My therapist pulled out one of her medical books and I literally had every single symptom associated with PMDD

I am suffering from a condition called premenstrual dysphoric disorder ("PMDD"), which is most simply defined as a disabling mood disorder related to a woman's menstrual cycle. I am so grateful that I don't have any "serious" illnesses. However, this condition has genuinely affected every aspect of my life including my career, relationships, my body, and my mental health.

Looking at my life from an outsider's perspective, I have everything I could ever want including healthy and happy kids, a supportive family, a few close friends, a fulfilling and successful career, and a safe and comfortable home. But the reality is, internally, I'm in a constant state of struggle. I decided to write this note to try to give some insight into my life and educate on this condition. It's been a long and hard process getting to this point.

To back up, after having my first baby 12 years ago, I knew I was struggling. I had a difficult time adjusting to motherhood. It did not come naturally for me, literally from the moment I was ripped apart in the hospital and for months afterward where it seemed like she just cried and cried and cried. I felt like a failure and was not enjoying "every minute" like a mother is supposed to. I also struggled to balance a demanding career with being a parent. I went to counselling for a while and although there was no formal diagnosis of postpartum depression, I'm confident that is what I had and perhaps where my problems began. Despite having serious reservations, we decided to have another baby and along came my son almost four years later. The pregnancy with him was much more enjoyable for me and he was a wonderful baby. Nevertheless, I still struggled. I thought leaving my career and focusing on being a mom would help, only it didn't. Not surprisingly, juggling two kids, chores, jobs, etc. takes a toll on every marriage. More than that I felt anxious, depressed, unsatisfied and sometimes even angry. I wasn't the mom or wife that I wished I could be.

When my husband and I decided to separate, I went back to counselling. My therapist assumed, as I did, that I was depressed, grieving the loss of my marriage, and having trouble adjusting to my new life on my own. She prescribed me Zoloft and it was a challenge figuring out the right dosage for me. After about a year or so, I thought I had gotten through all of the hard adjustments and decided I could handle life without the medication.

A few months later, everything came crashing down on me. I was convinced that I was a terrible mother, and I was ruining my children. I truly felt they would be better off without me and would never even miss me if I wasn't here anymore. I felt like I had no friends or anyone who cared how I was actually doing.  I was angry, the littlest things would set me off. I felt fat despite working out constantly. I didn't feel focused at work and literally just dreaded every aspect of “doing life.” Nothing gave me pleasure and I didn't care about making plans. I couldn't picture my life in the future because I didn't care if I lived to see it. I often thought about how I was going to kill myself. I spoke with my therapist and came up with a "safety plan" - a written plan of what steps I needed to take when I was feeling suicidal. I came close. More than once. However, I worked my plan and then those darkest days would pass, and I would start to see the light again. I will never forget the day I admitted to my therapist that I thought I was bipolar - some days I felt totally fine. I had energy, was feeling successful at work, making plans to do things, etc.  Then, almost like a light switch, I could barely get out of bed, cried constantly, and the suicidal thoughts would consume me. I was having stomach issues, and the bloating made me feel "fat" even when I was working out relentlessly. In a joint therapy session my ex mentioned that for years my emotions were like a rollercoaster - constantly up and down. It was through those counselling sessions that we realized most of my symptoms, both emotional and physical, were related to my menstrual cycle.

My therapist pulled out one of her medical books and I literally had every single symptom associated with PMDD. She immediately contacted my doctor who confirmed it as well. While it was a relief to have a name for what I had been struggling with, I was also acutely aware that this was not something that was going away any time soon. Instead, it's on a constant three-to-four-week cycle. Approximately 5-7 days before my period, the hell begins. The physical symptoms for me include bloating, headaches and severe breast swelling/pain. Although the emotional symptoms are the silent killer. I completely disengage from my relationships. I don't care if I see or talk to anyone. I don't sleep well, am exhausted and think about going back to bed from the minute I wake up. I have brain fog, which impacts my ability to successfully practice law. I sometimes meet with a client and within a day have no recollection of who they are. I feel rage - the smallest things will put me into a tailspin. I feel like everyone who is supposed to love me is against me. Those feelings that I am not wanted or needed are most prevalent. I turn into someone I don't recognize or want to be around but unfortunately cannot escape.

