How PMDD Affected Me: Part 1 the Physical aspects
- pmddwarriorprinces
- Feb 23
- 4 min read
Season 03, Episode 02
"The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new." ~ Socrates
LOOK AT ME GO!! I did it, the second week in a row and I am here with another entry! This is the second, first step in being accountable to my SMART Goals and this Blog! I spent all last week getting organized, creating my templates, and topics I would like to share/discuss. I want to talk about what PMDD did to me physically and socially. This week I will focus on the physical part and next week I will share how I handled it socially. Everyone's journey with PMDD is different. We all go through the stages of PMDD depending on the severity. I had it bad. I experienced 75% of all the possible PMDD symptoms (please reference Season 01, Episode 02 for a full list of possible PMDD symptoms).
Physical Aspects of PMDD
The physical aspects of PMDD hit me like a baseball bat to the knees. As PMDD does, it was built up gradually over the span of 5 years. It started with extreme PMS symptoms, a little more dramatic than most women experience. Then the psychological symptoms started creeping up. At the time I had no idea it was the PMDD making its presence known. I thought it was my previous relationship that finally broke me and I was just a "millennial hotmess". I started having anxiety attacks weekly with panic attacks monthly. I was having problems sleeping and I quit being able to remember my dreams. My emotions were also all over the place. I was angrier than normal and for no logical reason. I would find myself extremely irritable and easily agitated. I would cry all the time. Then I started to gain weight. NO matter what I did, I was unable to lose weight. I was eating healthy, exercising, and running routinely but I was not losing weight, just gaining it. This also wasn't the 7 lb water weight gain I went through during PMS. I don't know about you but that dramatic weight gain overnight (because it's PMS, all symptoms happen in the blink of an eye) really hurts. Next, I was having massive outdoor/indoor/food allergy issues. I wasn't able to digest gluten and dairy anymore. This leads to a sensitive stomach, migraines, random muscle spasms, dizziness, and out-of-the-blue numbness in the legs or arms. Then, I was experiencing other things I never did like; my sex drive disappeared, my appetite changed, I was having hot flashes mixed with anxiety sweats, heart palpitations (I was 35 years old for crying out loud), my vision went wonky, I was unfocused and forgetful but most of all my anger turned to constant rage. Now, this all didn't happen all at once. It was gradual, and not all the symptoms happened every month, just consistent enough for me to notice.
Then BAM: I got hit by a Tsunami
While the PMDD stuff was slowly creeping in like a blanket of fog, I also moved from the Midwest to the East Coast, got a new job, moved in with my long-distance boyfriend, got married, and then moved to Crete, Greece. So you could see that I just thought I was going through "nerves and stress" due to so many life changes in a rapid amount of time. It is easy to see how someone would become anxious and overwhelmed and not think it had anything to do with my monthly cycle. Spring of 2017 rolled around and I finally talked to my primary care manager (PCM) about this unnatural rage I was constantly feeling toward my husband. He started asking other questions about my monthly cycle (odd but ok, I didn't see what this had to do with my Menzies but let's humor him). This was the first time I was told about PMDD. He prescribed me Prozac and told me to keep a log of everything I was feeling and any physical effects that were not normal. What happened next……I got pregnant! For 10 blissful months (because I had an amazing pregnancy: all the benefits -- none of the negative side effects). All my symptoms went away. Not only that, but I could also eat gluten and dairy. I must admit, I went a bit more than wild on the dairy and gluten. I hadn't eaten ice cream, cereal, pizza, noddle's, etc. in so long that it was breakfast/lunch/dinner for me. After pregnancy…..BAM: I GOT HIT BY A TSUNAMI OF ALL PMDD SYMPTOMS AT ONCE.
Not gradually, not a slow build-up……..ALL AT ONCE. I spiraled so out of control, I could barely stand to be around myself. Here I am a 37-year-old New Time Mother, scared to death of being a new mother, moving from Crete back to the East Coast, experiencing post-partum, my husband is assigned to a naval carrier and not being home and ALL PMDD symptoms coming all at once. My monthly cycle went from 7 days (start to finish to include PMS), to 3 weeks of PMDD-PMS, 4 days of my cycle, and only 3-4 normal days a month. Let that sink in, ONLY 3-4 normal days a month where I was in control and a normal human being. The rest of the month my body and brain were hijacked by Tracker-Jackers (IYKYK).
I had no control
In my life, I have experienced many physical things, some good and bad but for the majority, I have experienced a lot. But nothing in this world feels worse than having no control over your body or thoughts. The physical and psychological damage that has on a person is life-altering. Now starts the next 7 years of my flight or fight response permanently activated, a body I can't control, a brain I can't control, trying to keep my marriage from falling apart, raising a child while my husband is on an extended deployment, being the caregiver for my hero, my grandmother and trying to convince/have documented my PMDD struggles to doctors who have never heard of it.
"Life's not about how hard of a hit you can give…..it's about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward." ~ Sylvester Stallone, Rocky
Turns out for me, it was 7 years..
Tune in next Tuesday for Episode #03 on how PMDD affected me: part II, the social aspect