What You Don’t Know Could Hurt You (on PMDD & Perspective)

WARNING: If it makes you uncomfortable to hear about menstruation, go ahead and click away now, this post is not for you. Feel free to get over yourself while you’re at it. But honestly, this isn’t about “sharkweek…” it’s about the week before. Additionally, there will be some talk about depression and vague references to thoughts of self harm, but I’m not going to get too terribly dark.

You’ve probably heard of PMS… it gets a bad rap, honestly, because PMS isn’t so drastic as people make it out to be. The whole mood swings and sudden onset of major depression symptoms out of seemingly nowhere? That’s not PMS. That’s actually PMDD—and that’s what I have. I’m not going to spend too long explaining something you can easily look up yourself, but here’s a link. However, I do want to talk about some of the misconceptions about it and how it affects me, a person who also has ADHD (and possibly also autism).

Firstly, I had a therapist once who actually told me her PMDD shows up as an actual physical illness, instead of the more mental symptoms it’s better known for. She basically got bronchitis for a whole week before her period began. Crazy, right? Honestly, somehow this sounds a bit easier to deal with, for me, but I’m likely biased.

For me, it feels like my own brain is my enemy. Have you ever felt betrayed by your own mind? It’s pretty awful. But, in actuality, it’s my uterus that’s betraying me. It’s like even my own body rejects the idea that it should have one—at least my body and brain are in agreement on that one. I actually asked to be sterilized or even have the whole works pulled out in my early twenties, only to be told by my male gynecologist that he wouldn’t even consider it because “what if my husband wanted kids?” As if that’s my fucking problem, and even further, as if I would ever marry a man who would dare override my own free will and desire to not bear children. Disgusting. Anyway…

The good news is, the worst of it usually only lasts a day or two. The bad news is, the worst is sometimes really, really bad. I first started to notice the pattern during the year that I was laid off from my full time position and made most of my money doing Amazon Flex and Uber deliveries—more on that some other time. But, I think the fact that I had so little to distract myself really exacerbated the issue to the point that it was impossible to ignore. I kept having these really bad days where I thought my life might as well be over.

I got a little too good at driving and crying. I’m quite the multi-tasker. So, I would call my mother—which is already saying something—bawling my damn eyes out while I was on the road. Because when I’m going through PMDD, that’s when I need someone to help me ground myself the most. Unfortunately, though, my mom didn’t really even know how to help me. My mom doesn’t even remember going through menopause—which is funny, because I remember it—much less what it was like to have a period. She can’t even tell me if I got this from her. But, keep in mind, neither of us knew at this point why I was so incredibly depressed.

Sure, I was going through a really hard time. There were days I didn’t know how I’d even afford the gas to do my deliveries, much less pay my rent or my car payment. This span of time was one of the most—if not THE most—difficult period of my life, so at first, we all just thought I was having a somewhat normal reaction to my circumstances. After all, depression is defined by a deep sadness with no specific reasoning behind it. I had plenty of reasons to be sad. But I also had at least one really good reason to be happy: my, now ex-boyfriend/best friend. He didn’t really know how to help me, but he was always there.

And I would’ve called him instead of my mother if he weren’t usually at work or sleeping when I was going through my bullshit. But I felt guilty because he would get so worried about me that he would take time off work just to make sure I was okay. I didn’t even tell him how dire my thoughts got for fear of scaring him. The only time I was ever this close in my life to hurting myself was in my abusive relationship when I felt it would be the only way I could escape him. And, honestly, even just knowing that someone out there would really care and miss me so much was enough to keep me from doing it—so, it could definitely be worse.

But, in the moment, I was doing work that I hated for a company that treated me like absolute dogshit and getting paid practically pennies for it. And, some days, the customers treated me just as badly. Let’s not even talk about other drivers or random people I interacted with along the way. No matter what has or ever will happen between us, I will always be grateful to my best friend for being that one strand of hope that allowed me to keep pushing forward. I’ve said before that I don’t know if I would still live in this city without him—which is still true—but now that I’m looking back, maybe I wouldn’t be here at all. I won’t dwell on that, but, the point remains.

I can’t tell you how many times I bawled my eyes out while driving, delivering packages, and even interacting with the customers. But I can tell you that none of them ever said a word to me about it. I could stop the blubbering long enough in front of them, but not the tears. They seeped from my eyes constantly like sweat through my pores. Why? Because the real problem was the swirling horrible negative thoughts in my head. They didn’t have an off switch. I could pull myself together, for the most part, long enough to interact with someone. But, the second my back was turned to them and I didn’t have to give them my attention, my brain was right back to telling me that I was worthless.

