I always thought that my PMS was normal. That getting extremely emotional and having cramps that rip right through your body is what anyone with a period experienced. I even cried when an ant was crawling on me, bawling but didn’t take any action to brush it off. I had heard of women having very intense PMS before but while I was joking to my friends after school one day my art teacher overheard my symptoms.
“It sounds like you have PMDD. I have it too and without medication it’s difficult to act normal during PMS.”
PMDD, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder, is PMS but 10x worse than common PMS. It appears in severe emotional and physical symptoms ranging from mood swings to joint and muscle pain. It can even affect your personal relationships with others.
Talking to my teacher, she suggested birth control to level out my hormones and to remove the debilitating pain that I felt every period. But I was 16, “too young for birth control” and I wasn’t going to a gynecologist yet. So I dealt with it. My sleeping from the time I got home to 8pm was just me being a teenager and staying home from school with migraines from cramps just meant I was having a bad period. I lost time with friends, I cried silently during class because of cramps, and I lashed out at everyone if they so much as said the wrong thing to me that week. But I brushed it off as I was getting my period.
After crying in bed for the millionth time over nothing, I decided that now was the time that I get officially diagnosed and put on birth control. I acted erratically towards my first partner and I know that it was a large burden of stress on him, even with birth control calming down some of my symptoms. I am still learning about my condition every day and am continuing to improve on controlling it. Repeating the same mistakes with my current partner is my greatest fear. I never want to lose a significant other or a friend just because I have low levels of serotonin or fluctuating hormonal levels. I can control my anger and anxiety by not acting out in front of those I love but the depression, anxiety and bloating that adds to poor self image is still a problem. These things, that causes me to push people away, cannot be hidden.
Understanding friends and partners, plus understanding yourself, is the key to keeping PMDD from affecting your relationships. Knowing yourself with how you handle school and other outside pressures could also help living with PMDD. I know that I get easily tired and unfocused when PMSing, that I get stressed and frustrated, so during this time I take extra care of myself mentally and physically. This may mean not doing reading assignments that I can get away with, putting off homework for the next day or weekend, and making time to be with people that relax me or going to an extra yoga session that week. You need to know your negative patterns and do your best to counterbalance them for your own health and to maintain peace with others.
Once you realize how to handle your symptoms, though the physical pain can only be cured with pain killers and exercise, you can use birth control or other medication to give you that extra control. Or you can decide not to use medication at all, it’s up to you. Any way you take care of yourself, having PMDD is still difficult to live with but any challenge in your life makes you stronger. That’s what I believe anyways. I’m a better friend, child, and significant other because I make the effort to not let my mood swings and desire to stay in bed with a heat pad ruin my life. It’s hard some months but it’s up to you to work through it.
A few tips for anyone experiencing PMS or PMDD: regular exercise, antidepressants/anti-anxiety medication, birth control, change in diet, and vitamin supplements can be used to alleviate the symptoms. I found that Evening Primrose Oil is a blessing in a pill bottle. Taking this once a day took away bloating and a lot of the cramp pain, it’s beautiful.
If you think you may have PMDD, contact your gynecologist or regular physician. If you are dealing with the symptoms of PMDD on a daily basis and they do not improve once menstruation begins, you may have something other than PMDD.