In one of the most interesting books that I have read in recent times, named ‘Behave’ written by Robert Sapolsky, he speaks about how aggression and mood disorders can be triggered in premenstrual women.
Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is a pretty common thing for most modern women. I said ‘modern’ because most educated and city – bred women tend to have PMS more than village women. There is an interesting reason behind it. Urban women have comparatively easy access to various information, including PMS to be specific here, than their village counterparts and there is a correlation between knowledge about PMS and having PMS symptoms.
I have found that those women who are aware of the condition and have come to know about it either through their friends, mothers, doctors or from some media source, are more likely to complain PMS symptoms.
I have also seen uncountable women who regularly have PMS symptoms but do not know that it’s caused by the hormonal imbalances and stress, shortly before the onset of the menstrual period. Many women haven’t even heard of PMS. Interestingly, women who come to know that there is something called PMS, soon start reporting from the next period onwards that they are having symptoms of PMS ! Isn’t that surprising enough to raise our eyebrows ?
PMS is characterized by backache, bloating, mood swings, cramps, acne, irritability, depressed state and headache.
It is pretty interesting to note here that women with bad PMS are generally found to be insecure, anxious, depressed, neurotic, hypochondriacal, sexually repressed, over – sexual, mentally unstable, given to hyper – emotionality and suffer from low frustration tolerance.
I have found that women who are ignorant of PMS as a condition, do not complain of anything during their premenstrual phase. In simple, women who are told that there is something called PMS tend to report so – called symptoms of PMS, more than women who do not know about it.
It is very curious to note here that there are various clinical states, where people complain of certain symptoms because they ARE AWARE that there are diseases where one can ‘have those symptoms’ ! What this means is that if you know, or you are told that there are specific disease states where specific symptoms are likely to occur, you tend to display those disease symptoms more, than those who are not aware of the existence of those diseases. In essence, this shows how powerful our mind is actually and how mysteriously it influences our bodily states.
It is intriguing to note here that more than 90% of our illnesses are of mental origin and that majority of our disorders are psychosomatic in nature ! It is hard to believe this but that’s what the truth is.
In the same way, PMS have a similar pattern of causation.
It has been found that Chinese and Indian women complain or report less premenstrual symptoms than Western women. This again is correlated to PMS Awareness amongst the respective populations.
Well, of course, PMS do have a biological basis, but psychological factors do equally come into play.
I have found that women who had an independent upbringing, are assertive, , mentally strong, accommodative, non – complaining, resourceful and easy – going, do not have much of PMS as a problem.
One interesting spotlight related to PMS has been postulated by Katharina Dalton in the 1960s, who incidentally coined the name ‘Premenstrual Syndrome’. She found that female criminals or women with sociopathic inclinations committed various crimes comparatively more during their premenstrual period. Similarly, other studies conducted in girl’s boarding schools revealed various behavioral problems occurring in premenstrual students. Such studies require rigorous verification and replication, before it can be established with certainty that premenstrual women are more predisposed towards aggressive behavior.
However, it is compelling to note that women accused of criminal offenses committed during premenstrual phase are allowed lenient defense pleas on the ground of ‘Diminished Responsibility’ in court proceedings.
There is a very interesting case of a woman named Sandie Cradock, whose criminal acts and periodicity of her menses matched so closely that she was put on probation plus progesterone treatment. A later development made the case even bizarre. Cradock’s doctor later lowered her progesterone dose; by her next period, she was arrested for trying to kill someone. She again got probation, along with further doses of progesterone !
To my mind, it is too early to say that premenstrual women are more likely to engage in violent behavior than non – menstruating women, but the documented cases and findings so far throw thought – provoming spotlight on a very interesting aspect of PMS.
It is however, sufficeable to say that there can be other factors in operation which could lead to aggressiveness in premenstrual women, but as of now, it will be adequate conclude that PMS is for real, women do have psychological issues during PMS and that PMS is commoner in certain group of women and that for many premenstrual women, mood changes and irritability are pretty common, who might require and benefit from treatment, including Counseling and Progesterone treatment.
