22/05/2021
Today is one of the worst days in my month. I am sharing this to continue in an experimental therapy of my own to manage my ongoing symptoms. My brutally honest account and documentation of all my PMDD allows me to meticulously analyse all my “data” to better understand myself. The unpredictability of my condition has been one of the worst aspects. I have sabotaged careers, relationships, and my bank balance because of poor mental health. If I can better understand what influences my mental health, then I can better manage it. My other main reason in behind sharing my highly personal thoughts and experiences is in the hope someone just like me reads and relates. Thus, enabling them to feel less alone and more hopeful. If I could go back in time I speak to my younger self (as I am sure everyone would) I would say some things that may help with what was instore for me. I do not have a time machine so instead I write to anyone who has not yet heard of these ways in which to manage mental health or is feeling lost and unwell themselves.
As I said, today is one of the worst days I experience in my month. My physical symptoms at the beginning of the month are not too bad, mild cramps but once the heavy bleeding has been happening for two days the tiredness hits, the sort of tiredness that makes you feel like just been darted. This is accompanied with dizziness, nausea and finally a similar feeling internally that you get internally post birth; minus the pain but with the loose internal organs feeling. My whole midriff is so delicate I cannot be touched without yelping in pain and recoiling away from everybody. The physical symptoms likely have an impact on my state of mind, its difficult to know to what degree because I always have them. As for my foggy, distracted and easily confused brain; that is obviously exceedingly difficult to put into words seeing as that is what I am dealing with right now. Imagine being plucked up out of your life and dropped into another one in a parallel universe, everything looks similar but unfamiliar. You cannot stop your attention flying from one minute detail around you to another, constantly. You are unable to focus, listen or articulate anything. Just sheer confusion and all senses firing off repeatedly. Occasionally this state induces panic attacks and the fight or flight response kicks it. It is hell!!! It is my own personal hell every month, I try so hard to hide it and to keep going but it is exhausting and can get the better of me at times.
That is however a worst-case scenario and I believe that through my writing and talking as well as learning and experimenting I can control this or at least manage this condition to maintain some levels of “normality”.
So, yes, today is a bad day, the not the worst day in comparison to what it can be like. I am sitting quietly, not really engaging with others, I may have completed about 150 steps since I got up this morning so not exactly moving. This is because I am physically uncomfortable and bloody shattered. I feel immensely guilty for being like this, especially on a weekend. Feels so unfair on everyone else, the kids will just follow suit and do nothing, no one will get dressed and mealtimes will go out the window. I can get exceptionally low in these moments and truly hate myself for being a neglectful mother. Over the last 24 hours I have witnessed two separate incidences with my children that truly warmed my heart and gave me the grounding I needed. Henry threw a huge plastic elephant at Alfie, it hit him in the knee, and you could see it hurt. In retaliation, Alfie threw the elephant ears at Henry, but in ninja star move so they whipped threw the air and struck henry in the neck. All tears break loose, I can see they are both hurt and angry, the situation was going to into either full-on attack mode or run to mum. I paused and rolled my eyes knowing I was going to have to parent and deal with the situation. Neither of them was likely to back down, they would both want to induce pain in the other and they would both want to omit all blame. I sigh, brace and grab their hands. Now only because I did not know what to say or where to start, I must have paused. I think for quite a while because they obviously did their own assessing of the situation and instead had decided to just hug and comfort each other through their tears. I let go and sat with them and then quietly and calmly said “see boys, this is why we don’t throw toys.” I was in amazement of how this panned out, but it also came at a critical moment of when I was feeling like a s**t, lazy, grumpy mum. I realised I must be doing something right because of how kind and supportive they had been with one another when they comforted each other despite being angry. It is so easy to feel guilty and like you are doing things wrong and I am sure I do get a lot of things wrong but sometimes I get it right, I get it so right and I should be thinking of that. So, I made myself think of that and it helped, my mood has not got any worse and I have managed today to at least function and parent.
The second example of my children grounding me happened later in the evening when I was sitting outside, feeling isolated and alone and like a terrible mother for another reason that I can no longer remember. These are not exactly rational thoughts that are racing through my mind at these moments, so a lot of energy is spent on either ignoring these thoughts or pretending I am ignoring them by mentally exploring every possible outcome of an anxiety fantasy. So, I am sitting there tearing myself to shreds when I hear Charlotte on the swing singing to herself “I am so happy, I’m so happy, I’m. So Happyyyyyyeeeeyyyyyyeeeeyyyyyy”. Thank you, Charlotte, for my second reality check of the day, if my daughter is happily singing to herself about how happy she is then I must have got something right here as well and I need to cut myself some slack. This is the same girl that screamed for a full 10 minutes because I would not let her sit on a box, I should not have picked that fight. We argued and she stormed off and I felt bad, but here she is singing about happiness.
I could have so easily overlooked these moments and not paid any attention, sometimes depression or PMDD can feel like it sucks the life out of your recovery or even blocks it from progressing. It makes the future bleak or non-existent. Its hard to notice positivity around you, I think if you go looking for positivity there is a good chance that the mission could completely backfire and leave you feeling worse if you do not find it. Instead, try noticing the good things you do in others. Maybe the things and ways in which you have accomplished something should be around you when you feel like you are a failure. Being kind to ourselves is so hard but the effects it has on our general development and mental wellbeing is unquantifiable.
