My Journey to a Proper PMDD Diagnosis

While spending the weekend with my family recently, the topic of periods came up with my mum and sister. We were sharing our experiences in the build up to our periods; the conversation was light-hearted with plenty of jokes being thrown around and my sister recalled a particular incident of snapping at the smallest of inconveniences.

Mid laugh, I announced “I just want to die for two weeks every month”. My way of addressing any kind of trauma is to mask it with humour, which I know probably isn’t the most healthy thing to do, but at the time this conversation took place, I was nearing the end of my period. I was in a good mood and luckily my family know me well enough to understand that despite my levity of tone when making that statement, it was not an exaggeration.

For two weeks, every month, I feel like I become a different person. I can look at pictures of myself where I am clearly happy like the one I’ve shared with this blog, and it is like looking at a stranger. My mood drops significantly. I don’t sleep properly. Graphic images invade my head of how I might end my life. I feel useless, unworthy of any love and affection and I cannot concentrate on anything but how desperately unhappy I am. Two weeks, every month.

After partaking in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, taking anti-depressants, and numerous conversations with nurses and doctors, everything pointed towards PMDD.

Knowing that there is a reason for feeling the way I do has helped when it comes to explaining my feelings to friends and family. It should help when I experience those low times. I should be able to rationalise my thoughts and say to myself “it’s okay, things will be better again soon, just ride it out” but in my experience of PMDD, the condition kills any rational thought.

So for two weeks, it doesn’t feel like there will be any light at the end of the tunnel. And in my two ‘good weeks’, I can’t shake the underlying feeling of dread that I will inevitably be in that dark place again. So I feel like my life is controlled by PMDD and I don’t have the answer for how to contol it instead.

I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive family and husband, but my heart aches for people who experience PMDD without any support, or without even knowing what it is.

I hope that more health care professionals take it seriously and it’s not just dismissed as ‘typical hormone changes’, and I hope that more research can provide more ways to cope. I am so grateful to have found this community through social media which helps sufferers know that they are not alone and through raising awareness and sharing our experiences, I hope that my hopes become a reality.