My Period Tried to Kill Me
Read more of Cosmo's coverage of the modern period here.
Once I understood what was happening to me, it became almost like a little game. Even without access to my period tracker or Google calendar, I always knew when it was Day 20. I could be anywhere, doing anything, and here it would come, this worried, primal feeling that now everything was going to be awful. Day 20, for me, was the day in my cycle when everything went bottoms up.
Here's what that was like: I’d be walking into the living room with the laundry and suddenly feel, just…sad. So sad, and really pointless, and I’d want to cry but couldn’t. And it hurt. I am so sad right now that it hurts, and…know what? I bet it’s Day 20.
Or I’d be sitting at dinner and suddenly my vision would tunnel and I’d be pulled straight out of my body. Oh God, my friends are looking at me. I’m doing something wrong. What is it? How long have I been doing this something wrong without even knowing it? I need to stop being weird right now, they’re probably worried about me. Why am I-ohhhhhhh, wait.
Day 20, is that you?
During the worst of it, these worries and emotions would take on a physical form. I’d be on the subway thinking about nothing at all when my throat would tighten, and my stomach churn sickeningly. I’d be nauseated and sweating, hot and cold all at once, and terrified. Of what?!? All of the hairs on my arms standing on end, and-hold up, how is it Day 20 again? Geez, this month went by fast.
On Day One, my period would finally come, and I’d no longer feel like I was mid-hostage crisis in my own terrorist cell of a body. Day One was a godsend-a menstrual messiah.
But Day Three is what I really lived for. Day Three, you blessed creature! Day Three was the day I could think clearly again. And in place of my anger was an odd sense of disbelief. Every time. All that…that wasn’t real, was it? I literally cannot understand how that was real.
I was diagnosed with PMDD in 2013 by a very expensive reproductive specialist in New York City, where I was living at the time. I was 31 and trying to get pregnant again, and nothing was working. But I was more concerned during that doctor’s visit with the fact that my PMS symptoms had recently become damn near excruciating. I had weaned Huck, my almost three-year-old, and people: Weaning is no joke.
While pregnant and nursing I’d been a blissfully hormone-friendly zone. I was writing a lot and getting paid well for it. I was having all sorts of fun. Me and my city and my ultra rad kid (he's now 8!)-I was aware of how lucky I was and how brief this was going to be and I did everything I could to savor it hard. Letting go of breastfeeding was going to break my heart, I knew. I suspected it would also seriously funk with my body.
And it was pretty much what I expected, at first. My boobs were like rocks made of steel and lava and everything hurt, as if my body parts were duking it out over who got to air their grievances first.
But not long after I weaned, Day 20 started happening. A year later, I was pushing Huck in his stroller up the hill on Amsterdam Avenue behind Lincoln Center in the thick of a panic attack when it occurred to me that this might never get better, that this might be what I feel like for the rest of my life. I remember how scared I felt in that moment, and how hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless is practically an onomatopoeia. Hopelessness like a balloon in my chest had deflated and I was at that thudding bottom of my lungs where there was no air left, and no room for more.
Once I had a diagnosis, I felt a little relieved, a little empowered, and a lot vindicated. Not all periods are created equal. Not all women struggle to this extent. My period problems were not just in my head, and I didn’t have to white-knuckle my way through them forever.
My doctor prescribed me an anti-depressant that I could take on Days 14 through 28. It didn’t completely fix the problem, and some months were still really hard, but it helped immensely. I cried the first time I absentmindedly glanced at my calendar and realized it was Day 22 and nothing had happened. And then I laughed, because crying at your calendar is such a normal thing to do on a day like Day 22.
For me, PMDD was a temporary hell. After leaving New York and moving to Idaho, I went through my third (and last) cycle of fertility drugs. I got pregnant, then miscarried. Then I got divorced. Then I got diagnosed with ADHD (the symptoms of which, research suggests, may be largely hormonally-driven in women), and properly medicated for that. I moved to Portland as a single mom and got a job. I don’t know if any this affected my PMDD, but I do know that somewhere along the line, my hormones shifted, and these days my period woes are mostly limited to the fact that I have misplaced my beloved menstrual cup.
And I know that by publicly sharing my struggles with PMDD over the years, I was able to find fellow sisters-in-arms-women who were similarly strong-arming their way through their own versions of Day 20 to Day Three. There's no one way out of this that works for everyone. Also, there are still too many inadequacies and injustices in our healthcare system, and too many women who don’t get the care they need.
Lucky for you, I picked up a few tried and tested ways to alleviate at least a little of the pain of Day 20, and I try and pass them on any chance I get.
I present to you:
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