Trust
the process that got you here to get you through.
For
today's post, I have taken a rather lengthy reader comment from one of my previous
posts and re-formatted my reply to resemble a question and answer session, because,
as you will see, the original comment touched on several questions/ideas many of us have wondered
about over time.
By answering the reader here, I can reach more people. So here goes:
Hello,
Liana,
I
can't thank you enough for having the courage to put this blog out there and
then be honest and specific about your symptoms and coping mechanisms as it relates
to them. You wrote "No egg, no sadness. Woo hoo! Party time!" which
just explained to me why some months feel suicidal and some months LIFE IS
WONDERFUL!
Hard
not to think one is crazy when all of this bullshit is happening.
Hello, T! Welcome
to my blog, and thank you for taking the time to write, especially in
such detail. I appreciate your
affirmation and support. And yes, the "no
released egg, no symptoms" aspect of PMDD tends to throw just about
everybody off and make countless women doubt their sanity. Especially in our later years, as we begin to
release fewer and fewer eggs.
It
would almost make it bearable if there was a higher purpose to it, a reason why.
I've thought that same thing many times. One day I decided the higher purpose to my PMDD is to write about it. I spent many years thinking I was crazy, and
then, finally, it hit me that "Surely there must be others out there like
me, who think they are crazy. I need to
let them know (through writing about my PMDD experiences and research) that
they are not."
So my blog was born during a five month period when
my book editing business was slow. I had
three website pages completed before I realized the website was too static, and I
needed to do a blog. 20 blog posts later
my business picked up again and it's been a struggle to find time for my PMDD research
and writing ever since.
For a few years, I let my research slide. No time.
Then, when I was ready to start up again, I had to re-do all of my research,
in case new information had surfaced while I was busy doing other
things.
And it had. In
the past two years, the news about PMDD has increased exponentially. I get a Google alert every other day about
someone writing something about PMDD. So
I go there to check it out. Because, as
many of us have learned the hard way, you can't trust just anything you read on the
internet. There are a LOT of supposed health sites that have jumped on the
PMDD bandwagon, just to pull in readers.
Sites that I can now pick out when (because I've been researching PMDD for over a
decade) they don't understand the first thing about PMDD. Old information recycled as new, some
information slanted to achieve a certain goal or just plain false, but enough of the
article close enough to known facts to confuse someone new to the subject....
Anyway, I decided my mission/higher purpose would be
to sort out the fact from fiction, and publish my findings here and elsewhere.
I haven't gotten to the elsewhere part yet, due to
family and work obligations, and then, in 2013, there was my surprise brain surgery.
But back to your comments: I
don't see a lot of people mentioning ANXIETY! as a symptom but it sure is one
of mine, a surge of cortisol and other hormones so big it triggers obsessive
violent thoughts and then it all subsides once period time gets here.
Anxiety is a huge problem for a lot of people. I'm not sure if I'm one of them, mostly
because I manage my environment around my PMDD, so I don't put myself in
situations that feed my anxiety. But my
anxieties are different from those of others, because there are a LOT of things
I think nothing of, that terrify others.
And some things that terrify me, that don't bother others at all.
Educate
yourself, learn to love yourself in spite of all the shit your head comes up
with; there is some putting up with [this shit] that goes along with [PMDD].
I couldn't agree more, and that is what my blog is
about. I've sifted through probably 90%
of the current information on the internet and in books relevant to PMDD and
put the best of it on my blog. If not in
the posts, then on the sidebars, where there are links to all sorts of good
resources.
For
the men, if you love the woman, get educated about this as much as you can, I
strongly recommend reading "Female Brain Gone Insane" by Mia Lundin.
I agree completely, and have a link to that same book
in the sidebar of my blog. Another excellent read is The Female Brain, by Dr. Louann Brizendine.
In
it [Ms. Lundin] sheds tremendous light on this subject and offers great natural
suggestions for relief, but the only way
out [of PMDD] is [to go] through it. [That] doesn't mean you guys take any
abuse, but for the love of everything that is holy do not get confrontational—rather
go for a walk or something.
Again, I agree 100% and have written three blog posts specifically for the partners of women with PMDD.
For
the ladies thinking hysterectomy as an end to this, PLEASE DON'T DO IT. It is the easy way out and when the
storm-tsunami-holocaust of this mess passes you will need those eggs! Hysterectomy is the first thing OBGYN offers
because it is a money maker.
I agree in that I believe most hysterectomies to lessen the horror of PMDD are
unnecessary, and find it very saddening that there are so many women willing to
die early (because hysterectomies do shorten your life span), risk their lives
with major surgery, and take the very real chance that the operation won't help
your PMDD symptoms at all if they don't take out your ovaries as well. Also, when you get a hysterectomy, you go on
hormone replacement therapy afterward, which just messes with your hormones all
over again. I would LOVE to hear from
women who have had a hysterectomy for
PMDD (not any other reason) and found it to be worth the risk, cost, lost
time, health complications, and shortened life span in the end.