That I’d always been worthless. I’d been poor my whole damn life. I’d followed the advice I was given, I got the bachelors degree in a field that suited me and that in theory could’ve paid well. But I was never able to get a job in that field, generally because I was never able to afford to work as a free intern for literal years to gain the amount of “experience required” for even an entry-level job. I had no connections, no leg up, and now, I know that my neurodivergence was probably another factor. There also just weren’t many opportunities for that kind of work around me either. So, to fix that, I did what everyone told me to do again, and went back to school—racking up more debt—and for what? To work at a dead end job that required a degree for no real reason and then turned around and laid me off after taking 3 years of my life with a horrendous amount of overtime and hard work.

And then, to almost get hired for so many jobs I interviewed for, and to never even get called for most of the rest of the resumes I put out—I put out so many during that year. I thought it would be easier here, with so many more jobs to choose from. And it just wasn’t. It was exhausting. There were just as many people—if not more—vying for the same jobs as me and so many of them were overqualified. So, while I was driving around—sometimes even being forced to go to places deemed “unsafe” by all the locals I knew—I was reflecting on the fact that I’d tried so hard and done so much and yet nobody really seemed to want me. Clearly, I had no real talent, because if I did, I’d be in a better position, right?

There was also the fact that the man I’d moved here with had abandoned me in the most insulting way possible after I’d gone above and beyond to make sure he was safe and cared for even after he’d fucked me over for the last time. I had single-handedly kept us afloat through COVID when he quit working due to lung issues, and when he quit again due to Amazon’s unsafe COVID practices, and then finally, when he quit his job for a third time for completely ridiculous reasons. I’d racked up even more debt than I already had because, for some reason, I thought he would’ve done the same for me. I was wrong.

How could I be anything more than worthless when he threw me in the trash like some moldy bread the same week I lost my job, even though I supported him and helped him even after our breakup? There’s a lot more to this story, but I wanted to give you a better look at where my head was at at the time. There was only one person in the world who made me feel appreciated and worthy, and he lived almost an hour away from me at the time. And then, my mom, who tried to be supportive, but sometimes made me feel ridiculous for not being able to pull myself together, lived over 5 hours away.

A visual illustration if you will…

This image that I made years ago is a pretty good representation of how I felt during that time, even if it wasn’t about that specific time period. Just imagine more tears and shorter hair and you’re basically there.

Now that I’m past all of that, I can tell you it doesn’t really matter what I’m going through at the time, my brain will fabricate a reason for me to feel hopeless if it can’t find a better reason to completely trash my self-esteem. It probably wasn’t until a few months of this cycle repeating—my emotional fits for multiple days in a row, only to turn around and start my period and be in physical pain, but to at least feel mentally better—before I started to recognize the pattern. I’m not sure now if I began having PMDD at 30 or if it’s just when I was able to recognize it.

Because, here’s the thing, remember how I said I have ADHD? Sometimes it’s hard for me to recognize how much time has passed. And, it was especially difficult when I was pulling sometimes 15 hour days between all of my gigwork and contract work. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but for me, the “fun” part isn’t required. Sometimes time just flies. Honestly, most times, it just flies—and I just stand there and wave at it as it flits out the window.

And, then, there’s the fact that my symptoms wildly vary—much like my period. There are a few months where I have little to no PMDD, and others where I fall all the way down the rabbit hole into it, like last week. But, we’ll get there in a bit. Most months it’s the sobbing fits, anxiety, and the spiral of depressive self-criticism and overwhelm, and some months, apparently, I literally lose sleep. I basically always struggle to concentrate during that week.

So, between those two big factors lies the worst part of my PMDD by far: I rarely realize that’s what my problem is until well after my PMDD symptoms have gone away and have been replaced by my period. Sometimes, I can recognize that my period should be starting soon and that perspective helps me stop myself from falling into a pit of despair, however, most times it creeps up on me. Sometimes, my period starts early due to stress, and then I’m really surprised by my PMDD.

