I PMDD is due to trauma

Because PMDD isn’t due to any abnormal hormonal imbalance, just my brain’s sensitivity to the changes in hormones, it’s been my experience that after enduring several traumatic events which left me with a PTSD diagnosis and an autoimmune disease, I also discovered that my sensitivity to that time before my period skyrocketed. Symptoms and their Severity I need not mention as we’re all too familiar. Adversity makes you stronger but trauma does not. Trauma is a wound that one spends the rest of their life either healing or reopening. The mistake I made after my trauma was treating myself as if I hadn’t been traumatized. Pushing through the stress, fighting my new level of neediness because “I’m strong. This won’t get me.” But I couldn’t fool my body. Despite what I tell myself I’m more vulnerable than before. My nervous system is sensitive. Conflict real or imagined scares overwhelms me. The more I deny it the more reactive I am to stimulus. It’s only been through radical acceptance and loving myself unconditionally as if I were my own babe, does my system start to regulate. I’m an adult and have no other arms to crawl into. Also my trust is so fragile, it is only myself who I will allow in.

Sometimes PMDD makes me feel like a wild animal that’s just trying to protect itself. The more compassion I hold, the gentler I am, the softer the edges of my PMDD. PTSD is not me. PMDD is not me.