They really should be called Whoremones because they are so awful

You know how when you're about to get your period and you turn into a raging lunatic and everyone around you is afraid to breathe the wrong way for fear that you will kill them in their sleep with a dull spoon and a severe verbal lashing?  (Please tell me this isn't just me.)  That's an example of hormones. 

Hormones are no joke.  I am seriously thinking about starting a petition to make hormones admissable to court as a legal defense, right alongside mental insanity.  Because in case you didn't know, hormones make you (but I really mean me) a total whackadoo. 

Multiply period hormones by pregnancy and you get me.  We haven't reached the raging lunatic stage yet - that's reserved for the third trimester.  I actually felt the need to apologize to my co-workers when I returned from maternity leave because sitting back at my desk brought back (in a huge flood of awareness) all the rude and biting things I said before I'd left.  I had no patience for anything or anyone, and I was generally unpleasant to be around. 

But currently, I'm in my first trimester - the Land of Fatigue and Worry, right next to the Pond of Nausea and Eating Remorse.  This stop is also brought to you by Hormones.  Thanks to my hormones, I'm left worrying that the aspartame from the diet pop I accidentally drank (thinking it was regular caffeine-free) has permanently and irreversably damaged my tiny baby's budding brain.  Thanks to my hormones, I fall asleep in my car during my lunch break and wake up to realize that I'm running 15 minutes late getting back to the office.  Thanks to my hormones, I experience these random and intense boughts of general discontent with everything in my life.  

And the sad thing is, so many people think hormones are just an excuse.  Let me tell you something - they are REAL.  REAL.  ALIVE AND REAL. 

Example: After L was born, I experienced some hard-core baby blues.  I know it wasn't post-partum depression because I've read a lot of things written by women who actually have PPD and can honestly and gratefully say that what I had was not that.  But my hormones were crashing all around me and I was seriously bummed out.  On top of that, since I was only pumping exclusively (which only added to my depression because pumping sucks royally) and not actually nursing L, my period decided to return about 5 weeks after L was born. 

I clearly remember the day before it came because it is the only day I can ever remember feeling like this.  Every single tiny thing D did annoyed the living crap out of me.  I don't think I have the words to describe the irritation I felt towards him.  Everything he said or did made me look at him and wonder why the heck I married him.  I think it's safe to say that he was genuinely afraid of me.  The next day, when I laughingly told him my period had come, he was like, "I knew it was coming.  You were pure evil yesterday."  

Them there are hormones, people.  The fact that my husband can always tell when my period is coming is proof that hormones are real.  In real life, I wouldn't cry when I hear Lady Marmalade on the radio (true story).  In Hormone Land, that's reasonable and expected.  

So the next time you want to discount hormones as some sort of "excuse", think twice.  Because really, do you want to be messing with someone tripping on that kind of "excuse" in the first place?