I recently recieved an email from Molly Field asking me to share her blog post about Living with PMDD – here is an excerpt with a link to the full blog below.
“This post is for anyone who is a woman or knows and loves one. I am 45 and started experiencing hormonal changes about five years ago. Most of the changes were benign to slightly annoying. They started with foggy thinking, crying at a baby shampoo commercials, then included night sweats and very dry facial skin about a week before my periods and left me very confused for a while until I started to pay attention to it all.
Let me start by saying this: anyone who doubts the power of hormonal surges, falls, bounces or whatever, needs to have their head examined. The very substances and chemicals responsible for creating physical changes and menses in young women; deeper voices, chest and facial hair on young men and the ability to create and grow another human baby are some truly powerful shit. They are responsible for good moods and bad moods, heart and brain health and just about everything under our human suns. If your wife, sister, girlfriend, mother, aunt, boss, secretary, teacher, nun, crossing guard, neighbor says she’s having a bad day or that she’s PMSing, take her seriously and offer her a simple kindness. What I’m writing about, Pre-menstrual Dysphoric Disorder, PMDD, is like… PMS on meth.
Some people in my life suggest that when I get like this with both of you, that I am exposing myself to undue commentary or even sensationalizing my situation to garner sympathy. Nothing could be further from the truth EVER. I don’t need to tell anyone any of this. I am doing this because I hope to share a sliver of my life to allow someone, anyone out there; maybe someone you know if it’s not yourself, some semblance of hope when confronting this extremely desperate time of hormonal fluctuation. I don’t care if people look at me as though I have three heads; at times I probably did… “
To read more go to For the Ladies – Living and thriving with PMDD
More on PMS – go to PMS Friend or Foe