r/PMDD • • 7h ago

General I read Fourth Wing during PMDD week. Help!

9 Upvotes

I am feeling SO depressed. I have never had a book series affect me this way. I was reading to help with withdrawal and Social media I'm trying to figure out if it's because of the heightened emotions, and it's making the sadness way worse. I know the plot is heart wretching on purpose but has anyone else done this to themselves and were you ok on the other side? Lol

I experience this with movies sometimes. They'll stick with me a day then I'll be ok.

I can't sleep, my stomach is in knots, and I'm SAD. This reality also sucks. Like crying since I started the series last week. Thank you for sharing and maybe giving me some pointers. 🫶


r/PMDD • • 10h ago

Need to Vent - No advice please It's back 😭 Was fine for a few months

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8 Upvotes

It's a stressful day and I only slept for like 3hrs. It's night time and I feel so anxious that my head hurts, I feel lightheaded. Panicking inside. 😭 It feels like new symptoms all over again


r/PMDD • • 4h ago

Food & Exercise terrible news: cutting out caffeine helped šŸ’”

148 Upvotes

Hello everyone, unfortunately I have some bittersweet news...I did a little experiment this cycle and consumed 0 caffeine (I still ate chocolate). IT HELPED 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 my luteal symptoms were WAY less severe and when my period came I was like "oh no way! My period started!" instead of my usual "THANK GOD THE END IS IN SIGHT."

I was not consuming a crazy amount of caffeine before. 50-150mg per day, probably. And never any past 3pm. I really miss drinking black and green tea, so I might give it a try during follicular, and then stick to herbal again in luteal.

I also took a vacation and have been taking steps to intentionally reduce my stress levels. I'm sure those things influenced my symptoms as well.


r/PMDD • • 2h ago

General Favorite Songs to Listen to When the PMDD Monster Arises

3 Upvotes

I am genuinely curious what everyone else’s favorite songs to listen to when they are in the depths of the darkness that is the luteal phase. My go to’s have been Living in My Head by Kesha and Destroy Everything You Touch. Mainly asking this question to distract from the current state of events that is my life right now.


r/PMDD • • 4h ago

Ranty Rant - Advice Okay Over it

3 Upvotes

For the last year, like clock work- 10 days out from my period and I feel like I have the flu. My whole body aches. I’m cramping. I’m so nauseous, especially in the morning. I can sleep all day. I generally call into work at least once or leave early during this week. Thankful for a kind boss but hard to explain and they are getting frustrated by it. On top of the physical symptoms of course I also feel highly emotional.
Drs are like ā€œyou look healthy, you’re small, take more vitamin Dā€. Very frustrated and feel like this isn’t going to end. Didn’t want to just mask symptoms with birth control due to fear of blood clots but…I won’t truly get an answer from a medical professional. Feel like it’s always just ā€œbeen in my headā€ because any test comes back normal or low for some random thing, easily fixable. And when fixed, doesn’t help this week.
I don’t know how much longer I can do this every month. I don’t have support. I feel embarrassed from it. I can’t keep this up. I’m 32 for context. My period is also every 18 days which doctors also aren’t concerned about. So. I only feel ā€œokayā€ for maybe 5 days a month.
Really struggling to find the point when I literally feel like death over half the time.


r/PMDD • • 5h ago

Need to Vent - No advice please Peak luteal, getting married next week. Everything makes me want to scream

7 Upvotes

I love my fiancƩ, I am very excited to get married. But for the love of God, can I please just have ONE tiny detail work out in my favour? I've had to compensate and jump through hoops on every single possible aspect of our wedding and it's driving me CRAZY.

Today was the cherry on top for me.

We had an appointment at the county office for our marriage license. I filled out the application form last night ahead of time. It's a legal form, so I wanted to print slowly and make sure everything was spelled correctly. I had filled out the paper, and folded it nicely on my nightstand so I could go over it with my fiancƩ before bed and then put it in my purse for the morning. Until I dumped my plate of chocolate chip pancakes all over it. Chocolate smeared everywhere. Am I 5 years old??

This part was fully my fault, but I SWEAR luteal phase is to blame for my clumsiness. I'm usually pretty poised, but all of a sudden luteal hits and I'm dropping things, spilling drinks, tripping over nothing and fumbling with everything. I broke my nail last week reaching around my fiancƩ to pet the dog. And I've been growing them for the wedding so now I have to have short stubby nails or wear fake ones which I absolutely despise.

So I check the clerk's office site, and their online portal to submit the application online doesn't work, but they do have a PDF version of the form to print. Ok, no problem, I'll just reprint the form. I don't have a printer, but our apartment complex does. I check and the printer is out of toner. Ok, that's fine. It's late, I'll just go to Staples in the morning.

