MY STORY

Foreword – please do read me!
Trigger warning: some information shared below might be triggering to some readers. If you feel you need to access further help or support after reading this, please do refer to the listed helplines at the end. 

Hello and welcome to my PMDD story. I felt the urge to create this website, alongside my PMDD PAL workshop and workbook after I was diagnosed with PMDD in 2019. I was diagnosed by a Psychiatrist in the National Health Service (NHS) after years of becoming a different person before my period… a condition which has been referred to by some as the ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ Disorder. This is a fitting name. I was not aware of PMDD until my mum objectively noticed over the months and years in my late 20’s that I seemed to get very, very low, irritable, angry and hopeless before my period. When I say hopeless, I do mean that I had thoughts, very strong thoughts, of wanting to end my life. The thoughts were strong and extremely distressing, making me feel like I didn’t know where to turn or who I really was or where I was going in life (even though I had no real reason -at all- to feel this way).

I had my first period when I was 12 and it was after a few years of having a regular monthly period that I guess I started to experience symptoms in the Luteal Phase of my cycle. This was mainly headaches, migraine, bloating, painful boobs, food cravings and irritability. I would say that this was probably ‘Premenstrual Syndrome’ rather than ‘PMDD’. There was little awareness of period related disorders and gynaecological conditions at this time, especially information being shared or taught to secondary school girls in the early 2000’s. I think I had one brief assembly with all the other girls in my year, probably around the age of 14, whereby a random lady appeared and showed us a drawing of a womb and then stuck a pad to some pants and said ‘this is what will happen once per month and you will have to wear this for around 4-5 days’ (…she wasn’t wearing the pants at the same time… just to let you know, that would have made it even more memorable and probably more realistic, definitely more funny). After that, we were given a pack of sanitary pads and left. ‘Voila…!’ I was now ready to take on Womanhood.

My menstrual cycle and Luteal Phase became noticeably worse in 2018 after I experienced a baby loss. This baby loss was through an abortion. For me, at the time, this abortion was the right decision. I discovered shortly after finding out I was pregnant that the father of my child had three secret children and families that I did not know about and that he had also been cheating throughout our relationship. His youngest baby was only one week old when we had our first date. It was too much to process and take it. It completely derailed me for months, years even. I do believe I suffered from PTSD for a couple of years after. I would avoid towns, music (songs on the radio around the time), The Greatest Showman (the film was out when I found out about everything), Sauvage aftershave and many more. I would also experience nightmares and wake up in a hot sweat. There are other parts to this story, but I will not go in to them. For me, I felt too young, naïve and financially unstable to bring a child into the world by myself. I was not happy in my work, and I knew I had so much more I wanted to do in my career before being able to offer a stable life to a child. I knew I would not be able to provide the safety and comfort that child deserved. Nonetheless, I think about this child and my baby every day. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about him or her, and sometimes I do wonder how it might have been if I did have them. I feel in my heart that they will come back to me as my baby when the time is right. This is my own spiritual belief.

Some have told me not to share the above information regarding my abortion, but I do feel that honesty is the best policy, especially when it does come to raising awareness over the onset or trigger of PMDD. For me, this abortion was that trigger to me developing PMDD. I do believe the abortion paired with the relationship trauma led to a ‘physiological sensitisation’ around my body, making me more susceptible to that impact hormones have on mood, emotions and cognitions etc.

My baby was due January 2019, the 11th of January 2019 to be precise. I was nine weeks pregnant. Not much is shared about abortion or how women experience their abortion. It is still such a taboo subject and one which is a tough subject for many to talk about. I understand why. There are many reasons why people are against it, e.g., for religious reasons, moral reasons.

It wasn’t until recently that I realised women can access support after abortion through most NHS Perinatal Teams. This was not made aware to me by my GP or the clinic I went to for my abortion. If you or anyone you know has had to make the same decision as I, please, please talk and reach out for help. Talk to other women. If we don’t talk the spaces and support for women after abortion will remain very small and stigmatised. The felt shame, isolation and guilt we can sometimes feel will just sit with us. Going from being pregnant to suddenly not being pregnant is such a huge undertaking on our body, mentally and physically. It is a grief for many.

