PMDD Irritated & Emotional

PMDD Irritated & Emotional - Ask the Doctor Q & A

Question

I wrote this to say how I feel about my PMDD symptoms. It's hard for me to talk about, and I don't know if anyone can help, but I'm tired of keeping it to myself. I'd like to be normal. I'd like to not have to schedule events around my cycle. I need to be able to be emotionally strong and confident about myself around the time my cycle hits me, and sometimes that doesn't happen. In school if I have a final exam on the day I'm supposed to start my period, I'm not happy about that. Even my husband says we're going into hell week the week before my period. It makes him feel alienated. I don't want him to touch me and he's a very huggy kind of guy. With PMDD I become very irritated, very emotional. I become mean. I'm not very patient with anybody. It's almost like I have no personality. I don't want to be touched, I don't want to be around people before my period. I feel terrible about it. It makes me feel wrong. It doesn't feel normal.

Thanks for "listening"

~ Andrea

Answer

Andrea, thank you for sharing. I think you are brave to acknowledge what you feel, and I hope other women will read this and realize that they're not alone. We're here to help women suffering with PMS and PMDD symptoms through sharing knowledge, educating, and if we can, providing a natural solution.

You say "I'd like to be normal." My feeling is that you are normal, but you probably don't feel normal. If you really weren't normal, you wouldn't feel badly (or wrong, as you put it) about the times where you feel so irritable and emotional and off-kilter. I think the fact that it feels wrong to you proves that the only thing wrong with you is the severity of your premenstrual symptoms. Also, your PMDD symptoms aren't the real you, they are something afflicting you.

I'm sure you'd feel better if your husband was more supportive, and he'd probably feel better if you could somehow reach through your discomforts and suffering to allow some emotional intimacy with him. I want to reiterate that we created this site for women, and for women like you, to make it clear that what you're going through is real; that you aren't at all alone; and that there is hope for you to feel better and to feel normal.