So I get up and get myself ready early, I'm an hour ahead of schedule. My fiancƩ is on a work call, so we don't leave until 10:30. No problem, our appointment is at 11, and only 15 mins away. I'll be able to fill it out in the car. We print the form at Staples no problem, things are looking up.

But apparently the road to the clerks office hasn't been paved since the 90's. So I'm hunched over in the car, painstakingly writing each letter, trying to fill it out on the bumpiest road ever. I get it done, and it's not great, but it's legible. And we have our ID's to confirm our names anyways. I double check with my fiancƩ that his middle name does in fact have 2 L's, he confirms, I write it with 2 L's. (Foreshadowing to the future L we're about to take.)

So we get there and the appointment is going smoothly. The clerk asks us to correct any mistakes on a separate sheet to show what he is about to LEGALLY enter in the system. I notice a spelling error on our street name, I correct it, but everything else on my side looks fine, name, date of birth, etc. FiancƩ confirms his side. We sign the paper, all good.

The clerk prints it on the most official looking sheet of paper that's ever existed, embossed and pretty. He starts giving us verbal instructions about where to go next, how to get everything signed on the wedding day, etc etc. But I can't hear him. Because all I can see is my fiancƩ's middle name, misspelled. The clerk only put one L. I immediately let him know, and he looks a bit annoyed.

It's obviously his fault, because I spelled it with 2 L's on our original application, but he entered it wrong. But it's now our fault for not catching HIS error. Then he put it on ME directly saying I wrote the L "too lightly". There was a glass window between us, but I imagined reaching over and choking him with his stupid looking tie.

There's no punishment for being wrong, why can't people just apologize??

Now, normally this isn't an issue, it happens all the time. They'd just do a reprint and we'd be on our merry way, but he says they're out of the fancy paper. I'm sorry, you're telling me we just used your LAST sheet of pink embossed legal paper?? So he told us we have to "call and check" (my least favourite phrase) on Friday to see if they got more paper in and do a reprint. We get married next Wednesday.

If they do have the paper, then we'll go through the whole process again. And all of this has to be done with both of us in person. But if they don't have the paper, then we have to get married with the wrong name, and do a correction form. In which case, we will have to carry 2 pieces of paper with us for the rest of time showing that we got married with one name, and changed it later. WOW.

So we walk to the car and I'm just so devastated I start tearing up. I should also mention that I have OCD, so something like this, where a tiny mistake was so easily avoidable, makes me extremely stressed out. It's annoying and I don't want to live like this, but I'm working really hard on it. I've done really well in other areas and allowing things to not be perfect. This just happened to be our MARRIAGE license, and honestly the flood of emotions about it was 100% PMDD fuelled.

My fiancƩ, cool as a cucumber about everything, says "it's ok it will work out". I'm sure it will.

I just want to get the license, have it signed the day of, and say "yay we're married!" and call it good. I don't want to have to go back and jump through a bunch more hoops just to officially have the feeling of completing the task.

Does that make sense to anyone else? It's so frustrating to me to have to double back and fix something after it's already been done, it disrupts the natural progression of happiness in my mind, idk. I need to do more OCD research on this.

I just want one thing to go well from start to finish. Anyways, thanks for reading I guess. I just needed to vent. :/


r/PMDD • • 5h ago

āš ļøTrigger Warning Topicāš ļø Intrusive thoughts

4 Upvotes

Well, it’s that time of the month again. Every time anything goes wrong my brain is like ā€œtime to kill yourself.ā€ Running 5 mins late? I wanna die. Misplaced my keys? I wanna die. I like my life! I don’t want to die! I have no plans to harm myself! But I hate these intrusive thoughts I get every month!!!!


r/PMDD • • 9h ago

Peri & Menopause Positive menopause experiences? For someone who's scared

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone. I've seen a lot of stories on here about people having positive results with oophorectomies. I'm BRCA1+ and my oncologists want me to get my ovaries out by the time I'm 40 anyway. I'm currently 35. I've been thinking of getting them out next summer when work slows down for me. I just can't deal with the PMDD anymore. It got worse when I had to go off birth control after having breast cancer. I'm on antidepressants and a mood stabilizer that do help, but the luteal phase is still awful. I'm really nervous about going into menopause after looking up everything that can happen. My doctors said I am allowed to go on HRT. Has anyone had any positive experiences with menopause. As in they weren't that affected? I just need to hear something good. Thanks.


r/PMDD • • 14h ago

General Could lack of sleep cause intense confidence and euphoria during PMDD?

