PMDD - After the Hysterectomy

In my first post, I shared what it was like for us in the trenches with PMDD.  This installment, I want to discuss what happened after my wife's hysterectomy, or how we finally got to life without PMDD.

The decision, I remember, was discussed a handful of times regarding whether my partner should have a hysterectomy. I remember us doing a lot of due diligence on the topic, mostly surrounded around her health. We knew we were at peace with the idea that we would no longer be able to have children—we already had two beautiful, healthy kids and we were truly blessed. The larger conversations centered around "then what?" What are the guarantees? What are the potential complications? What if the surgery doesn't work and what would the domino effect be, knowing she just had her entire reproductive house torn down and she still had PMDD?!

The decision was ultimately hers. She decided it was worth the risk of everything we had discussed, knowing the reward would mean so much more.

She had her surgery. It went well and we were told there would be no major side effects, just 6-8 weeks or physical recovery time. All good, right?

Let's harken back to PMDD and how most of us, even doctors, are learning on the fly. I obviously wasn't prepared for the three months after surgery and how PMDD kept creeping into our lives. It wouldn't go down without a kick in the gut, a roundhouse right to the head, and headlock for good measure. One of the hardest battles lied ahead and I was not any wiser to what the hell it was—again my preparation—or lack of it—didn't matter.

My wife fought for three months after her surgery. It was probably just as hard as when she had PMDD. I remember the emotional strain it took on her—how her body would never be the same. How the same place that had housed our children for almost 10 months was gone. It was an emotional rollercoaster. The fights still existed, the threats of divorce were still present, and it seemed at times as if one of my fears had come true—IT DIDN'T WORK!

As each day went by I was looking for a ray of hope. After she was fully recovered physically (try more like 3 months, not 6-8 weeks) some normalcy started to happen and it felt odd. We were always waiting for the next fight to happen. I was always tracking her episodes on my iPhone, trying to prepare for the next hostile takeover. We went back and forth at times really questioning if the surgery worked 100%.

It was a long road back emotionally for my wife post-surgery. It was harder, and took longer than any of us expected. PMDD gave us one last fight and didn't go down quietly...why should I have expected it to?

For whoever reads this, I leave you with this: It can and will get better. There are options for you and your partner. You don't have to live this way any longer. I know it is easier to run like hell than to stand and fight. I chose to stand and fight when at times I wanted to run far, far away.

I leave you with three points to help get you through it all:

1) Remember why you fell in love with her. It will carry you at times through the muck even though the woman you fell in love with might be a shadow of herself during PMDD.

2) It's okay to feel the way you do, no matter how much you might feel guilty for feeling a certain way. Things will cross your mind during her PMDD episodes that will have you questioning your sanity. You will feel like snapping at times. You will feel like doing irrational things just in the hopes that your wrong behaviors or attitudes are not so much payback for PMDD, but a pathway between staying balanced and losing your mind.

Talk about the way you feel with others even if they might not fully understand it. Just letting it go and letting out a good cry is also therapeutic. Don't hold it in. Find an outlet for yourself too. Your health still matters.

3) Lastly...Don't give up. She needs you still. She is fighting a swarm of demons that she doesn't want around. She doesn't want this any more than you do. [Whichever treatment option(s) you choose] Work towards achieving healthy solutions for both of you. There are solutions out there. Do your homework, reach out to PMDD survivors and their peers, and never, ever give up Hope.

You are stronger than you ever realized, partner, and God wouldn't give you anything you couldn't handle. Call it cliché but it's true. You were built for this for now, but it is not yours or hers to live with forever.

Liana's note: For more information on the basics of PMDD, please read my posts Dealing with PMDD - Advice for Men, and Confusion City.   Also worth reading are Top 20 Tips for Dealing with PMDD, and More Tips for Men Whose Partners Have PMDD.  All four posts are included in my book PMDD: A Handbook for Partners.  For those who prefer to have all this information (and much more!) in one convenient place, it's the book with the blue cover at the top of the sidebar. 

The Monster I Am Living With: PMDD

Crushing weight sinks deep into my fragile chest. Insomnia, I'm already weary but have no hope of finding rest.

Switch in my brain has flipped, can't hold back as the monster inside bursts free. Losing all control, wreaking devastation wherever I go, it's then that I know, that as sure as gravity on earth I am back in its throes.

Depressive Tsunami overtakes me, washing clean away all of my self worth. Tormented woman desperate to stop it... Defeated despite the hard fight put forth. It's like a psychotic carnival ride, can't stop going around and around in my broken mind.