I know your PMDD symptoms make you feel desperate,
but I do not believe a hysterectomy is the answer. Neither does Winnifed B. Cutler, PhD, and her
reasons why are outlined in her book, Hormones and Your Health, also pictured in
the sidebar of this blog.
Please, please, ladies, do your research before you make this life altering decision. Don't
let emotion guide you, but rather the facts.
Of
course all I have said is from personal experience and is easier said than done.
So please, please, please, take what you
like and leave the rest.
To that I add, if you have already had a
hysterectomy for your PMDD, just start where you are with improving your health
and living the best and fullest life you can for the rest of your days. Good nutrition, rest, exercise, and lowering
stress are a recipe for better health for everyone, not just those of us with
PMDD or hormonal mood disorders.
Pray
a lot! Talk it out, DO NOT ISOLATE. This monster wants you in a corner and it
wants you dead or to make you hurt someone else and usually that someone else
is a loved one, although strangers can get a backlash too.
She nails it, don't you think? PMDD is a monster determined to bend you to
its will, and do as much damage as it can to your world along the way.
I
take megadoses of vitamin C, to bowel tolerance and after a few months, something
inside is building back up, [and my] energy is slowly starting to come back,
[but] JUST FOR TODAY.
One day at a time.
It's all any of us can do. But vitamin C is a great place to start.
I
am 48 now. Something new is I get my period twice a month for the last two
months and I feel my ovaries churning when an egg is released. I also feel hard
in the lower belly before [my] period starts (something new).
I, too, get my period more often now. Every three weeks instead of four. And I can
feel when I ovulate as well.
In
addition I want to shed some light from another blog I read, women who go
through this, usually have had some early trauma in their lives (even or especially
if they don't consciously remember) and then, spiritually speaking, the pain
(stuck energy) is trying to work itself out of your body through the horrors of
PMDD (just something to think about).
Don't sell yourself short, T. I believe this can be the case as well. And there have been scientific studies that
prove a correlation between a traumatic childhood, childhood trauma in general,
and sexual abuse and PMDD. I plan to
write more about it one day. But for now
I will say that for me personally, my PMDD and then period at the end of the
cycle is like a huge purging of all that has distressed me in life and not yet
been dealt with. I used to let it take
control. No more. Now I basically make note of what comes up
during that time and deal with it when I'm feeling strong enough to handle it
like a responsible adult.
As
for you Liana, you are the first person [to] have actually made feel and believe
to the core of my being that this is not forever, that in fact "this too
shall pass" and that I am not bad or crazy or being punished by the gods
for all of my sins of being an imperfect human.
You are correct.
PMDD does not last forever. It ends
with menopause. (It does, however, get
worse during perimenopause if left untreated.)
You are not bad.
You are not crazy.
And you are not being punished for any sins.
I
can't thank you enough and these posts in and of themselves are very cathartic.
This is such an amazing twisted, enlightening, terrifying process, that I even
wrote poetry a few years back and I never wrote a poem in my life...it is as if
the garbage [we] accumulate over a lifetime is trying to get out of you and
your true beautiful Self is trying to shine through.
Every woman's experience is different, but yes,
writing or journaling about your PMDD can be extremely cathartic, and like I
said above, I have long felt that my PMDD brings to the surface many things I
tend overlook/avoid/suppress during my "good" times... either out of
fear, denial, or the desire to avoid a confrontation. I have read so many Facebook posts where
women describe having a meltdown and then take the blame for the entire
incident and don't even realize or acknowledge that the other person was yes,
indeed, being a jerk. (And that anyone in
that same situation would have a right to be upset.) It's always the PMDD that takes 100% of the
blame, and not the 50% actions of the other party.
Ladies, it takes two to make a relationship and it
takes two to break one. It's that
simple.
So stop blaming your PMDD for every confrontation/mishap
that happens in your life. Other people
do mean and stupid things too...what is their
explanation?
Because
PMDD is an explanation, not an
excuse. If you take
nothing more away from this blog post than that, you will be doing something
positive for yourself in 2015.
And now, a fitting farewell from our special guest
interviewer, which I think sums up what many of us are feeling and experiencing.
Because
[of] ALL OF YOU, I feel less alone, less insane and more hopeful. Something
that comes HARD to me, but that I am working on is: SURRENDER, ACCEPTANCE AND
TRUST.
As are we all; me, as well. At the moment, I am working on exactly those
three things. Starting January 1, I've
taken a 6-month hiatus from my income-generating work to focus on my PMDD blog
and books, and it's going to take a lot of surrender, acceptance, and trust to see
this whole thing through.
But letters like T's have convinced me it's the
right thing to do.
That said, I join T. in wishing you all love and light and tons of resilience,
faith, and strength in the coming year.
Happy 2015, ladies, and may it be the year YOUR beautiful Self shines through!
Blessings,
Blessings,
Liana
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