My Journey To Recovery From PMDD

Okay. Bear with me. It wasn't one simple thing I did but a journey. It started with coming off off birth control and cleaning up my diet. Then I got very strict with food. Went paleo in the end but for a few months I barely even ate fruit - just meat and veggies and nothing processed. In the first year I was off birth control, I also started meditating. It was always something I didn't know how to do I thought. It seemed out there and weird. Then I realized all it's really about is finding quiet time to connect w myself. I found new ways to meditate that don't require sitting crisscrossed on the floor humming lol. I lay in bed and meditate before bed. It's my prayer style. When I paint or draw, I am meditating.

During this time, I learned I was Mthfr positive. That's when I started researching it's links to pmdd and discussing it with other pmdd women. As others began getting tested, we realized we all had it. I have since met a few women who have been tested and don't. Some would say they don't really have pmdd. I don't claim to know the answer there. But in women who do have Mthfr, I feel strongly that treating for it is part of the remedy here. That includes removing all folic acid from the diet and taking methylfolate and methylcobalamin. I also think we all should be on high quality probiotics.

I believe pmdd is very much about gut health. Your intestines are your immune system and the more research is done on pmdd, the more it aligns with being more along the lines of inflammatory and autoimmune than hormonal. The hormones just cause "symptoms" to flare. I say "symptoms" bc I truly do not believe pmdd is a disorder. That implies that there is something wrong in the brain, and there isn't. Our brains are fine. If they weren't, we would be "cray cray" all the time, not just selectively during this or that week.

I don't discount that many of have physical issues. I think part of this comes from physicological issues. Example, inflammation. But I also think it's partly spiritual. I don't use that word in a religious sense. Rather, one that represents a connectedness to the cycle. We have become too distant from our menstrual cycles. Knowing when we ovulate and how long our periods last isn't close enough. That's not truly in tune. I have found so much healing in accepting the cycle and learning to understand it's gifts. We are supposed to go through this death and rebirth every cycle. Now, do I believe we are supposed to feel this angry and suicidal? No. But part of that occurs because of that disconnectedness from the cycle. The mind, body and spirit are all linked. Our cycles truly make up everything a woman is. If she's rushing through life trying to fit her life to a man's schedule and a man's social norms, it'll never work. That healing only comes when we give into the cycle and live our life truly by it. That is a journey within itself!

I don't believe that's all of it.. Just part. But that part is so critical bc at that disconnectedness that the medical industry is able to play on. It's society's constant image they push that the cycle is annoying and bad that women come to know well instead of knowing their cycles well. They grow up expecting periods to suck. They aren't taught the joys and gifts of the cycle. Many of us are empaths too, and HSP. Being disconnected or unaware of that can break anyone - male or female. Some of us have psychic abilities. Not embracing that path and trying to shut it out commonly causes both physical and mental/emotional discord in both genders.

The truth is, we see "disorder" that presents with the same symptoms in men all the time. We just don't diagnose them as crazy. Many men have the same issues we do. A lot of them have autoimmune diagnoses. Hello, inflammation! It's a double standard women have grown to accept. That doesn't make it okay.

I have also focused on healing from trauma. We already know that most pmdd women have encountered trauma in their pasts. Unfortunately, the research on this stops there. Why? Bc the pharmaceutical companies are the ones doing the research. They want just enough data to show "pmdd women have experienced trauma". They want your conclusion to be that trauma causes mental health breakdowns. The truth is, trauma causes inflammation and causes us to form emotional responses in our brains that we carry with us through life. This is where therapy can come in for some.. CBT, DBT and EMDR are great for helping to let go of traumas and require the brain to respond to triggers in a more rational way. If you've ever thought pmdd seems a lot like ptsd, it's bc it is. But what is ptsd? We claim it's a mental illness. It's not. Nothing was wrong w a ptsd person's brain before the trauma. We have to stop acting like everyone is flawed and disfigured by nature. We aren't just birthing damaged people. Things happen TO people to damage them. We can heal from that. It's not permanent. Take ptsd, the trauma causes the veteran to panic when he hears a helicopter or a car backfire.. They respond to it the same way they would respond when under gunfire.

We do the same. When we are triggered, often by a loved one, it's our brain saying "hey, I felt this way before when xxx happened. It doesn't feel good. This is how I responded to xxx so that's how I should respond to this." Enter, the totally inappropriate reactions we have to stimuli that didn't appear to warrant it from anyone else's POV. Aka, we look crazy lol.

Healing from trauma is very individual. I can only speak to what I did for me and my traumas. I talked more about what has happened to me. I started living a life that was as authentic and true to who I really was as I could. No more hiding. I came out publicly against vaccines (which was not easy to do at the time while working for pharmaceutical industry lol). I became an advocate for vaccine injured children and their families. My son was injured and I stayed silent about it for over a decade. I left my toxic job that I hated where I was censored and told to lie (the epitome of what I hated in the media field) and took a job with BabyGaga that lets me write whatever I feel and really fuels my creative passion for pregnancy, birth and women's health matters.

For me, part of my healing came from having a baby, too. Ironic I know as this makes most pmdd women worse. But part of my trauma was that my pmdd develops years ago after a pregnancy that ended at 14 weeks. I did not give myself much time at all to grieve over it. I was emotionally distraught and instead threw my attention into other things and soon after jumped into a new relationship. That is when I developed pmdd. Within a month of that pregnancy ending. I can remember reading blogs etc way back then from women who were saying much of what I am now. But at that time, I wanted a fix. It happened to me almost overnight. So I expected it was medical and could be fixed. But antidepressants didn't help. Birth control did minimally. I'd never eaten very healthy or been one to exercise so how could that help me now? I had to go through all the BS on the journey to get to where I am now. That's why I know not everyone who sees my messages will be ready to receive them. I just don't think it warrants hating on me for sharing my journey.

