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