Once my period starts, within a day or two all of the symptoms disappear and I am left with the heavy task of attempting to repair all of the damage I caused the prior week and chores/work that I failed to complete.

PMDD is exhausting and not something I can easily explain to people. If you tell someone you have the flu, or strep throat, they immediately understand, and you generally get a "pass" in life until you feel better. Trying to explain to someone that your monthly cycle is impacting your ability to live a normal life is a harder concept to understand. Even those closest to me who know about the condition, as much as they try, still don't get it. Having irregular periods also makes this condition almost impossible to deal with. Once diagnosed with PMDD, I went back on Zoloft and also take magnesium daily. Having a workout routine is extremely important to me - which is what drives me to get up at 5am to get to the gym.

Nevertheless, it's a struggle. Every. Single. Month. I try to consciously ask myself - are these feelings real or is the PMDD playing tricks on my mind, especially when I'm angry, depressed or ambivalent. Thankfully, the suicidal thoughts are further from my mind, for the most part.

If you take anything from this note, please try to remember this. You never know what a person is going through. Even those who seem to have it altogether may be having internal struggles and mental health issues. Instead of judging and making people feel weak or embarrassed for seeking help, have compassion. No one wants to or decides to be depressed. I do not believe a person would kill themselves for attention or to be selfish. Sometimes the pain is just too unbearable. Be kind. Reach out to the people you care about to check in on them. And listen, just truly listen to what they have going on. When you hug someone you love, really hug them, so they feel it in their soul. You never know the impact those gestures can have.

For me personally, what I need during "hell week" is compassion, an attempt to understand what I'm going through, an ear to listen even if it's complaining about nonsense, long tight hugs (but not too tight to hurt my boobs!), forehead kisses, reminders that I still have value which I will recognize in myself again soon, and that despite it all, I'm still a good mom and person worthy of love. PMDD does not define me but it's a large part of who I am.  And I am a survivor.

About the Author: I live in Syracuse, New York and the mother of two happy and healthy children.  I am an attorney, avid reader, and live an active lifestyle.

My initiation into womanhood was not an easy one. In fact, it was brutal.

My first ever period, on my eleventh birthday, had me fainting in class and screaming at the receptionist in school that ‘I wasn’t being dramatic, I was actually dying’. Bleeding through my school trousers that I was literally leaving a blood trail. So, they were never easy! Then a continuous cycle of cramps, crying and rage that seemed to permeate my life every month. My memories of those times are mostly rolling around on the floor and crying, begging for any kind of release. My mother took me to the doctors, and I was put on the contraceptive pill, which unbeknownst to me, would change my whole life. Then, I was expected to grin and bear it. Even though I was still bleeding through my pants every few weeks. My whole life felt upside down.

I always have and will continue to find it interesting that society instils into us that our cycles are something to ‘push through’ or ‘overcome’, or the very worst ‘not to be discussed’. I used to think it was absolutely bonkers that over half of us in my school were bleeding at some point in time and yet it was never, ever discussed.

All us girls, raging, crying and sometimes even fighting with one another, and no thought was given to help us figure out why. Even our teachers, going through their own cycles, never discussed it with us. Never sat us down and told us, we were all about to become little women, our lives changed forever. I guess it all eventually added up to why I didn’t figure out what was going on within me for so long. Why there is so much unsaid in womanhood. So much shame and secrecy.

Then the abuse started happening. And it just added to the things left unsaid. How could I talk of that when even bringing up pads was taboo? When I look back on like 11-year-old Beth, my heart, and womb genuinely bleed for her.

In my 20’s, things took a real turn, I came off the pill and everything came raging, and I mean RAGING back. I was angry at the world, at my partner, and at myself. I would go from enjoying life, working as a yoga teacher, travelling the world at the time- to the light going out from the world, losing all love and hope in the things that brought me joy and feeling like I’d genuinely lost my damn mind. My mind would take me to the absolute depths, suicidal thoughts, thought of ending it all…

My partner of 4 years couldn’t understand it, I couldn’t understand it. So, I began to keep a journal. And then it happened.

Two years ago, I got diagnosed with PMDD. After charting my ‘blue days’ for months in my journal, and finally figuring out the clear pattern- I headed to the doctor with the stone-cold proof that there was a genuine tendency to burn my life down, on repeat, every month.