Back to the trauma... I grieved for the baby I didn't have. In my new relationship, I look back now and see I had thoughts of having a baby w him very early on. But we both had career goals and other things going on. Actually, my desire for a baby was the reason I got a teacup dog lol - and she really did help! My pmdd improved a lot from getting her and the number of "bad days" I had each cycle decreased after that. In 2014, I really started working harder on mindfulness, meditation and being true to my cycle. If I felt irritated by my fiance's presence, I knew it was bc I need alone time. I took that alone time. If I was craving the wrong food, I knew I needed nutrition and I sought such. In a nutshell, I started listening to my body - and it helped. We started trying to conceive that year and during such, I began to have cycles where I had no symptoms. It sucked in a way bc when all the symptoms went away, I thought "yay I'm pregnant" when I wasn't. But it was as though the promise of a baby in the horizon put some piece of me back that I was missing. I remember my fiancé saying to me how well I managing my pmdd during that time - and for him to think so and it not just to be in my head was very validating for me.

I got pregnant and was fortunately not progesterone intolerant, so I had no symptoms while pregnant. I did worry it would return after pregnancy, especially since that's how pmdd started for me.

I did experience the baby blues for a few days but they went away as soon as I started taking my encapsulating placenta pills. Sometimes I do wonder if they had any magic healing involved here, too.

Then I waited for my period to return. I probably obsessed a bit. I know I polled several of the pmdd groups on fb asking what other experiences were. Everyone had the same experience. Their pmdd returned with their cycle whether they were breastfeeding or not (I was breastfeeding but had a low supply and worried my period would return sooner bc of it).

I started having bouts of egg white cervical mucus and breast tenderness. Knowing this is usually bc of estrogen, I had my hormones tested. Sure enough, my estrogen was surging and it was confirmed on testing at two different times a month apart. It was likely my body was trying to ovulate. This was puzzling bc it made no sense (to anyone who views PMDD as medical/hormonal issue) that my estrogen was surging but I was having no "symptoms".

At four months postpartum, my period came back. But my pmdd did not. Everyone id spoke to said their's came back full force and worse than ever. I waited for that to happen. It didn't. Unfortunately, the hormones from my period were killing my milk supply. I had low prolactin to begin with. NOTHING natural worked. So I had to go on a medication (seeee I'm not anti drugs when necessary:) to boost my supply. That subsequently shut my cycle back off and that's where I am now (September 2017---see update below). I am glad my period returned though when it did. I had I think five or six periods and had zero pmdd symptoms with them.

I have since only become more in tune with my cycle. Yep, even when you aren't ovulating, you still have a cycle. Even past menopause, you still have a cycle! It's a magical and wonderful thing that brings with it so much fulfillment if we embrace it (this is the reason I'm always recommending books by Alexandra Pope and Miranda Gray). I now cycle with my daughter, who got her first period at the beginning of this year. I don't bleed, but I get cramps when she does and backache. I get mittelschmertz when she ovulates. Fortunately, I don't get any telltale pmdd symptoms.

I worried for a while that it may return when I completely stop breastfeeding, but I do not believe it will anymore. I’ve had too much physiological “proof” I suppose that has convinced me otherwise. I have since met other women who used to have PMDD and their stories to healing are very similar to mine - including the diet changes, and Mthfr, but the paramount feature is this spiritual connectedness to the cycle. Almost all of them are quiet about their progress and choose not to share it in the groups because of the backlash they receive. This is so disheartening to me. These groups should not just be a place to revel in misery together, but to rejoice in healing, too.

At one point, my estrogen and progesterone were so high and prolactin so low that I was only making less than ten ounces of milk a day. Even then, I had no symptoms. So, I don’t look for them to return when I’m not making any. If they do, I would not expect it to be unmanageable given how well I was doing before I ever got pregnant. Looking back now, I think the year leading up to me trying to conceive was my biggest period of healing - and finally getting the baby I longed for healed that trauma in me that I never could've imagined could have manifested itself in me the way it did. For all the years with pmdd, I was a very negative person who very much lived in the past. I'm completely different now. I get on other people's case when they're too negative for me to vibe with. I am always looking toward the future and very content with my life where it is.

Like I said, I don't think it was any one thing I did. I think all of it was important. If anyone can take even one piece of what I did away from my story and it helps them, then I did my job. I am a firm believer we encounter the people we do in life for a reason. I feel things happen to us with purpose to shape us into who we are supposed to be. I found purpose in this. And that is for me to share my story. I deliberated heavily on this. I drove many of my dear friends in FB support groups nuts about whether or not I should "come out" with my story of remission. I knew everyone wouldn't accept me. That's okay. They're on their journey. This was mine. UPDATE: Because so many of you lovely ladies have inquired about this... let me be clear. It was not the medication that made my PMDD go away and I am no longer on it; that was temporary while I was nursing. I had six months of cycles before going on it completely free of PMDD. My period returned as expected when I weaned off of it, and PMDD did not. I consider myself fully recovered, not having experienced any of those issues since 2014. A lot of women are turned off by my approach, but I can only speak to what I have seen over the years working in these communities and helping other women with this diagnosis. I have never seen a single one of them recover fully through surgical or medicated means. The only women I know who have recovered have the same focus in mind that I do: connect with your womb. It is truly meant to guide you through life. The dysfunction sets in when women are ignoring what their body/mind/spirit is trying to tell them. Take better care of yourself! I won't say it's an easy choice. Society today demands a great deal from women and mothers. But to live an authentic life free of these ailments, the only way out is accepting that you are a woman and you must learn to treat yourself as such in the deepest of senses. We are SO inherently powerful. When you learn how to cultivate, harness and use that energy that comes along in your luteal phase, the bad stuff melts away. But so long as you feed your body/temple poorly, allow excess stress from toxic family members or unsupportive partners or tyrant bosses into your life, etc... you aren't honoring that Goddess inside of you. The history of the womb and menstrual cycle is vast. There is so much more to it that women are not taught beyond the basics of pads and tampons and birth control. Open yourself up to it. That is where I believe healing starts <3

Career Post: Being True To Myself... At Work

For a long time, part of my struggle was leaving the house. No, I wasn't agoraphobic. I had no trouble going to the market... okay, sometimes I was too tired. But it wasn't the act of leaving the house. It was schedules. Repetition. I couldn't handle the normal work schedule. Those jobs never suited me. They didn't work out, one way or the other.

