PMDD And Me

I was diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder in 2019. I’d lived with this condition since puberty, but unfortunately, it went undiagnosed due to a lack of awareness, information, and understanding - for me, and pretty much everyone around me.

Since my then, however, I have been working on building myself up to be able to live the life that I deserve to have.

 
Just finding out out about PMDD? Download my handy guide to help you join the dots and learn the PMDD basics you should have known sooner.

What Is PMDD?

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder is a premenstrual condition that affects 1 in 20 cycling individuals (anyone who ovulates). 

  • Premenstrual - before the period

  • Dysphoric - the opposite of euphoric and means a state of difficulty

  • Disorder - defined by Google as “a confused or messy state” (which I actually think is very accurate!)
    So PMDD = a difficult, confused and messy state before a period!

You’ve probably heard of PMS (premenstrual syndrome) – that time of the month when a person may feel more emotional than usual, suffer from stomach cramps and so on. PMS is not thought to be debilitating - but PMDD can be disabling. 

Being cyclical, symptoms of PMDD generally begin shortly after ovulation – (around day 14 of the menstrual cycle) and tend to stay until around day 1-3 of the next period. However, this will vary from person to person.

Symptoms:

The main symptoms of PMDD fall under the emotional or mental bracket, and they can include anxiety, depression, tension, feelings of despair and hopelessness, and sometimes, suicidal ideation. 

Some people will also suffer from physical symptoms, including headache, sickness, bloating and breast tenderness. Other symptoms can include brain fog, exhaustion, insomnia, and binge eating.

You’ve heard of PMDD...now what?

Download my handy guide to help you join the dots and learn the PMDD basics you should have known sooner.

PMDD AND ME:

I was asked recently what my first experience with PMDD was, and honestly, I have no idea! For lots of people, there’s a stand-out moment when they experience symptoms for the first time and know straight away that something isn’t right, but because I’ve been battling PMDD since puberty, I guess I never knew what was normal and what wasn’t for hormonal health. 

There was a time when I wondered if I had Bipolar Disorder, as I couldn’t work out why my symptoms came and went, but after doing some research, I knew that Bipolar Disorder wasn’t quite the right fit for what I was experiencing. At this point, I started to blame myself for my fluctuating mental health and would blame my harder days on my increased binge eating or my lack of exercise, telling myself that I was being an attention seeker and a drama queen.

My symptoms can range from impulsivity to binge eating, to depression, to a feeling of grief. No two months are the same, but one stand-out symptom for me that occurs each time is I am always self-deprecating and so unbelievably hard on myself - “there’s nothing even wrong, you’re just being dramatic…” and, “Maybe if I had kept up with my running, and ate healthier, I wouldn’t be feeling like this….”

I had my “PMDD lightbulb moment” in 2019 when I stumbled across a post about it on social media. I related to all of the symptoms listed in the post, and after doing some research and keeping a journal for six months, I was finally diagnosed with PMDD. Knowing that, actually, it isn’t your fault and that there are other people out there who understand wasn’t just life-changing. It was life-saving.