They of course offered me the contraceptive pill, which as mentioned earlier actually screwed my life up. I’m infertile from never having the proper time to develop my natural cycle, and I learned it was only a masking of symptoms, which after years of shame- I was not prepared to go through. Ever again. So, after being given no advice, no care, no understanding – I was once again, left to my own devices.

I self-medicated, by smoking weed. I had done this since my early teenage years to mask my raging ADHD and trauma, and now it helped with the ever-growing rages that I was witnessing every month. But it was also desensitizing me- It was making me lethargic and all the easier to slip into the comfort blanket of dissociation- of feeling nothing rather than anything at all.

So, I embarked on a new journey. As a holistic practitioner, I turned to my practices for help. Not the conventional yoga, which is based on men’s bodies (surprise surprise) but to somatics. To dropping into the ever-changing inner seasons of my body and trying to learn what they were teaching me. I discovered, through practice and research, how consistent my changes in my body were. I went through an inner winter at menstruation, where I wanted to hide from the world and rest. An inner autumn at Luteal, where I was peak PMDD, rageful, vengeful or contemplative. An inner spring at follicular, where I could begin to feel the energy rise, to an inner summer at ovulation, where everything was possible.

And so, I started to create practices and learn to drop into my body at these times, especially the challenging ones, autumn and winter. I cleared my social calendar, batched cooked meals, and cleaned my home in preparation. When the rage or shame would inevitably hit, I would sit with myself, or journal- what was I actually experiencing here? Where am I experiencing it in my body? What can I do, in this very moment, to make myself feel better?

As little as this practice may sound, it was revelational- I managed to quit the addiction, to work with cycle instead of against it- rather than to dread it and fear it I was asking it- what do you want from me?

Mostly, it was space and acceptance. Or it was solitude and rest. I was a cuddle and a meal cooked by my partner fed to me in the bath (yeah, I know). Or chocolate.

Over time, with consistency (because nothing worth having comes easy) I have genuinely changed the way I view my cycle, I still get rageful and feel like the world is caving in- but I can take a moment to understand that what is going on within me is always an indicator of something- that I’m either denying in my body- through constantly pushing it when it needs to rest- or denying my mind- pushing away something that needs my attention, that feels uncomfortable to face.

That and I welcome my bleed like an old friend now. I try to treat her with kindness and gratitude as she is an indicator, a deep inner knowing. That I bleed on a cycle that links the moon, the seasons of the year- even the times of day. That it reminds me, each month where I have overstretched, where I have thrived, and welcomes me back into the arms of mother nature every time.

It may seem like a far stretch, and you may read this and this ‘ppfffff, bloody hippy, she doesn’t have PMDD, its not as bad as mind etc etc etc’ But I ask you, truly- what have you got to lose by trying?

Beth is a 31 year old yoga and breathwork teacher who has been battling with PMDD, struggling to get a diagnosis until last year, she has kindly shared her PMDD experience with us.

With each passing menstrual cycle...

With each passing menstrual cycle, the more at peace I become with my decision to have my reproductive organs removed. Being under thirty, from the outside looking in, it might seem like an insane decision, but for those who live with the agony of PMDD each month, for many of us, it is the most sane decision we have ever made. For the past decade of my life, I have felt as though I am out in the middle of the ocean drowning, and as I look to shore, I see everyone living their normal lives, nothing I want more, but every time I garner up enough strength to swim to shore, a giant red wave that is PMDD comes crashing down and washes me back out to sea. I scream for help, but nobody knows what to do, so they go back to living their lives on land. When you have a chronic invisible illness, the isolation is debilitating, and when you look well enough to live a normal life but are not actually well enough to do so, you have to become real comfortable with who you are and how you conduct your life; despite the crippling shame which accompanies PMDD. After years of feeling like an anomaly to the medical community, having this surgery gives me a sense of power in taking my life back. And after years of allowing others to have input on my body without ever asking me what is actually going on with my body. However, if it were not for the bravery of the PMDD warriors who fought this battle before me, I would not have the knowledge, courage, or understanding to do so. I forever salute you.

Sydney Herrera is a writer and dog mom living in Los Angeles