Thursday, February 16, 2012

Pregnancy and Emotions. Arrgghhhh!

Pregnancy and emotions go together like peas and carrots or corned beef and cabbage. Combinations I do not care for, I must admit. I'm finding myself overly-sensitive to things being said to me. I'm hearing "tone" that isn't there, and quite often I'm reacting before it occurs to me to stop and evaluate. I'm reading something, or listening to a program, or having a conversation and suddenly I'm in tears.

Most of the women I know have taken this escalation in stride, but I'm having real difficulties with it. I'm not normally an emotionally reactive person. I worked hard to put filters in place between impulse and action, and I usually do a good job of examining both my emotional responses, and the appropriateness of the actions I want to take. I understand that my thoughts and attitudes are causal forces in my life, and that while I may not have control over how I feel about something, I do have control over how I react. And how I react creates my life.

Enter pregnancy.

Context, contemplation, and understanding of the subjective nature of personal reality have taken a back seat to impulse. No more taking a moment to check-in and ask myself if that person really meant to say what I think I heard. Nope. I'm just going with whatever I'm feeling in the moment. And while that feels perfectly natural in that moment, the moments following whatever outburst occurs are pretty surreal. Some days I know I'm being unreasonable and irrational and I warn my partner in advance. But much of the time I'm apologizing to him after the fact. When I get upset and agitated, he gets upset and agitated -- mainly because until recently, I rarely ever got upset and agitated, and when I did, it was usually for a very obvious reason, and now all of a sudden I'm getting all worked-up and he has no idea why, which makes him feel attacked and/or anxious.

In some ways it is comical. I'm being what he considers a typical female right now -- so maybe I've not gone as far off my rocker as I think. He's mentioned how my emotional reactivity during pregnancy makes him appreciate just how even-tempered I normally am. And of course he's looking forward to the day I return to my normal self. I had to warn him last night that it may be a while, since breastfeeding will almost certainly prolong the duration of hormone-related emotions. I'm hoping I'll have developed a new strategy for coping with it before the baby is born. I'm probably being overly optimistic, though.

Bottom line, being in control of myself is very important to me, and I'm feeling powerless to control myself. Fortunately, my partner is being understanding. For now, anyway ;)

1 comment:

  1. I wonder how much PCOS has played a role in your ability to maintain control over your reactions to your emotions prior to pregnancy and the hormonal havoc its wreaking. That is a challenge for me every month with PMS having a normal cycle.

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