Anxiety and fear no one can understand brings salted tears ʼtil I am virtually blind. How can this damn life be so unkind??

Misery is embodied in me, taking away my hope for good life, hatred for the man who loves me most taking away my hope to be a good wife.

Migraines. Body aches. Sensitivity. Short fuses. Darkness. Hysteria. Forever on edge, pushing me to LOSE it.

I mean really how many times can my kids hear mommy's having a bad day, before they too feel abandoned and pushed away?

We stand on opposite sides of the same door secretly pleading: I've done nothing wrong why do I still have to pay?

Heartbreaking.

I hide out in my restroom cuz it's the only place I can truly be alone, keeping everyone safe from me, staring into a mirror and seeing nothing but the monster I am living with: PMDD.
~Carrian Troxler

The Voices of PMDD, A Partner's Perspective

Do I suffer from PMDD? Well, technically no, as I’m of the wrong gender, but given one of the key parts of the definition of PMDD is that sufferers experience severe disruptions to their relationships, I suffer the effects of PMDD. One of the many nasty parts of PMDD is that the sufferer is generally unaware of the disruptions occurring around them.

Unfortunately, as a partner, I am.

So, from an outsiders perspective (well, a partner's), what does PMDD look like?

Imagine this: you are in a wonderfully loving relationship, when all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, your partner enters an unbelievable rage. You get criticized over trivial matters that have happened in the past, you are told life is much worse with you, that you are the biggest mistake ever. You attempt to present your point of view and you argue back and forth for hours. Your partner just seems to want to argue, to hurt you, to blame you for everything.  She tells you she wants to leave you. She leaves the bedroom, and potentially leaves the house and goes to sleep in her car, or in another room.

You are left dazed, confused, angry, frustrated. What just happened?

Next day: the cold shoulder. Single word responses to your questions. She wants nothing to do with you. Another set of hurtful comments coming your way that night? You approach her for intimacy, and are soundly rejected.

You make attempts to make the peace, but all fails.

The attacks are brutal—they are just words, but they seem designed to attack your greatest sensitivities, which of course she knows. Rages can last for hours—yelling, doors slamming, storming out of the house, storming back in to fight more. I’m not joking.

The worst in my household has been a 12-hour episode over night.  Scary stuff.

My partner tends to fight at night—you know, you get nice and settled in bed, then very late at night, ka-boom.

So, what have I been attacked for in the PMDD zone? Here goes:

My attitude toward my kids, my attitude toward my partner's kids, my financial habits, my relationship to my ex, my sexual interests in bed, money, my family, what my partner’s ex partner’s girlfriend thinks of me, my libido, my job, that I’m just like my partner's ex, that I’ve ruined her life, that she can’t believe she’s with me, that she only takes pills to please me...And that’s just to name a few.

My own mind becomes so bleak. I feel hated. Maybe I am that horrible a man?

Doesn’t she realize she has a man right here who loves her? The kids hear it also, but as kids can, they somehow tune it out.  My work suffers badly as well (It is incredibly hard to focus when you’ve been arguing all night.).

A week or so later, my partner’s period starts. A couple more days of extreme caution and all will be well again.

This is the world of PMDD.

So, I start to research, and thanks to a family member, start thinking about monthly cycles and an internet search leads me to PMDD. My partner fits the textbook descriptions perfectly.

One of the problems with PMDD is that few people understand it, including doctors. I’ve been to counselors whose only contribution is, “Well, she must be angry about something—anger is an emotional choice.”

Not for a PMDD sufferer it’s not.

So what have I learned?

Probably the most important thing is to put up and shut up during the PMDD zone (this is the time from ovulation (about two weeks prior to period starting) to period starting). This is also the hardest thing.

What do I mean? Well, your partner starts get angry with you, looking to start a fight, or completely ignores all your desires, needs, and feelings. The only acceptable response is to agree with her views, no matter what you are actually thinking.

One of my latest scenarios was as follows:

My partner was doing a business course, and we both stayed up until 1:00 am to get an assignment done, with me supporting her in the process.

The next night, I had a sick child, so knew I was in for a long night. Partner is distant at night, and as we go to bed, tells me I don’t appreciate her at all. I end up spending most of the night nursing my child.

Come morning, I’m now exhausted from two nights with little sleep. Response from my PMDD partner—cold shoulder. I’ve been around PMDD for a while—but even for me this was too much, so I wrote her a letter outlining my frustrations with her behavior. Bad move. I get back a letter outlining why everything in the relationship is a problem (all because of me, of course). Old issues get dredged up and flung back in my face.