For months after I had my abortion, I kept dreaming about breast feeding and seeing milk coming out of my breasts. I also dreamt I could feel them moving and kicking in my belly. I remember smiling at this in my sleep, and I remember waking up filled with sadness and a pain in my chest. It was so confusing. I also had one dream about my baby and my grandad. My grandad who had passed away when I was 14, so some years before. It was said that I was my grandad’s favourite grandchild, which warms my heart. He was a lovely man. Old fashioned and always wore a tweed jacket and tie. I have one of those tweed jackets in my wardrobe. In my dream, I dreamt I was at my parents. It was a hot, hazy summer evening. One of those evenings where you look up and can see insects buzzing around in the light, with the sun starting to set. In the dream I was walking out of my parent’s dining room, through their patio door and on to the patio where I would see this hazy filled light and these little insects buzzing in the sky. My eyes drifted on to my grandad who slowly appeared in the middle of this patio vista. He had his back to me, but steadily turned around to face me. He was closely holding and cradling a little baby. A tiny little baby who was dressed in blue and who also had a toy train hanging off his ankle. This was also painted blue. I am not sure what the significance of this was, but I assume it was to let me know that he was a boy. The focus on my grandad and the baby was soft and ‘powdery’, the atmosphere was still and silent; filled with calmness, safety and love. I knew this was my baby and seeing him with my granddad like that made me feel at peace. I woke up crying, sobbing my eyes out, but also with a new-found peace and acceptance that my baby was being kept safe until they were to come back to me. This is my own spiritual belief and one which I would never push on to anyone else’s experience, please do understand that. We all have to come to our own meanings and find our own comforts. We all have our own beliefs.

After this dream, things did become a little easier. However, the months immediately after my abortion was probably where my PMDD started. I am not sure why, but psychologically and subconsciously, I can see that for my body, a period is a signal that you are not pregnant. In the Luteal phase of my period, my symptoms started to develop and amplify with each passing month. The anger was phenomenal, the hypervigilance to how others acted towards me or spoke to me was phenomenal, the hopelessness was, you guessed it, phenomenal. In the week leading up to my period, my body felt like it was pausing, waiting for something to happen. In the week before my period I also began to feel ‘pressure’ building up physically. That’s the only way I can describe it. A pressure or a bloating feeling, but not like a stomach bloating. Perhaps physical anticipation? In the early days, I could not notice when the PMDD started, e.g., when I entered the Luteal Phase of the cycle. However, these days, I do. These days, after years of trial and error, it is literally like a switch that clicks in my mind, automatically, and I start to feel this darkness spreading over my mind. I am very visual and imaginative in my mind and at this time I picture black ink slowly filtering through my brain from the back of my brain to the front. This what it feels like to me. As well as this, my heart starts to feel low.

I do feel that I am now much more confident in knowing how I experience my PMDD, how it makes me feel and what helps me. So, thankfully, the years of pain have helped me to develop effective skills and strategies. That said, I still struggle with it every month and some months I have to leave work and stay off work until the worst symptoms pass. I also avoid interaction with family and friends as I do not want to upset them in any way, although this is something which has got a lot better in recent years. I know that, for me, stress is a HUGE trigger. If I have a stressful month, I know my PMDD that month and my general period is going to be worse than usual. Lack of rest and sleep is also a contributory factor.

Summing up, I truly believe my PMMD was caused by or my predisposition to PMDD was activated by having an abortion. As well as this, I believe the trauma from the actual abortion and traumatic relationship breakdown, in addition to the revelations made within it, also contributed to the onset of my PMDD. 

I have since spoken to many other women regarding their own experience and onset of difficulties, many of whom experienced PMDD during the Post-Natal Period, after miscarriage or abortion. 

Since this time in my life, I have worked on my career and developed my profession; my current full time role is within Gloucestershire Talking Therapies [NHS] as a High Intensity Cognitive and Behavioural Psychotherapist, working with adults. This training, paired with my own lived experience, led to me developing my PMDD Pal Workshops; I am eager and passionate in supporting others who felt as I did at the start of my journey with PMDD. You are not alone. 

If you have found the above difficult to read or triggering, please do reach out to the below helplines to access further support:

Helplines:

Please seek emergency crisis support through your GP, GP Out of Hours (call NHS 111 and select option ‘2’ for mental health / wellbeing support), your regional Crisis Team and / or Samaritans; call 116 123. Always call 999 in emergency or if there is an immediate threat to life *