PMDD & My Choice to Go Back on Anti-Depressants

Holy shit. I forgot what depression felt like. I mean, I knew that shit was no joke but I just got one hell of a reality check. To anyone who doesn’t “believe” in depression I have a very well thought out and respectful answer for you to consider: go fuck yourself.

Because whatever cloud from hell has settled into my bones over the past few days is as immovable as a drunk fat guy on the beach at 2am. 

I’m writing this at 7:19pm and I had to switch to my laptop to write this because moving my pen felt like too much work. It’s hilarious to me that I just went and taught a workout class with so much energy and light and had the best time and felt on fire, and then here I am 2 hours later and moving a pen is far too much effort.

That’s what’s so disorienting about this feeling- It really comes out of nowhere. Except, I know exactly where this fucker came from. 

In the month of October, I was graced with the presence of my dear aunt flow. She has been absent from us for the better part of 8 months but has recently decided to rest from her travels right in my womb. Great news! I can have kids again, do we have any volunteers?

Bad news! That means my luteal phase is back. If you don’t know what a luteal phase is, the scientific explanation is, “a period of 10-17 days right before the menstrual phase (the one where you bleed) that acts as a test to see how far your body can push you before you decide you don’t want to be alive anymore. Many researchers say that a woman experiencing a luteal phase can expect to feel akin to a rock in a washing machine on the spin cycle. Other symptoms include acne, and bloating, and moodiness. We suggest a tylenol or two.” Copied and pasted straight from men.com, so don’t argue with me, I’m just the messenger. 

So, my luteal phase is in full swing and right on cue, I am experiencing what that poor rock must be feeling in whatever washing machine it’s currently breaking. To put it simply. It’s hard (not the rock) No, the depression & cellular level fatigue that the luteal phase has dragged with her.

I went to the doctor today and began word vomiting to convince this woman to give me drugs (she also complimented my eyes so I felt like I could immediately tell her my entire life story). As the words tumbled out of me she said, “Oh, so like PMDD?” I looked up at her, a bit shocked and fully prepared to kiss this woman. It was like a choir started singing her praises because not only did she believe me, she validated that this PMDD stuff was real, it sucked, and I was in fact experiencing it. 

Over the past few days, I’ve gotten well acquainted with what I used to feel almost daily in high school. I forgot how dark, heavy, and all encompassing the feeling of depression is. When it’s sitting within me, it’s like the walls are up. It’s such a heavy darkness that “hope” or a cute little “it’s going to be ok" means absolutely nothing. Because you have no concept of what “ok” or “happy” feels like because you’re SO far down the emotional scale and the walls around you are so high that it looks like nothing really exists; past, present, or future.

I refuse to feel this way. I know better exists for me, and I won’t accept this as a part of my life if I have anything to say about it. 

I walked out of that doctors office with Prozac in hand and a huge sense of relief. I’m struggling with a bit of disappointment, it feels like my great experiment has failed. I have been medication free for 3 years, just raw dogging life and this year has been the happiest year of my life. There were several times I stopped, stared at my own hands and was like “Is this my body?? Is this my mind?? The same mind that tried to kill me? I didn’t know I could feel this good. I didn’t know I could be this happy”.

I have worked so hard to create a life I love. I have been relentlessly studying my brain, neuroscience, spirituality, quantum physics. Integrating practices of yoga, breathwork, EFT tapping, exercise, healthy eating, journaling, affirmations, sleep tracks, meditating every damn morning, being in the sun, taking breaks from work, prioritizing play, and its been working.

Which is the most frustrating part. It’s like “NO! I did it!! I did what I was supposed to do and I found happiness, for what feels like the first time. Don’t take this happiness away from me. I worked so hard for it. I've done the work to hold myself and cry and rewrite beliefs about myself and manifest new realities and heal past traumas and take responsibility for my life and I’m fully prepared to keep going. Don’t take it from me now”. 

Trust me, I don’t want to feel like a victim. I want to figure out where I’m going wrong and take radical responsibility for my emotions and fix my beliefs so I attract the situations I want. I don’t want to be the person sitting and complaining and refusing to do the work and feeling like the world is against me and no one is being sympathetic or sensitive enough to me.

I want to go inward and observe my own limiting beliefs when I’m triggered or pissed or someone is reflecting feelings of low self worth to me.

I’m disappointed because I wanted to be able to solve this the spiritual way, the holistic way, the lasting way.

