Do you ever wake up angry?

Yes, it's called PMS in my case!

Lots of exercise to get rid of the angst?

Yeah, I have days where I wake up p!ssed off and spend the rest of the day being inventively p!ssed off with everything that happens across my path...

I can only offer oldy-but-goody advice - exercise, a hot bath, a cup of mint or camomile tea. I also imagine putting the things that are making me angry into a box then sealing it up, chucking it off a cliff, burying it in sand etc etc - anything to remove the angry-making thing from within my head where I can't really do anything about it.

If I'm still peeved, I just call it a day and hit the sack, and I pretty much always feel better in the morning.

Are you often angry like this or is today especially bad?

Isn;t it strange how you forget about PMS at the time you have it? Like, one day you're thinking "god, I'm such a failure, I hate myself and everyone else" then the next day you get your period and think "hmm, I feel a bit better now" yet don't put 2 and 2 together until later? Always fascinated me! ?

Actually I have just been put on a new pill, which I take constantly and do not have any periods. I did wonder what would happen to my menstrual symptoms- I think I'm having them anyway, just with no bleed? It does feel like PMS actually.

I like the box idea!

well there is the possible PMS, but i am also currently coming off anti depressants. Now I don't think that I feel angry due to this, BUT they are sedatives and knock me out. tonight I am supposed to miss a tablet and am now wondering whether to take it anyway, if the alternative is staying awake until late fuming.

After a bad dream I can wake up really annoyed with whoever p'd me off in the dream. Unfair but hard to shift that feeling.

Me too Zoay! i've also have nightmares about perfectly lovely people and been scared of them for ages afterwards.

Is it Cerazette you're on now? I definitely used to get random PMS on that, I never had periods and the PMS was totally unpredictable - didn't fall into a regular cycle IYSWIM. I like it a lot more now I'm totally off the pill because I'm tracking my cycles and so the PMS is expected, I know my period is due so even though I still get the 'I'm fat and useless and I hate my life' at least I know why, and can defer decisions until the period comes ?

? to you, I ultimately decided that the no periods was not worth the moods I had but it was good for a while. It's rubbish when you just want to stab the whole world, because really it's not the socially accepted thing to do is it?

oh god it is. and this is my last ditch pill as I've tried about 10 brands and had to go on Cerazette due to migraines.

You know I've been thinking for a while i should come off the pill, as I don't know whats me, and whats the pill IYKWIM? That said i used to have very bad periods. But i've been on the pill for nearly 10 years.

Pleased to know its not just me though! thanks SC x

I know exactly what you mean and that's pretty much my history you've quoted there! Microgynon gave me the rage, Cilest was good but then it made my BP go up after a few years, then there was another, then Cerazette. In the end I just decided I would rather put up with condoms so came off after the wedding.

I had awful periods in my teens, it was why I went on the pill in the first place - it wasn't cos I was getting any action ?, but I'd gone through all the available painkillers which didn't touch it, and they were heavy too. However I took a chance and they are like night and day from what they were - 28 days like clockwork, pains are only one day, only about 2 days of heavy bleeding and another 2 of spotting and even the PMT is less. You never know, it might be better for you - but it's worth giving Cerazette a go for a bit if you really don't fancy getting pg just yet - I was like you, I just wanted to know what was me again and I feel so much more in control now.

? I was going to suggest PMS too and I SO relate to the rage, and how one never identifies it correctly at the time. Exercise helps pretty reliably. <checks calendar> thank God your cycle does not coincide with STBC.

I woke up absolutely livid this morning - and quite upset - because Mr Mwnci cheated on me in my dream. He didn't even apologise after I'd told him about it, harrumph. I have been a bit sensitive lately but had completely forgotten about PMS because my cycle's gone a bit to pot - makes sense though!

Well it is 4am and I am still up, having laid awake feeling the rage all night ?