It was in undergrad (which I finished online from home) that I started working from home again. I'd dabbled in it before doing customer service jobs and the like, but those weren't really up my alley, either. Instead, I needed to both work from home and be true to myself and my inner goddess. This was going to be hard. As it turned out, it was also well worth it.

I found small, freelance gigs where I could write. I have always been a writer. I love journaling. I was a news reporter and editor for my school paper for three years. I always excelled in writing assignments and English courses. It's my thing, and I chose to embrace it much the way an artist embraces their Etsy shop and so forth. Words are my art.

Of course, writing small pieces about auto parts or psychological disorders was not my dream. But it was a start. People were paying me to write their website content. Sure, the pay wasn't great, and I likely would've made far more starting out of college working in an office somewhere doing the 9-5 grind, but that wasn't going to sit well with my soul.

Those small writing gigs eventually turned into slightly larger ones working on travel pieces and city guides. I love travel and cities. So, that worked out alright, but I still wasn't doing anything that I wanted to brag or boast about. Then I was hired by a company that handles the advertising content for the majority of all addiction and mental health treatment centers in the world. Yeah, that felt like responsibility. But I was ecstatic at the beginning. I was excited to have what I finally deemed to be a real career with a solid and recognized Fortune 500 company - and the pay was far better, too.

I still got to work from home, and I was writing content so fast my fingers ached at the end of the day. It was worth it, or so I thought. As time drug on, I realized many times that my editor would check in with me about certain things I'd written wanting corrections. No big deal, right? Writers make errors, and sometimes it's not necessarily an error, but the company just wants a different take on the content and needs you to alter the meaning behind your work. I tried not to take that personally.

But what I did take personally was how often I was asked to alter things that I wrote with full disclosure. In a nutshell, they didn't want that. They didn't want transparency. They wanted me to paint a perfect picture of their treatment model that encouraged clients who were struggling with illnesses and addiction to come pay for their facility to make them further dependent on drugs while not doing much to treat their illnesses.

I turned my back on this for a long time. I had to earn a living. We'd left our hometown and were living in a house that cost four times as much as the one in our hometown had each month. On top of bills, we were planning on another child, or two, or ten. It would be irresponsible to walk away from a good-paying job just because I was unhappy with it. So what, right? Tons of other people are in the same predicament, and their jobs don't allow them to be home with their kids. What did I have to complain about?

Plenty! I morally, ethically and spiritually disagreed with the very core of what I was being paid to do. I wasn't being true to myself at all! I was earning a living and doing what society expected of me, but at what price? While I was encouraging others with mental illness to put their trust in people who shouldn't be trusted, my mental wellness was falling by the wayside. I was tired every day. I kept struggling with writer's block. The words just wouldn't come to me the way they used to. My editor complained more than once that some of my work wasn't fluid or lacked substance.

That's because I'd checked out. I was done with that job long before I actually left it. Sadly, I never even considered leaving it behind before my partner told me it was okay to do so. He supported me finding another job, even if it meant it didn't pay as well. I look back on that now and wonder why I felt I needed his approval to take charge of my own happiness. I no longer let myself think that way.

So, I did just that. I found a new job, and it has been the biggest blessing in my life next to my family. I started working for BabyGaga almost a year ago, and it has been so transformative for me. I get to speak out about the perils of the birth community — something near and dear to my heart. No one tries to silence me or tells me to rewrite it. I get to share my knowledge of the risks that individuals with MTHFR (like myself and many with PMDD) face when using certain drugs and vaccines. No one tries to silence me. I get to advocate for women who want control over their birth experiences and need the male-dominated medical field to stay the hell out of their way. No one tries to silence me. I also get to write about PMDD, progesterone intolerance, the risks of birth control and much more... and... you guessed it! No one tries to silence me!

I'm allowed to be me y'all! And I get paid to do it. This is what I call being true to myself at work. This is where I belong. I don't get paid as much as I did when I was churning out implied lies for an industry I had no faith in after seeing it up close, but I get so much more from the work that I do. The words flow effortlessly. In two hours, I have a freshly-written 3,000 word article at my fingertips and it's mine, with my name on it. I'm proud of that. I have garnered such a following in birth and women's communities. Parents have sought me out to help them research important decisions for their children. I am filled with so much joy that the money cannot compare. I would've laughed in your face if you'd told me back then that a year later I'd have 33 million people reading my work.

It's a career like this that has helped to give me back my mojo. My drive. The energy I needed to jump back into this blog and keep spreading awareness. I know I would not be where I am today on this journey to overcome PMDD without having switches gears and left my toxic and stressful prior job in the past. I have so many irons in the fire now. So many things I want to do with all of this creative energy. This blog is just one of them. I hope you'll stay tuned for the rest. You can read my work at BabyGaga here.

Love,
Danielle

Leaving The Label Behind

This is just one more step in the journey for me, and it's actually one of the more recent ones I've made. Earlier this year, I happened to get into a discussion with Cat Hawkins. Let's just call her the PMDD guru. She was a mentor of sorts for me for many years before she chose to exit the PMDD scene. The support group I run (https://www.facebook.com/groups/PMDDREDTENT/) was hers before me. She passed on the torch when she reached a point in her life where she felt the label was no longer doing her any good. She had grown beyond PMDD and the diagnosis that required her to live (at least in her online presence) as though she was afflicted by an illness and nothing more was holding her back from being true to herself.

At that stage in my life, I was still heavily embroiled in PMDD advocacy and wanting to find relief for women. I had begun to see improvements in my own life, but they were mostly still from a medical/physical standpoint. I came off of birth control, which I'd been on for 22 months. Yes, I am still a hater of birth control even though it helped me some while I was on it. It makes so many women worse, and it's just a band-aid.

