This is me when PMDD strikes. My voice even sounds different during that time of month… flat…and lifeless. Like how I feel on the inside.
I first heard about PMDD, or Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, when my first son was a year and a half old. Having just survived the number one killer of new moms, postpartum depression, I couldn’t understand why my life was still marked by ups and downs. As I slowly returned to myself again, a frustrating cycle appeared: two good weeks followed by two bad weeks. Two weeks of feeling on top of the world, “I’m actually beating this” to two weeks of “I’m crazy; I hate life” lying on the couch depressed again. What was wrong with me?
That’s when a friend who was in nursing school said,
“Marissa, I don’t think you have postpartum depression anymore. I think you have what I’ve been studying about in my class recently. It’s called PMDD.”
That day changed my life.
To learn more about what PMDD is, click here.