"To this I must add that since my fourteenth year, independent of
any illness, I have suffered mentally and physically from
menstrual pains recurring every twenty-eight days and lasting
from six to eight days. That these were the equivalent pains to a
woman's menstruation periods I could get no doctor to admit till
I was treated for a length of time by a German nerve specialist.
"The physical pains begin abruptly. Sudden congestions of blood
in the brain and in the abdomen. Sudden perspirations, heat and
cold. Great nervous pains in the small of the back, also in the
nerve-centers of abdomen and stomach. Sharp, shooting pains in
the breasts and especially the nipples. Sudden toothache which
stops as suddenly. The skin becomes darker, sometimes mottled. I
have the whole time a taste of blood in my mouth and often
everything I eat tastes of blood. I have great difficulty at that
time in eating meat. Physical longings for erotic adventure,
counterbalanced by mental nausea at the bare idea.
"The mental symptoms are: sudden feeling of deep depression,
suicidal tendencies, alternating with sudden inexplicable
lightheartedness.
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