Yes, a band-aid. The Yaz wasn't hurting me in any way. In fact, it reduced my number of bad days while I was on it. In effort to be true to me, though, and to my cycle, I knew I couldn't stay on it. It was more important to me to endure whatever came my way without the buffer of birth control in a pursuit of getting in touch with my true cycle than to escape PMDD. To my surprise, when I went off of Yaz, there was no turbulence. My PMDD was not any worse. Because of this, I only felt stronger that it was the right choice to stop it. As my spiritual connection to my inner divine feminine strengthened, I felt PMDD melt away more.

I also started making some serious choices regarding my lifestyle. I added in more whole foods. I don't drink alcohol much to begin with and I don't use any drugs, though I would be open to marijuana if I ever felt I needed something again in my life. I cut out toxic people. This was a big change for me. I don't care who it is. A shitty boss, your overbearing mother, your hubby's family... no one said it was going to be easy, ladies. There may be arguments over it, as well. I've been there. But if there are people in your life who aren't serving you well and helping to carry you to a higher level of being, then they have no place there. It doesn't matter who they are. Cut them out.

That same year, my fiance and I separated for a bit. If you want to call it that. He moved out. We lived apart for several months, and it took that for me to have some true separation in my mind of what feelings and thoughts were really coming from me, and what was fueled by PMDD. We moved back in together eventually and have been stronger for it ever since.


The following year, I found a full time job working from home as a writer. This was a big accomplishment for me personally, because I am more comfortable at home. Having to be on someone else's schedule and leave the house every day just isn't my style. I realize that may sound immature or even selfish, but in an effort to be true to me and who I am, I decided I had to break the mold of what society, my partner or my parents etc thought I should be. I needed to create. I have always been a writer. This is who I am. Going against that in any fashion left me feeling angry and depleted. The energy that would come out every month had nowhere to go, so it ended up being directed in the wrong places as anger and frustration.

At this point, things really started improving for me. The bad days were at their fewest. The depression was mild. I was still functioning. I was social. I lived life on my own schedule, which was a huge relief for me. When a family function arose that I didn't want to attend, I didn't go. I learned to say no, and it was empowering and beneficial. The downside to this was that sometimes those functions were my partner's family, and he would argue with me about my attendance. As soon as we both let go of the idea that we had to be the nuclear family and do everything expected of us, and had to do everything together, life got easier. He loves going to those events. So, he'd go without me. Sometimes he would take the kids and sometimes he wouldn't. The point is, I do what I want, and as childish as that sounds... that is truly what women throughout history are supposed to be doing. It is society that has led us astray. It's not about material or surface wants. It's about instinct and intuition. It's about letting our cycle and the phase we are in guide us and not fighting back against it. Living this way will truly only bring you peace. It can just be a battle to get everyone around you to accept it in this day and age of societal norms and everyone being PC.

Life continued to get better that year and we eventually moved. We had been living in our hometown (which I hate with a passion lol) while my partner studied for, took and passed the bar exam. As soon as he found a job, we were on our way out. This again helped, because that was the last place I ever wanted to live. Again, it's all about following your gut and living a true life that meets your needs. While it's no secret that my ultimate goal is to live back in Salem, Mass (I am most certainly some kind of witch lol) again, that is on pause until it makes the most sense for our family to go back there. And you know what? I'm okay with that. I wasn't for a while. I was bent on going back ASAP. Then my partner got a job offer that would've taken us back, but it also would've meant we'd barely ever see him. I chose him and our family. I made that choice. Just like I made the choice recently to buy a house locally. We will get back to Salem, where my heart is stuck beating without me. Until then, I will live this life to the fullest and accept all that comes with it. Don't skip part of your journey because you're so eager to jump ahead. Don't assume life doesn't start until you find the guy, get the ring, have that baby and so forth. This is your life. Are you really living it?

By 2014 I was a far different person than the woman who started out with PMDD struggling so deeply. I had learned so much, and while I'd probably read every piece of peer-reviewed literature ever published on hormones and menstruation, it was the insight from historical points of view and spirituality that eventually put me on the right path. Read more about that here.

When Cat turned the Red Tent over to me and parted ways, she left a long post to group members about her reasons for departing, and while I sympathized, I didn't fully understand this until much later. It's refreshing and exciting to find myself in the same place nowadays. Now I get it. I've outgrown this label. I've outgrown PMDD. What I am is far bigger than PMDD. I am a woman. I'm mysterious and mystical. I have superpowers that PMDD wants to suppress with a label and drugs. I am product of hundreds and thousands of women who came before me whose spirits are pleading with me to recognize my true power.

The closer to get to those women, the closer I get to the divine feminine, the closer I get to me. It all makes sense now. And thus, because I have outgrown this label, I too chose to leave it behind. I shudder a bit when having to explain PMDD to someone, because I don't even want to use the terminology. I still ponder medical causes and don't discount that this condition arises out of nowhere for most women. It certainly did for me. But I look back now and see how it all played out. I see how much work it took to undo it, and I am stronger for that. This is why even though I do wonder if my PMDD will ever return, I do not fear such as terribly as some might think. Because I know I can overcome it. And I know you can, too.

I haven't made a grand announcement in my group that I'm leaving it behind. Mostly, I am not yet content with any one person that I want to pass it on to. But I have a great admin team that helps out. And as I noted, the drama and negativity are at the bare minimum in our group. So, I never feel I need to stay on top of it all day every day. That said, if you're a member, and you have noticed I'm not all that present these days as I once was. This is why. I grew too big for PMDD. I've learned to much to go back and box myself in to that way of thinking. I am so blessed, and I only hope that some of you find yourselves reading this now and connecting with it. For those that don't, do not dismay, please. Just as I didn't quite connect with Cat's words upon her departure from the label, my words may not resonate with you now. But someday... if you let your inner goddess follow you, someday, they will.