So, how should this be approached? Hard as it is, just giving your partner space, and ignoring the cold shoulder. PMDD sucks. To be honest, I can understand the rationale about just letting a PMDD partner get on with the rage/anger etc, but I’ve got no idea how to emotionally ignore it. It is beyond me, and it always hurts. Every month. I’ve seen it come and go heaps of times, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

A woman in the PMDD zone is angry. Really angry. Most the time she can keep a lid on it, but she’s still angry. Ask her too many questions, or ask her to do something she doesn’t want to, and you’ll find out just how angry. She’s also likely to be depressed. Really depressed.

Trust nothing she says in the zone.

My partner has talked about killing herself, moving to the other side of world, lied to me about money, all while in the zone.

I use a Smartphone app—P Tracker, to let me know when the PMDD zone is approaching. I’m always surprised though—the actual symptoms always hit me out of the blue—they tend to be so sudden. One minute my partner is her normally loving self, the next minute she is in a rage.

And so to intimate behavior. Best to not try and initiate or expect anything during the PMDD zone as the results can be brutal. Scorn springs to mind. I’m left feeling rejected and frustrated. It is probably easiest to just expect nothing from your partner in the zone and take matters into your own hands. And guys, you know what I mean.

How do I cope? I’m really not sure I do. Tracking in P Tracker helps, as I can refer back to how bad things were, and know that they straightened out again. When you are experiencing the zone, it can help. I re-read the blog posts here, also.

Do I feel hated and rejected each month? Yes, I do. Do I wish I wasn’t? Absolutely.

Do I wish my partner didn’t suffer PMDD? Yes. But she does.

More Tips For Partners Dealing With PMDD

Last week’s post, while it will go a long way toward stabilizing your relationship with a woman in the throes of a PMDD episode, was barely the tip of the iceberg. So this week I thought I’d continue with some tips and information on how to cope with your partner when she’s feeling her worst.

Once again, most articles I read in researching this post were about how awful it is for the partner, who has to deal with all sorts of aberrant behavior on the part of his or her loved one. In these articles, there doesn’t seem to be much understanding or empathy for the woman actually going through the brain changes over which she has no control.

So the first thing I want to emphasize once again is empathy. Put yourself in her place, and my guess is you’ll discover you wouldn’t want to have a body and brain you have no control over for several days a month. How would you feel if your thoughts—due to a biological disconnect between your brain and your mouth—came out as something else entirely—something actually hurtful to those you love the most? How would you feel if no matter how hard you tried to eat right and/or stay in shape, your body suddenly just wouldn’t cooperate? What if it actually undermined all your best efforts by bringing on intense cravings for things you know you shouldn’t eat, cravings for things that actually make your condition worse?

How would you feel if for up to half of your life, nothing you thought or said or did made sense?

One article I read said women could be touchy—touchy!—about being labeled as a raving lunatic for a few days a month. As if the women involved had no business being so sensitive. Who wants to be called insane? Do you?

It also said very few women will admit they’re affected by PMDD. Again, would you feel comfortable telling people, “Oh, don’t mind me, my mind just goes berserk every now and then?” Would you want the strange looks that come with such a statement, would you want people steering a wide path around you because you just admitted there’s something not quite right about you?

So don’t try to be helpful (or antagonistic) by pointing out her PMDD symptoms. She’s well aware of what she is feeling. Anxious, edgy, jittery, depressed, clumsy, fat, foolish, frightened, sleepy, weepy, ravenous, disorganized, out of control…the list goes on.

Even more important is that you don’t make fun of her for any of the above.

Again, if you knew people were going to ridicule you for something you have no control over, would you openly admit to having such a problem? How can any woman win the admiration and respect of the friends and family she loves and respects in such an antagonistic enviroment?

Your best bet is to save your meant-to-be-funny comments and war stories for your friends, to be shared privately, and simply act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening when the PMDD is in effect. Help to make your partner feel as accepted and normal as possible.

This does not mean you have to accept any kind of behavior she throws at you. Abuse is abuse, whether your partner means it or not. PMDD is an explanation, not an excuse, and you don’t have to accept abusive behavior under any conditions. For more on this, go to last week’s post.

Don’t spring any big surprises on her. Remember she’s doing everything she can just to cope with her everyday life, to stay on an even keel in a body emotionally tilting one way and then the other, just to get through the day without being labeled crazy. Big news, big plans, big surprises can wait for a day when she’s better equipped to handle them.

