Once, when I was younger, I wrote myself out of depression and eating disorders. I am attempting to do the same with PMDD.
It seems to me that there are lessons here, and choices, even though it often feels like the worst part of PMDD is feeling like there is no control or choice. I am curious about several topics and would like to hear from others on these topics too. Another difficult thing about PMDD is a feeling of loneliness and lack of understanding. I am reaching out to you and welcome a reaching back.
Topics
Identity - PMDD makes me feel as though I am switching identities often. Kind and mean. Happy and very depressed. Hopeful and full of hopelessness. It also forces me to give up the identity of healthy person. Lately, I have noticed that trying to ignore PMDD as a part of who I am is making me feel inauthentic. My wish is that if I were to drop PMDD on the sidewalk, the way I might accidentally drop a piece of paper or some money, and someone saw and said, "Excuse me, is this yours?" I would claim it. I might not like it or enjoy it but I would claim it. How do I move toward that place?
Gender - Oh I am angry. I am so, so angry. This is the first year of my life when I wished I were a male. It was only once, but still, the wish was there. I realize that I have been dealing with gender issues all of my life, but this one feels particularly difficult. There has always been a lack of respect or acknowledgment of the female cycle in my life. Jokes made about PMS, the idea that I should simply be able to suck it up and be nice when being nice is very much outside of my control. The expectation to go about my life performing as if I were not experiencing severe pain and mood difficulties. I am female. I should not make noise. Ignore me. Ignore an illness that is specific to my gender.
Disability - This is, for me, a disability. According to the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), I meet the requirements of having a disability. I am a doctoral student studying disability but the woman experiencing it is having trouble. I do not like this word, I do not like having to come to terms with it, I do not like having to accept it and yet, not accepting it poses other problems. I don't want to downplay or deny what it is to have a disability either. As I said before about wanting to be able to claim something, I would like to be able to claim this term as well.
Motherhood - Having a child has made me a better graduate student. It has pushed me to pursue my dreams. It has expanded my dreams. It keeps me going when I may have stopped trying as a person without a child. And at the same time, PMDD is devastating to my idea of what a good and kind mother is - to what I was before the PMDD. It is breaking my heart. It is breaking me down.
A chipping away of goodness - Who wants to be mean? How do we make meaning out of PMDD? How do we resist the wearing down of our sense of being good and valuable human beings? I am struggling with this.
A Lack of Support - How many of you have reached out to friends and family to try and explain or promote understanding about PMDD and been totally ignored? Or rather, how many of you have found that the topic of PMDD is ignored? This also creates problems with identity. If a part of who you are is denied, this creates a feeling of loneliness, the belief that you are not valued or understood, the feeling that you shouldn't talk about something that is significant, a feeling that you should just shut up and not make a mess. It may not be what friends and family feel. They may not know what to say. But I can state that not saying anything is equivalent to telling me you don't care, and that hurts.
What are your thoughts and feelings?
Hi, I found your blog while searching for other PMDD blogs.
I just got diagnosed with PMDD last month and the doctor put me on Yaz.
About the topics,
Identity: When I'm having symptoms, I either feel entirely reasonable and logical while I'm having my fits, or like a completely different person. It's hard to separate your PMDD self from your actual self because it can seem like the symptoms are actually you. I am more than ready to say, "No, that's not me." and separate my symptoms from my personality because I don't believe who I am on my PMDD days is actually myself.
Gender: Instead of being angry at your being a woman, it might be more appropriate to be angry at our patriarchal society that often does not accept female-specific problems as legitimate problems, or seems to overlook their significance or importance in society.
"There has always been a lack of respect or acknowledgment of the female cycle in my life."
This is because our society tries to repress our cycles in the form of chalking up PMS and PMDD to jokes, encouraging us to hide our womanhood and pretend menstruation doesn't exist. Our society would rather just not deal with those pesky little side issues.
Disability: If you don't like that term, don't claim it, or make your own. No word has to define you or your condition. *You* have your condition, not the people that come up with those guidelines. Who *doesn't* have some form of "disability" anyway? Who is perfect?
Motherhood: Perhaps I should ask my mother what it is like to live with a daughter with PMDD...
A "Chipping Away": As I see it, your goodness is still there, it is just covered up by symptoms that you cannot control. This is probably because I tend to separate my PMDD from my true personality.
A Lack of Support: Yes yes yes. Everyone I've talked to, including my family, had never even heard of PMDD before I was diagnosed. My boyfriend even thought it was a fake disorder invented to make pharmaceutical sales, even though he has been a witness to the intensity of my symptoms and a victim of how it affects my relationships with others around me. I agree with the feeling that because people don't know what to say, it creates a feeling that they are ignoring the problem or just don't care. This can get to be a problem. I agree with the feeling that others would rather just have me "shut up and not make a mess." and get out of their way. I am going to try explaining the situation to the people I'm close to, and hopefully help them to understand.
Posted by: Lindsay | December 02, 2007 at 07:37 AM
Hi, I just found your blog, I hope you'll update again soon.
Identity - When I was first diagnosed with PMDD I said that it turned me into a different person. Later on I thought it more accurate to say that PMDD made me feel like an extreme of myself, rather than a different person.
Gender - While I accept PMDD is a real disorder and legitimate diagnosis, it is curious that there is no diagnostic category that classifies the extremes of male anger and violence, which is way more destructive than full blown PMDD, as a disorder. It just illustrates the point that society does not tolerate expressions of anger in women, but will tolerate it in men - or at least not define them as a disorder.
Disability - It took me a while to accept this term applied to me and PMDD. At the end of the day the reality was PMDD dis-abled me from carrying out my normal day to day activities. I registered as a disabled student at college and it was on this basis that I was able to take leave from my phd program (I'm a doctoral student too!).
A chipping away of goodness - Embrace the PMDD ugliness as part of you. Accept it. You don't have to like it, but it is part of you right now, whether you like it or not. It does not mean we are not good people, it just means we're not perfect. Which is ok, because no one is.
A Lack of Support - I chose not to seek much support from people because I was not confident they would understand.
Posted by: Ms M | April 01, 2008 at 08:34 AM
Hi, I found your blog while looking for PMDD resources. What you posted as well as what was posted in the comments is so true. When I have my outbursts I feel as if I have left my body and its not really me. Then I have a hard time realizing what the hell I was mad about in the first place. I agree with PMDD outbursts being an extreme part of me. I feel horrible that I am so mean and horrible to my fiance, who really doesn't understand and just knows that I havn't been taking my medicine. Well I don't take my medicine because I feel as if having to take it makes me crazy. And it doesn't help that when I don't take it I am crazy. I am glad that I found a blog to which I can relate to. I am 21 y/o and feel crazy most days out of the month, guilty all 30 days, and not understood always.
Posted by: Deidre | June 05, 2009 at 01:36 PM