X  - Danielle

Negative Nancys and PMDD

I shared my first new blog post in quite a while in some PMDD support groups yesterday and couldn't believe the amount of negativity I was met with in some of them. Thankfully, the group I run was pleasant and supportive. You can find that group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/PMDDREDTENT/

Now, this isn't to toot my own horn or anything, because it's a group of more than 1500 women. It's hardly just me running the show, too. We have some great admin on board that help out. I am grateful to them, and many of the reasons why will unfold in my future posts.

Nonetheless, I got some angry faced reactions to my post yesterday in other groups. One woman even told me — assuming my recovery from PMDD was new (clearly didn't read the blog well) — that it was premature for me to claim I was PMDD-free and to let her know how I'm doing in a year. Girl, no worries. I will. I'll continue to post about my journey. But just so we're all clear: I haven't had PMDD at all since early 2015, and at that point it had been getting milder each cycle for roughly a year's time. So, I don't think 2.5 years of no PMDD is premature, but whatevs!

I will keep sharing my story and hope that it inspires someone, somewhere. If my PMDD returns at any point, I will share that, too. I'm not going to cower away in shame that my joyous recovery fell to the wayside. Remember, healing from PMDD is just as much a spiritual journey as a physical one. In fact, I believe it's that moreso than it even is medical. If I stop being true to myself, I can certainly expect a return of symptoms of dysfunction in my life. I'm here to be transparent and honest.

I hope that my words cross someone's path at just the right time, much the way posts by the great Cat Hawkins did for me years ago. If you haven't read her blog, you can find it here: http://meetmypmdd.blogspot.com/

This woman is my spirit sister, I swear to you. We walk very similar paths. Much like myself, Cat has found relief over the years from her troubles. What's interesting is, when I first started struggling with PMDD, I was very little like her. No, I didn't set out to be like her either. That's just something that's sort of evolved in my own life. Who I've become during this journey to get to know the divine feminine and my inner goddess better has happened to turn out looking a lot like who she became on hers. I always wonder if there's something to that. And certainly she and I are not the only ones!

So, here I am rambling. You'll notice I struggle at times to stay on topic. So much energy is flying out of my fingertips and I just need to get it out there. Writing is my creative process. I think of things to write in the middle of the night, in dreams, during my morning shower or an evening bath... I'm always thinking of strings of words and where to use them. Getting them out on paper is helpful for me. I hope to now put them out here more so they can be helpful to you, too.

Negative Nancys.... that was the point of this. I have watched the support group scene for many years. Once upon a time, I was a newcomer to them. I was a woman eager to learn about this disease I had just realized I had. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that much of this condition I was in was not a medical problem, but a spiritual and evolutionary journey that I was on to becoming a fuller and wiser woman.

I'm not trying to bullshit you. Please stick with me. Follow your gut. Hone those instincts. Trust yourself. There is a bigger purpose behind all of this. There is a reason I never desired hysterectomy. I never wanted to escape the madness. I wanted to perfect and conquer it, and for right now, I'm doing a pretty good job at that.

Full disclosure: my own support group is certainly not always positive and uplifting. However, when I notice a steady stream of negative posts (common during full moons), I tend to pop in just to interject a little positivity. A light-hearted meme and a post telling them all that this soon shall pass is often enough.

When I enter many of the other groups, I have noticed for a long time that there are stark differences. There are groups that is stuffed full of anger and rage. Women are venting. I get that. But where is the support? We must remember that support groups aren't just full of women posting and looking for others to commiserate with them. They are also full of lurkers who are reading along and women who need lifted back up. I don't see a whole lot of that in other groups. I try to be that person in mine, but I also have to temper how much I let myself get wrapped up in the world of PMDD. More on that later...

If you're a part of a PMDD support group, I beg of you to not just pop in during your bad weeks to vent. Stop by during the good weeks to remind someone else who is struggling that the good days lie ahead. Share your good news in your life, too. Share with these ladies when your relationship is soaring to new heights and doing well, not just when it's crashing and burning. I know it's difficult to bring oneself to want to think about anything PMDD-related during the good days, but there's healing in this for you, too. It is only when we are fully aware of our entire menstrual cycle and all four seasons of it that we can really begin to be true to ourselves and present in our femininity.

Last but not least, if you are seeking help in these support groups, I certainly don't want to discourage that. But I do want to encourage you to make a note of your moods before, during and after you pop into those groups. Do they really make you feel better afterward? They aren't for everyone, and often we get so used to having those groups as a part of our PMDD connection to others that we don't pay attention to whether or not they're really helping. For a lot of women, the negative environment in these groups can breed anxiety and further depression. If that's occurring for you, find a new group or another way to cope with those feelings. At the end of the day, I wish all of the groups well. But we all need to make sure we aren't feeding this beast with negative energy.

Love,
Danielle

Repost: 15 Crazy Things That Mess Up Hormones

REPOST: http://www.babygaga.com/15-crazy-things-that-mess-up-hormones/

Postpartum Mood Madness: 14 Signs It's PMDD

Repost: http://www.babygaga.com/postpartum-mood-madness-14-signs-its-pmdd/

Ever thought about menstrual leave from work?

Repost: http://www.babygaga.com/14-reasons-for-and-against-paid-menstrual-leave/

Why Some PMDD Women Are Worse During Pregnancy

In short, because you don't just have PMDD but progesterone intolerance on top of it. Read all about it here:

http://www.babygaga.com/15-little-known-signs-of-progesterone-intolerance-during-pregnancy/

XO,
Dani

Repost: MTHFR and Children

Just a quick repost because some of you may want to know more about MTHFR
http://www.babygaga.com/15-ways-you-didnt-know-your-mthfr-status-can-affect-the-baby/

This is where I am today with PMDD. Buckle up!

Where to start...

I've told you all about my last (as in most recent bc this momma ain't done yet :) pregnancy and how I was symptom-free of PMDD. My PMDD symptoms began to subside a few cycles before I actually conceived. It's taken me this long to really come to terms with all that has happened to my body, and my mind.