Besides, you should never trust any big decisions made while she is under the influence of her PMDD. This includes decisions she may come to regarding your relationship. If she says she wants out…do what you can to stay calm, and wait until the storm passes. If when it does she still wants out…then you have a different problem, and one that is beyond the scope of this blog.

Take it easy on social activities. If you felt like a beached whale and couldn’t seem to control what you put in your mouth, would you want to go to a party and spend it stuffing your face at the food table? A food binge can be great fun, if that’s what you want to be doing—if that’s your way of celebrating good times or good news. But if you’re watching your weight—and what woman isn’t at one point or another?—taking her food binge show on the road is the last thing she wants to be doing.

The same goes for her emotional outbursts. It’s hard enough to keep a lid on things at home. Do you really want to put her in a situation where she spends the evening either snarling at your friends and family or weeping at every little misinterpreted comment? Because during a PMDD episode, the PMDD brain will focus on the negative, and even if you didn’t say or mean anything negative at all, even if you compliment your partner, her brain is being flooded with negative thoughts and images, and eventually the dam will burst—putting a huge damper on your evening out.

And then she’ll feel miserable about it. About ruining your plans/evening/event. Whether she did or did not, and whether she admits it or not, she will blame herself for anything that goes wrong during these dark periods of time in her cycle.

So remember to track her symptoms and plan social events to avoid head-to-head conflicts with her PMDD episodes if at all possible. She’ll appreciate you all the more for your understanding.

Be understanding of her cravings. Both men and women seek comfort food when they are feeling miserable. During a PMDD episode, a woman will especially seek carbs. Doing so is a natural way to boost, for instance, the level of serotonin* in her body, and she knows this on a subconscious level. Where it gets confusing is the food and advertisement industries have done their best to convince us certain foods and drinks are healthy when they are not. So while on a very primitive level, your partner is craving something to boost any number of feel-good hormones in her body and make her feel better, what manifests is a desire to eat everything in sight in the hopes of finding that magic solution.

It’s best to have good quality carbs already on hand for when these cravings strike. I find that multi-grain toast with no-added sugar jam (not artificial sweeteners, as they can make PMDD symptoms worse), a bowl of whole or multi-grain cereal with almond or cashew milk, or a bit of good quality dark chocolate does the trick. When we consume large amounts of cheap chocolate candy (or cereal) we are looking for the same effect, but in the wrong place. The added calories from the sugar and fat that come along with the added amount of chocolate needed to reach the same feel-good hormone boost as a good quality piece of chocolate only cause our PMDD symptoms to worsen. They also cause us to gain weight.

But sometimes, the woman’s level of feel-good hormones dips so low that nothing short of a pizza will do. If that’s the case, then go for it guilt free. You might even plan pizza night around her cycle, and see if that improves things.

Take on some of her workload. Whatever you can do to help out, do it with an attitude of love, not resentment. If she asks you to help around the house, do what she asks. If she wants you to run an errand, please do the same. The slightest bit of effort to appreciate what she’s going through will go a long way toward soothing her, and is it really worth the effort to argue over whose turn it is to take out the trash?

It’s true that things that don’t usually bother her will bother her greatly when she’s having an episode. Just keep in mind who your real partner is, and go along with what she says. The sooner you do, the sooner her episode will pass.

That’s right, stress will prolong her episode, so if you want it to end sooner, the best thing you can do is to go along to get along, as long as it’s a reasonable request.

If you’re a mature adult, you know what reasonable and unreasonable is. We don’t need to go into it here.

Treat her like you appreciate her. Every woman loves to be appreciated, no matter what mood she’s in. During an episode of PMDD, with all those negative thoughts running an endless loop inside her head, your partner needs extra special care. Reassurance is always nice, but might not be believed or accepted. Understand that the negative thoughts in her brain are overwhelming the positive ones you’re trying to get across. Be patient. Be persistent. Let her know you care, and you’re there for her if she needs you. She’ll meet you more than half way if she possibly can.

If she doesn’t, it’s because she can’t, or doesn’t understand enough about what’s happening to stop the train of negative thoughts in her mind. It’s not because she doesn’t want to, or doesn’t love you. It’s not about you at all. So remember that, and try not to take the things she says and does personally. In a few days time, the woman you love will return, and when she does, it would be a good time to discuss what may have gone wrong during her most recent episode.

