Pmdd Quotes

The best thing to say to someone who has PMDD is something that lets them know you understand they do not choose to be that way and you know it isn't just an excuse.

I find it tremendously hard to deal with myself when I’m having PMDD, and having to deal with those dealing with me is a whole other mess.

it's a mood disorder caused by my hormones not mixing with my brain chemistry. It's a medical problem.

If someone says they are hurting they mean it. Thank them for trusting you enough to be someone they can confide in, and ask if there's anything you can do to help. Most likely the answer will be no, but the offer is invaluable.

I think one of the reasons we don’t hear much about PMDD or give sufferers permission to seek help is because we don’t take women’s pain seriously. It’s just a natural burden we’re supposed to bear for being women. It’s been reported that there is a pain bias in the medical industry. It’s unclear if it’s due to a gender bias in medical staff, lack of research on women or differences between how men and women interpret and communicate pain.

Is autism a disease? If a woman asked me right now, “but wouldn’t you rather be cured?” I’d reply, “would you like to be cured of being a woman?” Autism, like womanhood, is painful, and difficult, and not made easy by the structure of our society. But it is who we are. There are treatments that can make certain aspects easier, yes. But there is no whole cure because there is no whole disease. Some women take birth control to reduce the effects of PMS or PMDD, to stop their bodies from being so at odds with the world, to make living just a little more easy, a little more comfortable. But it is not for every woman, it does not change the fact that they are a woman, and it does not change the sexism that they face every day, all the problems that result from the fact of society being built to serve people who are not them. I’d like treatments for autistic people to be seen in the same light. Medicine’s priority should be to improve quality of life, not to make a person more palatable to society. Society must be forced to deal with these people because these people will not be easily consigned to oblivion.

When its patent on Prozac expired, Eli Lilly put the same recipe into a pink pill, named it Serafem, and created a new "illness": premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) (Cosgrove, 2010). Many women become irritable when premenstrual, but it is one thing to say "I'm sorry I'm kind of cranky today; my period is due" and another to announce "I have PMDD." It seems to me that the former owns one's behavior, increases the likelihood of warm connection with others, and acknowledges that life is sometimes difficult, while the latter implies that one has a treatable ailment, distances others from one's experience, and supports an infantile belief that everything can be fixed.

People truly have no idea what is really going on, what the days are actually like. I get the feeling people think it is an excuse or that I am weak by the way they react. They do not realize how much intense effort it takes just to get through the day, often hiding everything. I have been called selfish because of canceling plans and/or not following through with things. To me, the best things people can do are the small things likes texts or messages that remind me I'm not the horrible monster that I feel like. Small, thoughtful words. And be there when it's over! It's nice to be together with people after and know that they still love you. That's important to me, to know that when I'm back to myself people still want to be with me and haven't given up. This is what will keep me going through the next one, knowing people will still be there.

I write this at the beginnings of my PMDD episode. The fog is rolling in, fears that never preoccupy my mind have taken root, and irrational thoughts are starting to sprout like an invasive species on the land. ​​​​​​​​​ There is a part of me that just wants to hide. Wants to throw in the towel. To just stop all the tasks, the doing, and the management. Let the wild take over. Inside I am the watchman, the guard holding the horde at bay. I feel my anger quickening as social interactions feel like sandpaper on my skin. When I lose myself in the awful, in the shadows, I remember there cannot be shadows without light. And when I turn my inner eye towards the flame, I remember how fleeting all this is. That like all the times before, this will pass, the horde will retreat, and I will be left with a field of wild flowers. At my core I am an artist that transmutes my pain into beauty. I weave my words together into a song that awakens my inner allies and guardians. I make my life beautiful, even if it's simply by using my imagination. To put it simply, I force myself to take in the good. I force myself to see beauty within the swamp. I force myself to search for the inner island of safety, rather than surrender to the bog. Today is hard, but I can do hard things. I am in the swamp, but for today what if I am a Swamp Princess. What if this place, were beautiful to me? What if I adored the crocks and the mud and snakes? What if for today, this sandpaper I am feeling on my skin, was polishing and smoothing the stony armor? What if, just for today, I was the person my inner child wished for when she cried herself to sleep?

Reproductive hormones and serotonin, stress hormones and neurotransmitters. The whole rickety biological pathophysiology of our women. The PMDD women, maybe all women. She sees the dangerous relays in the suffering body. She understands the mad pulses of the blood.

Similarly, there is debate about the term and diagnosis “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” (PMDD), which is used to describe a severe form of premenstrual depression. Some critics argue that the term, created by the American Psychiatric Association in 1993, pathologizes menstrual changes by giving women the label of a specific psychiatric “disorder,” and reinforces the idea that women are “crazy” once a month and should not be in positions involving great authority or stress.