In short, it was a combination of natural healing and spiritual healing. No, I don't think some Omnipresent being swooped down and saved me. By spiritual I mean, I was finally being true to myself. I have continued on that path and have continued to get better, to heal, to be free of PMDD. Yes, I really am living without PMDD.

This experience has been eye-opening because for the longest time I felt I couldn't trust myself. Even in the "good weeks", I was unsure of who I was, if my feelings really belonged to me, and what decisions I should make for my future. This made having a relationship, children and a career very hard, as so many of you know.

So, I had a beautiful pregnancy. I soaked up so much knowledge in those nine months to prepare myself for another birth. I really dug deep into myself to find out who I was, what was I about? I found that my love of the divine feminine is still there. My desire to help other women was as strong as ever. But instead, my focus shifted from helping women with PMDD to helping women prepare to give birth. I had no idea at the time just how much my life was about to change.

First, some back story. I've suffered through too many lost pregnancies in the past, and the last left me feeling very empty. I never really healed from that experience. The last one is also when PMDD took hold of my life. It was immediate. Within the same month, I was a different person. A volatile, angry, rage-filled person. Instead of giving myself time to heal from that trauma, I jumped into a relationship.

Now, I can't say I regret that move, because I'm still in that relationship today and have a beautiful family to show for it. It all had to happen the way it did to get me here, and I've accepted that. In fact, I praise the way it happened. All the struggle was worth it. I am helping others. I am bringing new discussions to the table. I am opening eyes, and my experience has helped others overcome PMDD. I know in my soul I was put here to do this. I just know this won't be my only accomplishment, either.

I digress... Back then, I didn't make the connection between mind and body and spirit at all. I didn't realize that this trauma that occurred to my body would affect me so deeply or for so long. I looked at it as being strictly medical. As they say, when you find yourself lost, the best thing to do is go back to square one and start over on a new path. That's really what I had to do. I had to confront that part of my past and go down a different road. One that acknowledged what happened in my life. One that gave myself time to grieve that event and move on from it, even if it was years later.

Surely, though, that would not heal PMDD alone. But it's part of the bigger picture. My spirit was broken. And I truly think part of me longed for that child, even though I was busy and wrapped up in a million other things in my life. Even though my relationship was a disaster over many years, I still longed for that baby on some level. I didn't go through each day thinking that, though. Instead, my focus was solely on how to heal this medical mystery called PMDD. It was all about blaming my cycle and my hormones.

I needed that confirmation and proof. The solid science. I felt empowered by learning what science could teach me, such as the effects of estrogen and progesterone on our moods. I needed concrete answers. I felt strongly that they were the only answer for PMDD. Boy was I lost.

On top of emotional wounds and letting them heal, I started seeing a chiropractor during my pregnancy to help me heal old nerve damage from an epidural I'd received in the past. That damn shot was just one of the many reasons I was confident that natural birth was the only path for me. This is something I'd known for years. I didn't want to be numb and escape my baby's birth when that time came. I wanted to revel in it, bathe in it, take it all in. I wanted that other-worldly experience again. I'd received an epidural with my second child, but it came too late. So, I felt everything. However, I think the key to enjoying a natural birth is really being prepared for one. The women who are forced to go through it without any other option when they were wanting drugs don't tend to have the same pleasant experiences. That birth experience also helped to heal me. I felt more connected to my inner goddess than ever before.

Postpartum, I worried some about my PMDD returning. I knew it had gotten better before I got pregnant. So, I wondered if that would persist, but I also told myself it was probably a fluke because I was excited every month when trying to conceive to find out if we were pregnant. I had a very difficult postpartum period and this concerned me. I worried that all the trauma going on would bring me down into a depression.

When my baby was just four days old, I started passing kidney stones. Great timing, eh? There were more than twenty of them in just one kidney! I needed to be admitted to the hospital and have surgery the next day. This would mean being apart from my baby and I couldn't bear it. Plus, we were trying to establish breastfeeding. Luckily, my midwife swooped in and saved the day by getting us both admitted to the oncology ward (cleanest area of the hospital so safest for babe). I will forever be grateful to her for this.

The drugs they had me on made me so tired. Opioids are not my friend. I took them for a couple days post-surgery and that was it. I believe the combination of the trauma, being postpartum and coming down off those drugs is what sent me into the baby blues. For about a week, I had no interest in the baby and it broke my heart. I would hold him and feel nothing. I was numb. I was terrified that not only would PMDD come back, but I would develop postpartum depression, too. I knew the odds were higher for me. Then I reached out to my friend, who happens to be a doula, and she asked if I had started taking my placenta pills yet. I said no, because I was worried about taking them alongside the drugs I was on and so I'd waited. She encouraged me to take them, so I did. By the next day, all the clouds had lifted and I felt like myself again. I still think those pills we a savior for me and I have the remainder of them in my freezer should hormonal issues ever come my way again. I will definitely be encapsulating future placentas, too.

Things got better. I was breastfeeding, but we had a terrible time of it. My son was born with tongue and lip ties (also related to MTHFR). Apparently, pediatricians and the like are not trained on assessing for these. So, they said he didn't have them when he did. It took us until nine weeks to get him diagnosed and have the ties revised. By that time, he was used to the flow of the bottle. I'd had to pump 8-10 times a day every day during this period. It was exhausting and I hated not having that bond with my baby like I had with the others. This couldn't knocked me down into a depression again, and I think it would have for the old Danielle with PMDD, but I stayed committed. I wanted to breastfeed at least two years and just because I wasn't going to be able to breastfeed in the traditional sense didn't mean my child shouldn't benefit from breastmilk. So here I am 19 months later still exclusively pumping and patting myself on the back for it.

