Reading the medical section can sometimes get boring, however, I can still remember way back when, when I was searching online for what in the world could be going on with me EVERY month. It helped me to know first off that what I was experiencing had a name, it actually existed. I wasn’t crazy and that there were so many other women out there who knew and felt what I was living.

The lists are all the same if you do a general search on PMDD/PMS, they all say about the same thing.

What you CAN’T find online through medical info sites is how PMDD affects your life, your relationships, your children, literally EVERYTHING!

That’s where I hope my story helps you. I hope it helps you personally, or if you know someone living with PMDD, pass this info on to them.

PMDD is painful. It is painful emotionally, but also physically.

~~~~~Emotionally~~~~~

WOW! The lists goes on, but I am going to do my best to list as much as possible.

*Irritable: this irritibility isn’t one that you just get annoyed. It for me actually goes as far as my husband won’t go to Walmart with me during this time. He gets frustrated and embarrassed by how frustrated I become with everyone. He tells me, and I am opt to believing it is probably true, that I give looks to people when they stand in my way, go slow, etc…

I become so annoyed that I literally can feel my heart pounding out of my chest, it sometimes becomes difficult to breathe. I just want to scream, but I know I can’t because I am in public. If I am at home, I usually go into a quiet room and just get away from everyone. I don’t want my kids to see me annoyed and them to feel as though it is because of them. I also take baths when I feel so irritable, this gives me time to SNAP back into a stage where I feel I can control myself.

YES, it really is this difficult living with PMDD. You haven’t lost your mind, join a PMDD support group, you will see you are NOT alone.

*Emotional w/ tears: With PMS you are more emotional during your period. PMDD causes the tear flood gates to open. Unfortunatly, you can’t decide when this is going to happen. YES, it can happen at the worst times possible. I have started crying in the car driving for no reason, at work, at friends homes while we were visiting, and even during intimate times.

*Emotional w/ rage: I felt I needed to put emotional in 2 different categories because the emotional w/ tears and rage are SO different.
During PMDD you feel as though you could rage on a constant basis. Noises sound 1000 times louder and more intense than they do on a normal day-to-day basis. Even children playing and laughing, having a great time, can cause you to become emotional. Noises just seem to intensify immensely during this time.

It is very easy to fly off the handle. The smallest disagreement can turn into the most insane, loud, crazy fight if your spouse doesn’t understand PMDD.

I am very fortunate in that my husband knows I have PMDD. He is very supportive and he can tell when I am in my ‘gonna lose it’ phase. He will usually say something like, why don’t you go take a bath and I will finish XYZ. That’s kind of my sign of, you lost it Stef.

I have heard of some women that throw items, break items and even go as far as putting holes in the wall. I have been blessed that I have only felt like doing that, but haven’t.

I will tell some of my more personal stories in another section. I am trying to stay focused, LOL, which is another difficult task with PMDD.

So… I do want to explain that with PMDD these symptoms occur during the 1-2 week time before you start your period. Sometimes they will continue throughout the first couple of days of your cycle too, but usually once you start, you feel SO much better. I like to say, I feel ‘normal’ again… whatever that actually means. :)

I will continue tommorrow, I have got to get some sleep and I have ALOT left to list. Sleep as you will learn is one of THE MOST important aspects of learning to live healthy with PMDD.

Life with PMDD