A lot of women will want to forget what happened, pretend it didn’t happen at all, and that’s quite normal, but not the best way to deal with it. Talking it out with your partner when she’s feeling herself is the best way to prevent unwanted behaviors and situations in the future.

The bible says it best : Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ~ 1 Corinthians 13

All a woman with PMDD is looking for is the same thing everyone wants—love and acceptance.

The more you accept, the less you’ll have to. What we resist persists. So don’t fight your partner’s PMDD. Go with it, roll with it--and watch the waves grow smaller over time. 

For more information, check out my book, specifically written for partners of women with PMDD. 

*Serotonin is only ONE of several feel-good hormones in our body.  The serotonin-deficiency theory highly touted as the answer to PMDD has never been proven, but has been marketed heavily to women with PMDD.  More on this in another post.

Liana's PMDD Website Finally Launched!

I’ve been working on a book about PMDD for the past year and a half. For a time I had an agent interested, but in the end, she said it was a niche book, (meaning it wouldn’t have mass market appeal) and she passed on it. One of the drawbacks, she pointed out, was that I don’t have any sets of initials behind my name, so can’t claim I’m an expert on the subject.

Funny, how living with something for forty years, day in and day out, doesn’t qualify you as an expert on the subject. But there you have it. The bottom line was I didn’t have the right credentials or a platform--also known as a ready-made audience just waiting to grab my book off the shelves.

Now, six months later, I can see why she said what she did. I’ve bought and read countless books about PMDD and women’s hormones in general, and quite frankly, the information is already out there. Some of it highly technical, some of it garbled and distorted along the way, some of it just plain off-the-wall wrong, and some of it a thinly disguised marketing ploy to sell drugs or supplements and such, but overall, the information you need to manage your PMDD is out there.

On the other hand, you can go to the loops and forums and blogs, and read heartbreaking stories of women crying out for relief from their PMDD. Women with their lives and relationships in chaos. Women considering, planning, and attempting suicide because of it.

My question was (and is) why isn’t group A, those who suffer from PMDD, connecting with Group B, those who write about it and have information that would help women to understand and manage their PMDD?

I’m all about connections, networking, and relationships, so I’ve put my book on hold and shifted my focus to create this blog and a matching website to bring the two together. The website launched this week and is very incomplete, as I’m still writing the content for it, but I wanted you to be able to finally see what I’ve been working on these past few months and where I intend to go with it.

How did this all of this come about? Well, one day in April (a few weeks after the agent rejected my book proposal) I’m walking at the Y, participating in my 100 miles in 100 days challenge, just going around in circles around the track and letting my mind wander, when all of a sudden an image of a water lily comes to me, fully formed, along with the words, Living on a Prayer, Living with PMDD.

I don’t know why that happened, or how, but when I stopped to think about it, I realized that’s what it’s like for me, living with PMDD. Some days I feel like all I’m doing is living on a prayer, getting through by the grace of God. If nothing else in the past ten years, I’ve learned nothing short of my faith is going to get me through this debilitating disorder that can and does lead other women to attempt suicide.

Anyway, I finished my walk, then went home and hit the internet, looking for pictures of water lilies. I found the perfect one three pictures in, but of course (being slightly OCD), had to keep looking to see if there were any better ones available.

There weren’t any better ones, but there were a ton of options. And so my idea began to expand. I contacted my favorite web designer, and she said to send her the pictures I’d chosen and we’d come up with something. In the end, I think we’ll use all the pictures I chose, because to me, each one represents a different facet of having PMDD.

But once that was done, all the pictures were chosen, I wanted to know…Why a water lily? I’m not really into flowers, and don’t like the water at all, especially dark, murky water, so I looked up the symbolism of water lilies.

This is what I discovered: Lotus: Water Lily: The Lotus flower is symbolic of rebirth, but in addition to its religious meaning, the lotus is also a symbol of all that is true, good and beautiful, representing good fortune, peace, and enlightenment…In modern times the meaning of a lotus flower links closely with religious symbolism and meaning. A lotus represents life in general. As the lotus flower grows up from the mud into an object of great beauty, people also grow and change into something more beautiful. So the symbol represents the struggle of life at its most basic form.

Lotus flower symbols are also popular for people who have gone through a hard time and are now coming out of it. Like the flower, they have been at the bottom in the muddy pond, but have risen above this to be an object of beauty or represent a life of beauty as the case may be.

Thus the lotus flower or blossom can also represent a hard time in life that has been (or can be) overcome.

I’d say that captures my (or any woman’s) struggle with PMDD perfectly.

Take care and God bless, and may your week be a happy one.