Evolutionary Theory
Ahem!PMT is punishment for not being pregnant.
Disclaimer: This theory is not based on any of my own personal research. I am not an evolutionary biologist. I am not a hormone expert. I am not an MD, I am a real doctor with a PhD. So this is merely backyard fireside hypothesising at it's best...
PMT, or PMS or whatever term you want to give to the irrationality that occurs just prior to getting your period, is real. And I will provide no evidence for it but this: I can put a big red square around two days of every month on the calendar and on those days I will be highly susceptible to depression, anxiety and crying at meg ryan films. Most other days I am fine. On red quare days I have banned myself from making any life changing decisions - no break ups, no haircuts, no quitting, no sweeping generalisations about the state of my career or my relationships. I have even gone to the extent of officially notifying my loved ones, so that they can protect me (and themselves) from me on these days. And it works. As soon as I can attribute my feelings of unhappiness to a chemical imbalance in my bloodstream, rather than anything dramatically wrong with my life, I usually regain perspective.
So, why do women feel this way? If this is a biological pathway, surely it has been tried and tested over millennia with selective pressure applied. If we still have it, at one stage it must have been considered useful or beneficial, otherwise it would have been looped out of the genome. Ok, maybe it's not quite as simple as that, but for the sake of my ranting, lets continue.
So i was thinking.. If you take the purely evolutionary view that we are put on earth to pass on our genes to ensure the survival of the species, consider -
1) Being pregnant is good.
2) Not being pregnant is bad.
3) If you are menstruating, this is a sign that you are not pregnant.
4) See (2)
So perhaps the feelings of depression and sadness just before getting your period are your genes telling you that you should have gotten yourself knocked up by now...
Yeah, i know... lucky for me I'm an immunologist huh ?
posted by Dr Krystal @ 6:00 pm
4 Comments:
Can we put the BB incident down to this as well?
*cheeky*
I am afraid I have to confess that the BB incident was not an isolated one. Though I am sure i can blame jet-lag for a while still.. can't i ?
I don't think you'll get much more mileage out of that one, dear heart! Perhaps we can blame some sort of acclimatisation disorientation syndrome instead?
The good news is, you can work past your red box days. The boy has slowly been working with me on this. I can now detect hormonally induced irrationality within 10 minutes
That said, I seem to have just gone from the weeping and pathetic stage to the flaming sword of righteousness stage (apologies to those who were subjected last week to rantings on the lack of responsibility and accountability of people these days)
At least there are less kleenex involved in the latter stage.
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