How does it help to know that my period is coming? Well, it’s been years now since I realized that I have PMDD, so, when I can throw some logic into the situation, it’s a little harder to feel completely hopeless. I can remind myself that it’ll be over soon. I just have to make it through the next couple of days—a week, max—and then, against all odds I know I will end up feeling better. Even if nothing else in my life improves, just like my brain is telling me it won’t, my mood certainly will. My situation will feel less dire very soon. I just need to be patient and wait it out and try to keep myself busy, because if my mind is actually busy, I’m not torturing myself. I can stop the endless loop. However, if you’ve read my recent poem, then you probably know exactly why that’s hard for me to do (not including the fact that my PMDD actively keeps me from being able to concentrate).

My current full-time job does anything but stimulate my mind. And, unfortunately, I have most of the same complaints about my treatment there as I did with working for Amazon Flex—except the pay is better, but that’s a bar you could really trip on in hell. I don’t believe in any of the things I’m doing, I receive little to no encouragement or support from my boss and I get attacked constantly by people in other departments who also want to tell me “we’re on the same team” when it suits them. And my manager enables, if not downright encourages, way too much of this behavior. Our interdepartmental communication is worse than garbage, and I’ve literally even watched my manager do things that he constantly berates us for. And the kicker? I’m dead-named and have to dead-name myself the entire time.

So, tonight, I started my period. Which really puts the whole last week of my life into a much clearer perspective. You can even see some of what I’m talking about in the things I wrote last week. This one snuck up on me hardcore. I think it is a little early, but I’ve also been caught in such a stressful whirlwind of life events that I hadn’t even considered my period since it ended last month.

This post was written at the end of my worst day of PMDD symptoms. Now, with my added perspective, I can recognize that the poem I referenced (and wrote earlier in the same day) was a cry for help that I didn’t even realize I needed at the time. That help eventually did come in the form of the same man who has been aiding me through this insanity for over 3 years now. Even he didn’t know why I was so emotional that day. Sometimes he helps me remember that it’s probably about time for my period when he sees me start to spiral, but since we broke up, he’s understandably a bit less clued in. It’s not his responsibility to take care of me, and yet, he still did when he recognized I was drowning. After his support and reassurance that I am actually still a good person with a big heart, I was able to pull myself together enough to write that post apologizing to the subject of my poem and remember that I, too, deserve some grace.

In this poem, I thought I had lost sleep because I felt so guilty about the poem from the day before that it kept me awake. And while that may be true, it’s also a symptom of my PMDD that doesn’t show up very often. However, it did continue into the next day (but a little differently) and that should’ve been my clue, but it wasn’t. I found a different explanation for that. I actually even forgot that was a possible symptom, because I get it so rarely until I looked it up before writing this to provide you with the link at the beginning. I literally all but name-drop one of the symptoms: perceived rejection. You know those hidden problems I reference? Well, this is a big one. And, clearly, it likes to hide even from me!

In this post, I talk about being all emotions and needing support… well, guess when I usually feel that way? Yep, that evil week that comes before my period and threatens my very sanity. I wasn’t even considering that as I was writing it. I just vaguely remembered that sometimes I’m emotional as hell and that logic is usually what pulls me through in the end.

I don’t talk about my PMDD almost ever. And it’s not because I’m ashamed or afraid or embarrassed to. It’s because I don’t think about it until I’m going through it. I remember most things, but that doesn’t mean those memories are always easily accessible to me. When I’m thinking about what I want to do for the day, I’m not considering whether or not I’m going to be an emotional wreck, for example. Sometimes I even forget about my esophageal achalasia even though it’s something I deal with constantly because my mind is on something else. Sometimes, even though I know the consequences, I forget to ask for non-dairy milk in my coffee. I’m lucky, in that way, that the place I frequent knows me well enough to remember for me most times. Isn’t ADHD so fun?

So, I suppose I’m going to end this with a reminder that you never know what people are going through. I’m really empathetic, I’ve lived and been through a lot, and I generally give people some pretty damn good advice when asked for it, but, that doesn’t mean I don’t have my own issues that I’m dealing with every single day of my life. That doesn’t mean that I am even easily able to follow my own advice all the time. I tell people to stay positive and remember you don’t know what’s going on in another person’s life constantly. And, still, at my worst moment, I wrote a poem that had some hurtful shit in it even though I had no idea what the person I was talking about might have been dealing with.

I’m human, they’re human, we’re all human. Sometimes we all need a little more perspective and understanding and care. I think all of these things are better and easier with communication, something that is often discouraged more than it is encouraged in our society. I’m planning to make a more in depth post on that sometime soon, so I’m not going to get into that here. But I do want to leave you with one of my paintings from December of 2024 that has some similar themes, namely, the importance of perspective on any situation.