PMDD and ADHD

Almost a year ago now, I had a severe depression episode… one where I thought about hurting myself and believed everyone would be better off without me. It was scary. It was at that point I started doing research and realized I may have PMDD.

PMDD stands for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. I’m sure many women and even a lot of men, have heard of PMS (which stands for premenstrual syndrome). PMDD is like PMS but more severe and dangerous.

I have a cycle I go through each month. It starts with my period, during which I have bad cramps and bleed for 5-7 days. Usually the worst of it is around day 3 or 4. After that comes around a week or week and a half of good days, where I feel like I’m on top of the world and I can do anything. Those are the days I consider doing things and making plans for future days, which I then regret on those future days (funny but true). Around days 14-21 is when it starts to get bad. I lose the ability to focus on things I need to be doing, I become more fidgety, I feel more tired, more anxious, and way more depressed than usual. Then I start spotting and I start feeling more emotional and depressed and anxious. Sometimes this progresses all the way to feeling suicidal, though that doesn’t occur every month. And then the cycle starts over again.

Unfortunately, my ADHD symptoms become worse during the week or two leading up to my period starting each month, which makes it harder for me to function. Thankfully, I’m almost always home, but it does make me feel terrible about not taking my girls out more, because there are really only a few days a month where I feel good enough to handle going out with them alone.

ADHD and PMDD are comorbid, with it affecting almost half of all women with ADHD. On top of that, it affects nearly all Autistic women (according to this article which links scholarly articles, it affects around 92% of Autistic women).

So why does no one talk about this? I have a few theories.

1. It has only been in the last few decades that talking about periods publicly has become more accepted. My mom found out about periods from her big sister, not her mom, which is why she always made sure I knew about periods (I don’t even remember when I first heard about periods, and when I got mine I wasn’t worried at all because I was expecting it).
2. Even though it is more common now to talk about our periods, there are still things we don’t talk about as much, such as the symptoms we all suffer through when we’re on our periods: cramps, depression, mood swings, painful periods… We touch on the basics and we hear these things are common, but since we can’t feel how others experience their periods we just think it’s normal when we can’t get out of bed each month because we’re in so much pain.
3. Until more recent years, not much was known about periods, other than the basic function of them. So, we didn’t know much about PMDD, we had a basic understanding of the more mild version of that called PMS, and we didn’t know anything about PCOS or Endometriosis… all of which can cause painful periods and a whole host of other issues.

I won’t go into more details now, because honestly I’m in the middle of all of this, dealing with extreme depression (thankfully not suicidal thoughts, though). But, I may do more research and talk more about this one of those weeks when I’m doing good.

Until then, I hope you are having a better week than I am.

Clarissa