nighttime adventures

the one major disadvantage of being female is the immense amount of pain you have to endure. i'd like to think, perhaps, that it's just me. that most women get by quite easily without too much hardship at all, and it's just something that, unluckily, plagues me. however, i do not think this is the case. after conversations with various family and friends i have come to the conclusion that it is not uncommon to, like me, every month become reduced to a quivering mess as the so-called "dull ache" (!! i remember thats what we told about it in biology lessons... hmmm... it never felt particularly dull to me) takes over.
every month it surprises me just how bad it is. i woke up at about 5am this morning, and experiencing a very mild ache i decided it would be for the best to drag myself out of bed and take some painkillers. i find it's much better to take some early on to sort of halt the progress, rather than wait until it's unendurable (however heroic a path that may be) because once it gets to that stage the painkillers don't actually work. at least this way you can stop it before it starts. well, thats what happens usually anyway. after an hour of sitting hunched up in bed without any killing of pain happening at all, it actually started to get worse. i then went down to my parents bedroom, to get some sympathy and a hot water bottle from my mother, and to avoid disturbing the 2 girls sleeping on my bedroom floor. (we've got guests). it became apparent that the painkillers were not going to have any effect and i would simply have to tough it out. not a pleasant prospect. i rapidly descended into the quivering mess aforementioned, sitting doubled in two, rocking back and forth clutching the bottle to my stomach, my breathing heavy and irregular. what can i say? it hurt. it really hurt. it hurt so much that i experienced that queer sensation where your mind (soul? conciousness?) starts to sort of detatch itself from your body, in an attempt to make it less painful. you feel as though you're not quite in control of your body, or you're not fully occupying it, or that it's not really yours.
eventually it passed, after running to the bathroom to be sick. i guess i just wanted to rant about it. i can safely say nothing has ever caused me any more pain, and yet i know that it will happen to me every month, and even sitting here now i know i will have several more days of this.