3 Upvotes

Hello everyone again, I already wrote a post about how I suspect I have PMDD, but I forgot to add the fact that my sleep schedule is very disrupted.. I mean, I don't know if you've ever had this situation where from lack of sleep or when you sleep a small number of hours, you feel confident, this strange feeling like you can do everything and all that, and a strong surge of communication with people appears. But I also have a very strange sleep pattern, I simply can’t not sleep during the day, that is, I usually go to bed at 6-8 in the morning and if I make it to 12 o’clock in the afternoon, then I get this euphoria. I just can't get my sleep schedule right, I only feel good at night. And basically it intensifies 4-5 days before the onset of menstruation along with ovulation, although I’m not sure that this is it, but perhaps it’s a surge of estrogen. But this feeling of euphoria occurs in the morning or when I have not slept for a long time, once (as I wrote in the last post) it grew into a 4-5 day terrible surge of this same euphoria but I also had a terrible heartbeat and the feeling that I couldn't sit still, I needed to do something, and there was a terrible, unpleasant irritability. But after that it slowly turned into depression, but such a strong feeling happened 1 or 2 times during the whole year, basically I usually feel better during these days before menstruation. And my depression goes away, as if my thoughts become clear and I don’t even react to stress, I can think logically.

I checked my thyroid and iron levels, everything is fine with them, but I’m still waiting for the right day to take new tests for my gynecologist and possibly start taking birth control pills (I can't take estrogen pills because of migraines with aura, so I'll take progesterone pills. I'm going to take them because of migraines with aura because it's related to changes in estrogen or hormones and because of these changes in mood) Also last year I took amitriptyline for migraines with aura, and in the 2-3 week of taking it it caused me a condition like that which lasted 4-5 days and added strong obsessive thoughts, and I stopped taking it

I'm 16 yo

Sorry if I'm texted off-topic, but I think this is the best place to find people who might have had this :)


r/PMDD • • 15h ago

Medications SLYND backfire ?

3 Upvotes

First cycle on Slynd and it did a notable difference in Lutheal phase and Pmdd - i felt so much bette. Then I got spotting and eventually a pretty full on period during the days I naturally would have gotten my period. This happened despite not taking the sugarpills. So, this is okay but here comes the backfire - Im done with period now and just started a new cycle and new sheet of Slynd pills. Im in the days that usually feel AMAZING (the week after period), but it feels like I have heavy PMDD!!

Any tips, resonance for other Slynd user? Any hope this can balance ou?

i know its a lot of Slynd posts here, but I couldnt find one for this exact problem with a «delayed lutheal» feeling.

Thanks for this group - it brings hope in this deveststion called PMDD.


r/PMDD • • 16h ago

Partner Support Question How to help my lady out and maybe suggest getting some help?

10 Upvotes

Hello, I have a very lovely lady who I consider to be the love of my life, and we've been together for two years now and it's been the best two years of both of our lives, I'm very lucky to have found her and we both wanna get married soon. This is not going to be a terrible PMDD sort of post, she's truly a gem of a person and she's never abusive or horrible or anything, we don't argue and we have a wonderful way of communicating, I've also got a few years of psychology education and tend to have a healthy, calm way of approaching things, but her mood shifts really viscerally for about 5 days before her period, and in the last few months due to her stress being up, its worried me quite a lot.

Some of the patterns I notice is just an extreme irritability, like even being slightly warm or cold and she nears a breakdown, she becomes quite flat or apathetic, cold, not particularly affectionate, quite negative and starts doubting herself severely, her self esteem enters the gutter, she gives up, she can become quite critical of herself, of me (there's been some things where I've internally gone "what the fuck? I have no idea where this would even come from", especially when she's 180 degrees the opposite for the other 26 days on her opinion), of everything really, and super obsessive about it, she can easily spend a whole day sitting and thinking and ruminating about a thing. It is to a point where I feel its gotten in the way of some parts of her life, just her personal life that have bummed her out a bit.

She's a smart lady, she's very literate in science, she knows how hormones work, she even notices the pattern, she hasn't always been the best at identifying her own emotions though in the moment and she's the first to tell anyone that, some alexithymia in the past. But during the luteal phase she becomes convinced of her negativity in that time, and then afterwards she ends up in this state where shes not sure what to believe, if these are legitimate emotions and judgements being magnified that she should be concerned about or non-issues that come from hormones messing her up. This time she was quite concerned about OCD, since she thought her thinking during the last few days had resembled OCD, extreme obsessions.

I've supported her a lot, usually I just ask what she needs from me, give her lots of love if she wants it, or space otherwise, cooked meals, massages, I'll do all the cleaning instead of splitting chores like normal, anything really, sometimes we have long conversations and she can bounce off me to sort out her thoughts, or to vent if she needs it, I'll listen to her criticisms and work with her as well as I can, but I'm feeling none of it is really actually making things better, and she's not really working towards any solutions herself, afterwards she sees it, acknowledges it, forgets about it and then the next month rolls around and we are back to the same place. I don't feel like its a problem for us as a relationship, but it just kinda hurts seeing her suffer so much every month because of it.

Some I'm wondering if some folks here would have some suggestions for what else I could do to help and also how I could gently hint at getting some help or trying some options out?


r/PMDD • • 22h ago

General Can pmdd fluctuate from being terrible some months and not so bad on others?