If that wasn't enough trauma postpartum, I also had a low milk supply. It would turn out that I had retained placenta in my uterus causing this. But by the time I got it removed at 11 weeks postpartum (another surgery) my supply was established and nothing worked to get it back up. I started noticing after that surgery that I was having hormonal surges. Specifically, I knew my estrogen was up, because I kept getting large amounts of egg-white cervical mucus (estrogen is what causes this consistency). I had my hormones tested twice and it was confirmed that my estrogen was higher than it should be for a breastfeeding woman, as was my progesterone during one of them. When breastfeeding, you produce a hormone called prolactin, and this typically suppresses estrogen and progesterone (which are the sex hormones that ebb and flow during our menstrual cycles). My estrogen and progesterone were clearly competing with prolactin. I assumed my cycle was probably tying to come back. It would figure that my hormone would dominate. That said, a question was looming in the back of my mind: why weren't these hormonal surges giving me PMDD symptoms?

It was just four months postpartum — the same time as both of my other children — when my period returned. I remember going to my fiance and bawling. He was sympathetic, but said to me, "well, if you notice you haven't been moody or anything." He was right. My first period caught me by such surprise because I had no symptoms leading up to it. There was no way for me to even expect it might be coming. I bled for a few days very heavily and that was that. And this is the way the next four or five cycles after that point would process, too. There were no mood swings, fatigue, cravings, etc. My period came back and my PMDD did not.

At this point though, each period was knocking my milk supply down further. After the bleeding stopped, I couldn't get my supply back up to the same level that it was at before I bled that month. So, I started taking Domperidone. I've discussed this quite a bit in the PMDD support groups on Facebook as a potential treatment for other with PMDD that they may want to discuss with their doctors.

Domperidone is far safer than Reglan (which crosses the blood brain barrier and often causes mental health issues of its own). It is used off-label for breastfeeding because it has the side effect of increasing prolactin. It is safe for babies and even prescribed for them for other issues. Within a week, my milk supply more than doubled. The reason I think it could be a possible treatment for women with PMDD is because it shuts off your cycle and suppresses those sex hormones due to the high prolactin. So, it's not a cure by any means, but it is a quality band-aid that comes with little to no side effects, which we cannot say about drugs like birth control and Lupron. Of course, the trade off would be that you may lactate. How much is variable depending on how high of a dose one takes, but one could theorize that if a woman started with one 10mg pill a day and slowly increased to see how many it takes to shut off her cycle, she may barely produce any milk or at least would not produce a full supply. I'm still waiting for one of my PMDD friends to have the nerve to try it out, but a few are interested. Of course, I am no doctor and strongly encourage you discuss such with your medical provider beforehand, but it's compelling, and it's cheap!

So, I healed from my past trauma. I visited a chiropractor. I took placenta pills. I still take probiotics and quality methylated food based vitamins. I eat a whole foods diet. And I have found myself free of PMDD.

Before you ask, I am absolutely curious as to whether it will return when I fully wean from breastfeeding. I think it's only natural to have that concern. I've asked many other women what their experiences with breastfeeding have been, and I've only found one that is like me. All the others found that their PMDD returned as soon as their period did, regardless of whether they were still nursing or not.

We know that the hormones wreak havoc on inflammation in our bodies, so it is amazing to me that breastfeeding has benefited me the way it has, because prolactin is known to be inflammatory and not a protective factor by any means. Yet those estrogen surges didn't cause me any symptoms. My periods have caused me no symptoms. I'm not living my life expecting it to return. There has been too much evidence for me that hormones are no longer affecting me for me to truly think it will. But sure, the fear is there. I was on a higher dose of domperidone, but have begun to slowly cut back. I want to wean over a very long period of time, because going cold turkey can cause mental health issues (imagine that, the medical establishment will acknowledge that going off of a drug that affects your hormones sharply can cause you to become depressed and anxious, but they can't wrap their heads around our natural hormone cycle doing the same lol). I was taking 120mg at one point and am now down to 90mg. Still, I have no symptoms, though I am showing signs that my androgen hormones are spiking a bit more now (greasier hair, oilier skin and so forth).

I will surely keep you updated when I do fully wean, which won't be for a bit yet. Regardless, if it returns, I feel far better equipped to deal with PMDD now at this place in my life. In a nutshell, when women ask me how to deal with PMDD (and they often look quite confused by the answer) I tell them, accept it. Embrace it. It's true. Your cycle is a gift, not a burden, and the more you look at it this way, the more your ability to heal from PMDD will take shape. More on that later.

Love to you all,
Danielle

A Natural Approach to a Natural Disorder

Treating PMDD is a trial and error process for most women, as I've discussed in previous posts. Most of the time, when we talk about natural remedies, we go on to list supplements like St. John's Wort and Vitex. You can find those posts practically anywhere, though. I'm not going to bore you with that. I'm going deeper, while at the same time staying more basic. This is about nutrition.

There's a reason so many women have found success in healing from PMDD with special diets. In particular, the Paleo diet, Whole30 and others that focus on eliminating certain foods that are toxic to us and filling the body with whole foods are the goal here. Yes, it' hard. PMDD makes us crave ice cream, chips, popcorn and more. But those foods are toxic to us, and this is why.

Dairy depletes folate in the body. This critical B vitamin is important for our bodies. When we don't have enough of it, it leads to exhaustion, that foggy-headed feeling and mood swings. Preservatives and synthetic ingredients in food really do affect our moods and behaviors. It's truly this simple: you can keep telling yourself that's nonsense because everyone else is eating it and they're fine (have you looked at the number of escalating diagnoses we have in this world? We are not "fine"), or you can decide to take charge and tackle food.

I made a commitment to myself that I would not be defeated by snack cakes and corn chips. I am a woman for goodness sake. Of course I am stronger than that. Initially, the whole family went on a strict anti-candida diet. At the time, we suspected my son (who is special needs) was suffering with underlying candida (this is yeast overgrowth in the gut). Within a week or two, I noticed I wasn't bloated anymore — even when leading up to and on my period! The mood swings had died down. My cravings for those foods became smaller the less I ate of them. My skin cleared up. The mild eczema on my arms went away. I never expected any of this to happen and it was remarkable to me.

