my concerns seriously. I do find that my libido often returns a day or two before menstruation, though.
I'm not sure menstruation's mental effects on me are actually much different from follicular, apart from the second-order effects of dealing with the physical stuff.
---
It's very possible that there are effects I haven't noticed, though, even with a health log. I didn't even notice the effects on sex drive until reading a(n access-locked) blog post about menstrual-phase-linked libido and learning that that was a thing it was possible to have (but once I started looking at my month with that in mind, I was very quickly like "holy shit this is about as subtle as a brick, how the fuck did I never catch on before").
---
†I currently work Friday to Sunday. ↩
††After several years of introspecting on the subtleties, I eventually learned to semi-reliably tell the difference between the horny kind of tired and the platonic kinds of tired, and ovulation definitely feels like the horny kind. ↩
[Twitter; Wayback] (by
It's fascinating how much person-to-person variation there is in this.
In my case, it's follicular!me that feels like the "baseline" me, the one that other phases are variations upon. I grow tired of every other phase quickly, but I could happily stay follicular forever, and if I could magic-button my hormonal profile I'd spend almost all my time in that one.
Ovulation...if it happened every once in a while, for a few hours, only on days that aren't filled with interruptions, I think it would be nice. Instead it's 3 - 5 days and hit me this month *at the beginning of a workweek*†, and now I have to try to get through my shifts while struggling to concentrate on anything but how desperately tired†† and lonely I am.
(I *have* noticed that I tend to seek out interpersonal interactions more when I'm ovulating, but I think it's, like...pica, or maybe more like subsistence. *Platonic* interpersonal interactions aren't actually what I'm craving, but they'll have to do.)
Luteal phase feels blunted, *especially* sexually: by default I pretty much don't have a libido at all when I'm luteal. At first it's something of a relief in comparison, but...I'm not *complete* like that. I used to say that if it lasted any longer I'd probably start deliberately sleep-depriving myself in an effort to feel whole again; I'd probably cope better these days, but only as a side effect of generally having more practice with paring myself down and ignoring needs that don't fit into my current situation, so I can't exactly call that a good thing.
I've never really found PMS to be a thing for me. I've met people (most of whom had menstrual cycles themselves: perhaps they were projecting) who believe that *everyone* is irritable when pre-menstrual, and I have to avoid telling them my menstrual phase because if I happen to be irritated while pre-menstrual they'll assume it's just because I'm high and won't take my concerns seriously. I do find that my libido often returns a day or two before menstruation, though.
I'm not sure menstruation's mental effects on me are actually much different from follicular, apart from the second-order effects of dealing with the physical stuff.
---
It's very possible that there are effects I haven't noticed, though, even with a health log. I didn't even notice the effects on sex drive until reading a(n access-locked) blog post about menstrual-phase-linked libido and learning that that was a thing it was possible to have (but once I started looking at my month with that in mind, I was very quickly like "holy shit this is about as subtle as a brick, how the fuck did I never catch on before").
---
†I currently work Friday to Sunday. ↩
††After several years of introspecting on the subtleties, I eventually learned to semi-reliably tell the difference between the horny kind of tired and the platonic kinds of tired, and ovulation definitely feels like the horny kind. ↩