118 Upvotes

I'm curious about this because my pmdd hasn't been super bad this month. I've had my typical anxiety, but it's not as severe as It normally is. My rage is also toned down a little this month. I noticed this pattern. Is it normal?


r/PMDD • • 49m ago

āš ļøTrigger Warning Topicāš ļø Exhausted from feeling fragmented: PMDD, ADHD, endometriosis, and I don’t know where to start

• Upvotes

Hi, this is my first time posting on a forum. Reading other people’s stories has always helped me a lot during these periods, but right now I feel I need a voice and some advice, and being only a reader isn’t enough anymore.

I’m 32, and I’ve known for about 5 years that I have PMDD, thanks to researching on my own in Canadian forums. France is very far behind when it comes to visibility, taking this disorder seriously, and putting research resources into it, so it took me a long time to find information. The discovery was a shock: it brought as much relief as anger at all the time lost wandering without answers. Little by little, it gave meaning to the cyclical depressive and suicidal states I’ve had since I was 12, without ever having noticed before that they were cyclical. Because that’s what this state does when you aren’t informed or supported: it isolates you in doubting your own perception, to the point where, once you come out of it, you try to forget those dark moments, while being afraid, somewhere deep down, that this is the real truth of who you are and that you’re just getting a break. As if you still had to decide which state is the normal one and which is temporary, while each one, at the peak of its strength, fights to claim the title.

So, wandering under this grey veil which, given the social and political reality, can only feed on arguments and grow with every dead end of professional help I couldn’t recognize myself in.

It was already broken and rebuilt in pieces that I discovered the relief of a shared reality, spoken out loud, that expresses this pain while also naming the medical neglect of this patriarchal society.

But I can’t find a way to keep any continuity in how I perceive life, and I’m exhausted from feeling fragmented. The moments of sensitivity and attachment to existence are incredibly strong, and I’ve made that my profession as an artist, which often gives meaning but also brings a loneliness and precarity built into how society is organized. I feel like the same force that sometimes lets me see the beauty in everything also pulls me toward the void, and it’s always hard to get out. I can feel it costing me life points and courage, and it’s getting harder and harder to climb back up from the bottom of the well.

A year ago I was diagnosed with endometriosis and ADHD (like my brother and sister, we found out thanks to my nephew). I can see there are a lot of early studies, but I get lost in the results because I can’t manage to get concrete help, someone who really listens, and clear follow-up care.

I also know that statistically many people with this disorder experienced sexual abuse as children, and I think that’s my case. I’ve always sensed it without really knowing (possibly traumatic amnesia, hard to untangle from guilt and the fear of lying), and I haven’t yet managed to really explore it with the different therapists I’ve seen, who didn’t really help me with this.

I don’t know where to start, because everything becomes an emergency with each crisis, and I don’t have time to come out of the despair of one symptom before the next one appears, so the urgency ends up dissolving into a semi-permanent dissociation.

If any of this resonates with someone, or if you have advice, I’d really welcome it. In any case, thank you again for the testimonies and for the mutual support and research you do, in the absence of public policy. Big love and support, and thank you so much for reading me, it all came out at once.


r/PMDD • • 22h ago

Ranty Rant - Advice Okay Need some reassurance this won't last forever

14 Upvotes

This particular luteal phase has been the worst I've had in over a year. Last month right when my period started, I unexpectedly had to fly home to the opposite coast because my sister was in the ICU. Spent two weeks dealing with stressful family stuff and my internal clock getting completely thrown off due to the time difference. I came back and my luteal phase started with a bang. I have been losing my mind for almost a full week, struggling with DPDR, brain fog, insane fatigue, nightmares, and already got in two fights with my partner. I'm already at day 30 and just praying it comes soon because I can't do another week of this. I went to my PCP to get a check-up and bloodwork this week to see if anything is going on but haven't gotten results yet. Just need some kind words :(


r/PMDD • • 1h ago

General Register for the PMDD Policy Council Listening Town Hall - Join friends, advocates, experts, and allies in participating. The event will take place online on Thursday, October 29th at 8pm ET / 7pm CT/ 5pm PT .

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• Upvotes

Join friends, advocates, experts, and allies in participating in the PMDD Policy Council's ListeningĀ Town Hall. We want to hear from you: What is your PMDD experience? What do you wish happened differently? What needs to change in the system? What should lawmakers do about PMDD?


r/PMDD • • 2h ago

āš ļøTrigger Warning Topicāš ļø Deep deep hopelessness

8 Upvotes

I don’t feel taken seriously with this disorder in doctors appointments. SSRIs don’t work for me and hormonal birth control is hard to see if it works. I am scared every single month. It feels like I work hard just for it all to tumble down. I feel like I barely know who I am.