Hello, this article could be triggering for some. Please read with someone safe if you need to. I am a therapist that specialized in complex neurodiversity. I have treated and become immersed in the field of complex cases. PMDD is a mood disorder for only those who are female or born female at birth. And this affects many of those with ADHD and have Autism. Please see the exert below from Attitude Magazine.

Excerpt Statistics.

“PMDD disproportionately affects people with ADHD and autism, with up to 92% of autistic women and 46% of women with ADHD experiencing PMDD, though estimates vary6 7. There is no agreed-upon cause of PMDD, nor is it known why it affects certain populations more than others, though there are various theories.”

https://www.additudemag.com/pmdd-autism-adhd (Feb 9, 2024)

What is PMDD and why does it matter.

“PMDD causes severe irritability, depression, or anxiety in the week or two before your period starts.” https://www.womenshealth.gov/menstrual-cycle/premenstrual-syndrome/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-pmdd

If you have it you know it matters. And sometimes in the new steps of learning about PMDD it feels very hopeless. THERE ARE answers, better coping, and communities though that provide hope! When the diagnosis is made there is a wide range of intense feelings from relief or at loss what to do. What many do not know that this volatile emotional illness is so triggering it can lead to very scary thoughts for 1/4 of those affected. Please contact your nearest hospital or dial 911 if you have any thoughts you will act on to hurt yourself or others. Your life matters.

What can therapists do?

Therapists need to learn this and understand the cycles and the emotional pain that comes with it. Sometimes clients or even therapist might not recognize the symptoms or mistake it for other things. This is very common. Listening to the observational reports of family members can help distinguish what the symptoms are being presented. If there is a possibility of PMDD as a provider I will ask safe family members to come to session to share what they have seen and the patterns that have been happening. Please see my article on dual diagnosis. As a therapist I believe in a comprehensive team for diagnosis, management, informed care and whole body approach. Let’s get ready to use all your resources.

What causes PMDD?

There are a lot of other online articles that address this. I personally have done a lot of research on this and there seems to be themes of trauma/stress and inflammation. Whatever each person feels is their cause, the best is to work towards an informed treatment plan that incorporates self compassion and reducing stress and having open discussion with doctors and the broader treatment team.

What are the PMDD resources?

https://iapmd.org/ Is the main one I refer too.

What is the best treatment for PMDD?

Therapy with CBT (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30783069/) can help figure out which thoughts are helpful and which ones aren’t helpful to create a better focus on getting the intuition to become stronger. No matter what course is taken for treatment the greatest achievement is accepting the responsibility of one’s choices and being proud of any ground taken to learn or overcome PMDD.

Having an informed treatment team to also be aware of nutrition and its affect on inflammation and gut health. I have partnered with local dieticians in various cities who see the need for informed nutrition care for PMDD.

Here are the steps I recommend and that I will bring in with therapy:

• Listening to testimonies of others who do find some solace, healing, or even departure from the illness can make hope possible.
• Learning to retrace the steps of trauma and reduce stress and fear are avenues to explore in therapy or with trusted providers.
• Building compassion and self love with one’s self is the ONLY way I can really recommend.
• Finding ways to grieve that do not overwhelm the person or family involved is a part of the journey. Therapy is THE place for this.
• Finding a creative outlets to express the ramped up emotions

Developing Self Compassion

Because this illness requires the depths of ones soul to manage and fight against, it is best to have the deepest self respect and self compassion. If the emotions and symptoms are extreme, the self compassion developed must meet that with equal velocity towards the mood swings.

Finding healing may feel overwhelming, the best path is living in the moment and experimenting. For those with neurodiversity, this might be exceptionally hard to remember or keep track of moods or even treatments. Finding a support, therapist, or family member to help keep the logging going can ease off the pressure. The next steps I encourage is collecting all the different roadmaps of healing people have come across and trying ones that seem to feel right. Intuition is always a wonderful thing to try. Trusting oneself and believing in oneself is the key, even when PMDD is raging.

How to describe PMDD to someone

Therapist like to discuss things in imagery. The best description I can say is that it is like a severe flooding storm that comes every few weeks, relentlessly, and endlessly. When the flood has ended, life is seen like picking up the debris after the flood has dissipated and seeing the damage with heartache and fear. There is hope though in learning to funnel the flood so it causes less damage and then making use of those two weeks in-between to get things going in life so the flooding is not so over the top and everywhere.

LINKS

https://www.womenshealth.gov/menstrual-cycle/premenstrual-syndrome/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder-pmdd

https://iapmd.org