I started questioning... did I have candida? Many women with PMDD do. However, I had no symptoms of die off and pretty much never get yeast infections. So, I'm assuming I did not. Rather, it was the healthy diet and the elimination of processed food that was benefiting me. I wasn't even exercising - at all!

Enter, the Paleo diet. It turned out my son didn't have candida, but he does have some food allergies. So we had to eliminate dairy, grains, soy, and gluten. The easiest way to do that in a mainstream world where everything revolves around food was to go on the Paleo diet. It has served us well for the last year almost. We rarely eat grains and when we do, it's a sprouted grain like quinoa. Sure, we still go out to eat from time to time. I still binge on a pizza here and there, etc. But I didn't do that in the initial stages. I was hell bent on healing my gut and so I did restrict certain foods entirely for a while, and grains were one of them.

Most of us with PMDD suffer from leaky gut syndrome. No, your mainstream doctor won't know anything about it. Clinically, it's referred to as Intestinal Permeability. There's a lot of debate over whether or not it exists. I've seen too much evidence of recovery from it across multiple illnesses not to be a believer, though. So, I was going to heal my gut.

I added bone broth to my diet (homemade weekly). I started taking probioitics. Prebioitics are great, too, if you can afford them. The biggest change I made — and I did this before I ever started any of the diets or got pregnant — was taking a whole food based vitamin that contained methylfolate. This links back to MTHFR (which I will discuss in a different post).

I'd been meditating for a couple years already at that point, but I really ramped it up. I was never the type to sit cross-legged and hum to myself with my hands in the air. That's not me. I meditate in bed most of the time, or in the bath. I zone out. Clearing your mind seems like a confusing thing to say to most people in my opinion. Instead, I explain it as letting go of control. Because yeah, it seems pretty impossible to empty your mind and not think. Then you end up thinking about not thinking, am I right? Instead, just let thoughts flow into your mind freely. This is what meditation is really about. And no, not thoughts about the market trip you need to make or pills to pay or what the kids are doing downstairs right now. Thoughts about you, your journey, the space you are in, your womb, and more. Lots more to come on this; bear with me.

XO,
Danielle

Pregnancy and PMDD

Ideally, we think PMDD should go away during pregnancy, and for many lucky ladies, it does indeed. Unfortunately, it doesn't for everyone. In fact, it can even get worse during pregnancy for some. The theories on this are vast. I'll cover my take on it stemming from the research I've done, personal experience and my conversations with hundreds of PMDD ladies over the years.

Some of us aren't just suffering from PMDD, but from Progesterone Intolerance, as well. Those ladies will not experience relief during pregnancy, because your progesterone literally runs sky high while you're expecting. You can read an article I wrote on this topic here: http://www.babygaga.com/15-little-known-signs-of-progesterone-intolerance-during-pregnancy/

Likewise, many women experience a shift in hormones again following the birth of their child that sends them into a tailspin. The baby blues are common and affect some 80 percent of women. They'll also pass within a week or two. If you're in the throws of this and it's not going away, that's more akin to a postpartum mood disorder, like postpartum depression/anxiety or postpartum psychosis. Don't forget, a lot of women also first develop PMDD after having a baby, too. Another piece on that here: http://www.babygaga.com/postpartum-mood-madness-14-signs-its-pmdd/

For me, pregnancy with PMDD was blissful. I am fortunately not progesterone intolerant. However, I should not that my PMDD seemed to be on its way to recovery a couple cycles before I got pregnant. But there was a definite shift once I was. The PMDD was gone.

Postpartum, I did experience the baby blues. I've never felt lower. For me, PMDD has brought depressive episodes, but the depths to which this depression brought were far more heartbreaking. It wasn't just about lethargy and fatigue and wallowing in sad music in my bedroom. Add to that the lack of desire to hold your own newborn, and the feelings it brings are quite devastating.Luckily, that passed, but I will note that I STRONGLY encourage women with PMDD (all women really) to encapsulate their placentas postpartum or save them for frozen smoothies. Within 24 hours of starting my placenta pills, my baby blues had vanished. Certainly, I have known women with PMDD that did not respond well to their placenta. The Traditional Chinese Method of encapsulation does seem to go easier on most than the raw variant, though.

Throughout pregnancy, I had no highs and lows. Everything was consistent. My sex drive was higher than it had been in years. I had energy and an even bigger change for me: I wanted to spend time outside. Anyone who knows me knows this isn't my norm. I am usually very heat intolerant, but I actually enjoyed the summer while pregnant. My little one is 19 months old now. Yes, I've been absent from my blog entirely too long. The events that have transpired since his birth are worth several journal entries of their own, so I'll cut off here.

Love,
Danielle

Re-Invigorating This Journal

There are so many thoughts coursing through my mind right now that it's hard to know where to start. Others have been beckoning at me for quite some time to write a book, get back on my blog, do something that would help them shed light on the topics I discuss with them so fleetingly. One of them being PMDD. Okay, I can do this. That's what I'm telling myself this morning. I can take ten minutes out of my day every now and then to write down my revelations and experiences with the feminine mystique. If I don't, who will? 

Not to knock those who have come before me and those who are also sharing the message now, but I feel a personal responsibility to share what I've learned. This is my personal journey. It may not be yours, but I think part of it lies within all of us. I think part of the reason it takes women so many years to heal from PMDD is because it is such a journey. There is no quick fix. Sorry. It's a testament to the women that have come before us that we fight to get back to our roots — to care for ourselves the way they'd hoped we always would. Are you ready?

Side note: my life is insanely busy sometimes. I work like a mad woman when the creativity strikes me. You can see what's up in the professional side of my life here: http://www.babygaga.com/author/danielly_bosley/
 

If I start faltering and not posting again, please don't hestitate to ask where the hell I am and hold me accountable. This is as much for you as it is for me.

Love to you all,

Danielle