Soph- Not sure I would have even got to STBC. Today I probably would have comitted murder on the tube on the way there ? can you see the paper now? "Book girl killer"

I am waiting for the gym to open. My run earlier was on fact the only time I wasn't incredibly on edge.

The thing thats getting to me the most is smells- My sense of smell seems to have become incredibly heightened. I nearly lost it in the gym as everyone was so smelly. And MIL has bought us these god awful candles which stink of citronella, and I can smell them everywhere. I have also decided i hate the smell of my hands. oh Yes, irrational period rage is here. Well hello, its been Months.

I haven't been on the pill for over 10 years because it gave me such dreadful rages. Unfotunately, in the last two years my PMT has got bad again and I have daays where I get uncontrollably angry. Horrid, and not much fun for Mr W (or indeed anyone else who crosses my path!). Like others, I find some good, hard exercise helps. As does wine.

Anyway, I hope you're feeling happier today.

I did last week. for no reason i was so mardy and angry. i dropped the kids at school and had a mad clean all day and felt alot better by tea time lol.

Heightened smell? You don't need to do a pregnancy test do you?

I don't wake up angry. Left to my own devices, however, I'm capable of angrying myself up without any outside input- I got up with the children this morning while H is still in bed and, while unloading the dishwasher, I remembered how H and his mother once jointly criticised my inefficient dishwasher loading technique, which led me on to think about how both of them have an overly aggressive manner of giving criticism (maybe because MIL is German and English is her second language), which led me to think of a row H and I had a few weeks ago about his manner of telling me off about the fact that I'd put something in the bin EVEN THOUGH THE BIN BAG HAD SLIPPED DOWN INSIDE!!! Which then led me on to think about the fact he didn't give me a card, Mother's Day 2006. So I am now fully furious with my husband and he hasn't even woken up yet. Poor H, married to a mad woman.

Waaaaaah, Knownowt, I thought I was the only person to do that, I can so easily rile myself ?

This morning my son was very rude to me so I was peed off anyway, then I made myself super angry by thinking about an incident that happened an easy 10 years ago. We are officially weird ?

Hyacinth, I do the staying angry after a dream thing too, and I also wondered if a pregnancy test might be in order when you mentioned having the nose of a bloodhound..

I once left work mildly peeved at a colleague. That night, I couldn't really sleep, and I spent the whole time stewing over this tiny incident. The more I thought about it, the more it typified everything that was wrong with our professional relationship and our friendship, and I went over and over how I would Have It Out with him and ask him what the hell he was playing at treating me like this etc etc etc. So no sleep, and all the time the raaaaage was building up.

The next day, I stormed into work ready to put it straight...and the very first thing he said to me, before I'd even opened my mouth, completely made up for what I'd been annoyed about the day before and proved all my assumptions had been completely wrong. What a waste of energy! And thank GOD I never went off on my fishwife-style rant ?

KN, that's SO easy done! Aren't we all total loons?! ?

There's been a few times where I've had a bad dream where Mr FigJam has done something to upset me/been horrid etc and woken up in such a bad mood with him. Even though I know it was in my dream he did it and therefore not his fault, I just can't seem to shake it off and usually spend a good part of the day in a huff with him! ?

I'm another who's always "surprised" when my period arrives (yes, even when on the pill, you'd think it would be easy to remember!) and gets a sudden "penny dropping" moment when I realise why I was so crabby/weepy/depressed for the last couple of days! You'd think we'd learn?

Thanks for your concern all, and stories, which made me chuckle (we are women and we are mad)

I think I've discovered what it is- a premenstural migraine. Weeing constantly (every 10 minutes yesterday) awake all night, smelling everything, getting frustrated with everything- I suspect it will hit in the next few hours, so am off to get migravleve.

No real chance of being upduffed, although reading back those symptoms I have just realised how like pregnancy they sound ?

This morning so far the only thing that has annoyed me is MrH being on the phone. As I don't think hes saying the right thing. naturally. Not that its his conversation or anything....