CW – Suicidal ideation

It's PMDD awareness month!

PMDD = hormonal/genetic thing making you abnormally irritated, angry, unfocused, depressed, and in many cases suicidal.

I'll be re-tweeting stuff re: what it is, how it's diagnosed, where to go for help/advice BUT for now.1/

I want to take you on a journey to my lowest point, and where I am now, after treatment. I have only told two close friends this, so it’s not small thing for me to do. 2/

The timeline is a little fuzzy. I’ll recall it as best I can.

So growing up (I told you this will be long!) I was always an angry and moody teen.

Looking back now, it could well have been PMDD, but I’ll never know... 3/

I’ve always imagined my own death.
Like a lot.

In secondary school I remember it being an AWFUL lot.

I never thought I was ‘suicidal’ – I was never wanting to ACTUALLY do it.

Just always imagining what it would be like,
where I would do it,
how I would do it. 4/

I was very creative with this! 5/

Growing up, I also didn’t know anything about mental health. Sure, I knew people died by suicide. I just never really thought about it too deeply. 6/

When I did begin to learn about it, my view of depression was still the whole ‘not getting out of bed for months’ type depression.

That wasn’t me.

Therefore, I wasn’t depressed. /7

It wasn’t until 2014/15? (when I was 25) I began to notice my emotional tolerance wasn’t what it used to be. /8

Coupled with a very stressful working environment (A very toxic colleague) and moving to a new city with no friends. I would get periods of time where I couldn’t cope emotionally. /9

I would get snappy - which wasn’t like me.

I would get really tearful over the tiniest of things - which wasn’t like me.

I would just sit at home and spiral - which wasn…ok, maybe a BIT like me, but nowhere near as bad. /10

It was effecting my relationship and certainly my work. I was making so many small mistakes all the time. I just couldn’t focus. /11

I was self distancing (before it was cool) from colleagues at breaks,

having to leave to lab to cry in the toilet, over the smallest of comments.

Compose myself, and come back. /12

I knew this wasn’t like me.

And slowly but surely. It was getting worse.

Each month getting worse and worse.

I would spend my entire weekend in my flat, alone and crying.

Like UGLY crying. /13

Knowing I needed help, but not wanting to go the doctors when I could barely keep it together, I vowed each month to make an appointment /14

Only for that vow to coincide with (unknowingly to me) my period, or the weekend before, so I would either ‘get over it’ and feel fine, or the doctor wasn’t open to book an appt. THEN it would be my period, and I’d be fine.

No help needed!
/15

It wasn’t until my boyfriend at the time, told me my moods were pretty much monthly.

OH! It’s hormonal!
Ok!

Went to get a hormone balance check – all fine. (PMDD isn’t a hormone balance issue). /16

I decided it must by my implant! Tried to get it taken out.

GP/gyno kept refusing.

‘But what if I get pregnant?’ UGH!

1. There are many other methods
2. Can I not be trusted?
3. I’ve told you what it’s doing to my moods, I’ve requested it to be removed – respect my wishes!

I finally got them to do it, but only because I was forced to back down and take a prescription of the pill.

Despite not wanting hormonal contraception.

I took the prescription form – and put it in the bin. /18

OH MY GOD! Within 2 weeks.

2 WEEKS!

I was feeling amazing.

Like… I can’t even describe.
/19

I remember just sat on the sofa, alone, no TV, no phone.

No spiralling…
I remember the thought I had.

‘I genuinely feel content, and happy.’

WTAF.
/20

I felt positive, motivated, focused.

I had NEVER felt utterly and genuinely content with my life.

EVER.

And I was living in Cambridgeshire, on £16k a year, in a town I had no friends in!
/21

This is where I can’t place my lowest event.

Before the implant was out, or a year or so later, when I began to spiral again.

Either way.

I was depressed.

Very depressed.

And in control of a moving vehicle.

/22

Tears were streaming down my eyes. They couldn’t clear fast enough.

To make matters worse, there was torrential rain.

And I was doing 90mph on a motorway.

The fast lane.

Next to the metal central reservation.

Oh how tempting it felt.
/23

So… damn… tempting...

I wasn’t paying attention to the road.

Like you realise your near your destination and snap back to reality, thinking how did I get here?
/24

Just deep in thought, and wrestling with myself.

Do it.

Don’t do it.

DO IT!

DON’T. DO. IT.
/25

Then I snapped back to reality

Moved to the inner lane

Slowed down to 60mph

And calmed myself down

I went to the doctors soon after (I think)
/26

Luckily, the GP was amazing. (Dr. Sophie G – I think, in Chesterton) I told her that my mood crashes each month, it’s effecting my relationships and my jobs. (Literally as plain as that, getting mildly choked up).
/27

I think she mentioned PMDD, I can’t remember. But she looked into it for me.
My next appointment she told me the treatment options she found and discussed them with me.

We decided on 10mg Citalopram taken for 2 weeks before my period.
/28

With mild side effects….

(the worst being a reduced sex drive, and reduced appetite (while the latter is appealing), it makes you unable to decide what to eat because you want nothing, but physically you’re about to pass out)

I became quite literally – mentally stable.
/29

The phrase mentally stable feels stigmatised, because in my mind, I don’t hear it as a positive thing.

I instantly think of the opposite – mentally unstable

and how this is often perceived as ‘crazy’ or ‘mental’, and very often associated with women who are ‘unruly’.
/30

Don’t like calling myself depressed, or claiming I ‘have depression’ as it feels like I don’t, because most depressed people can’t predict it.

I feel like a fraud.

I put it in my calendar.

I can plan my life around it.

A hugely beneficial thing about PMDD.
/31

My view on depression is still (and wrongly) that because I can go to work, and mildly function, it’s not depression, depression.

I still have a way to go in accepting my PMDD, and overcoming this stigma of feeling outcast from others
/32

But if we spread awareness of this disorder/condition, more people will realise they have it too and get help./33

I also planned to do a scientific study on myself, taking blood/saliva/urine samples over a few months, with/without treatment, via metabolomics – to try and uncover the mechanisms behind it, and perhaps even biomarkers… /34

However, due to COVID-19, my lack of progress in my actual PhD, and a more stringent ethics process than I’d expected, these plans are on hold. /35

However my idea is very much there, and I would still love to do this, wherever I end up after my PhD. If you’re interested in helping me, I would love to hear from you. /36

Thank you for reading
/37

#pmdd #periods #pms #depression #pmddawareness
#pmddawarenessmonth2020 #ignitethefightpmdd #PMDDpeeps #PMDDhour @viciouscyclepmd @IAPMDglobal @MEvPMDD

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