Like if I just was a bit more consistent, If i just didn't skip any night time affirmations or did yoga more consistently or meditated longer, then I might be able to fix this.

But, when the murky oil of depression slips into my mind and I sit on the couch staring at the wall with bones too heavy to move and a mind to chaotic to sleep, the most I can do is not try to scream from the feeling of being trapped in my own body and killed from the inside out by my own mind.

Unfortunately, saying “I am the luckiest girl in the world” doesn’t quite stick just then. And I’m exhausted having to do so much just to not drown in myself. 

So, here’s my argument to convince myself to accept some help. 

The whole point of life is feeling good, right? Feeling “good” in this case would mean working your way up the emotional scale.

Depression is the very bottom of the emotional scale along with “fear, grief, powerlessness, victimhood” and the scale moves up through emotions to a middle ground of “boredom/ contentment”, and peaks at “joy, knowledge, empowerment, freedom, love, appreciation”.

So, even just 1 step up the ladder is a success and a wonderful day.

Now, we’ve established that we’re working on the premise that the goal of every day is just to work up the emotional scale a little bit: hopefulness up to optimism, or frustration up to boredom, etc.

Why put so much emphasis on working up this scale? Because improving your emotional state, even by level or two will lead to: 

1. Feeling good. What is the point of having a human experience where you just feel shitty all the time? (Contrasting bad feelings are a good thing because they show you how to ask for what you do want, but there is no point in lingering there) 

2. The law of attraction states that whatever your emotional state is, you will attract more situations to replicate that feeling. (You can’t be consistently pissed and expect to be brought to situations that will make you happy, you’re going to get more situations that piss you off). So, by intentionally moving one rung up the emotional ladder, you're improving the situations that are being attracted into your life.

   
   

So, if a luteal phase lasts 2 weeks and PMDD is going to make those 2 weeks hell, then I will be spending every day of that fighting to get even one rung up the ladder from the very bottom: depression.

When I feel a certain way, I attract more of that so I will then be attracting even more depressing and helpless circumstances for roughly 10-17 days out of my month.

2 weeks out of every months equals half of the year and I’m no mathematician but I don’t want to be spending half of my life battling it out with a heavy wet blanket for a breath of fresh air AND I especially do not want to be sitting in murky water that attracts more murky water.

If choosing to go at this alone means that half of my time will be spent attracting more depressing situations then oh my dear God, I better do everything in my power to avoid that option and give myself a fighting chance to climb higher up the ladder.

If there is a medication out there that can help me do that, I’m going to try it. 

Plus, I’ve been on Prozac before and I remember distinctly having the thought “My thoughts are nice. I didn’t know my thoughts could be nice to me”. It sounds like a such a damn relief to not have a brain I feel like I have to run from.

Now, from here, I can continue in my work. I can make even more progress in my self care routines because I’ll have the energy to keep them and the clarity of mind to move from one task to the other effectively. I’ll be able to adjust and discern what is and isn’t working so I can enhance my experience in this world and enhance my work on my spiritual self without crumbling under the weight of my own chemical imbalance.

As my mom said “Bethany, it’s a disease. You wouldn't tell someone with their hand cut off to think positive thoughts, you’d tell them to go to the hospital” And to be fair, depression feels like half of my brain has been cut off, so I’m going to the doctor.

I know what it feels like to be happy, full of vitality, high on life, clear headed, and I will feel that way again.

If I just wait 2 weeks from now, I’ll probably feel ok again. But, I don’t want to be hiding from myself for 2 weeks out of my month.

I can absolutely still move forward no matter what, in fact today was an amazing day because I watched the sunset and played volleyball with a random group of people and learned to coax myself through hard feelings, but there is still that unbearably heavy weighted ball in my chest. And that is not normal.

I’m not going to win a prize for struggling the hardest for my happiness.

So, why make myself struggle? I’m going to use the resources available to me and remember that I am not a victim in this situation. I am still the victor. I still have control of everything going on around me and I’m allowed to be a sad, awful puddle on the ground. I’m still winning. I cannot lose.

Even if I slip into pity, victimhood, blame, misery. I’m still a human. I didn’t lose the game. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m still loved and still powerful and still beautiful and still worthy and not screwing anything up.

I will still be a human being if I don’t feel better. I will still be valuable if I don’t feel better. I will still be lovely and loved and I did not lose any game if I go from horizontal position to horizontal position all day with eyes that hurt from looking at a screen to distract myself and tears that threaten to spill if I am silent for even one second.

I’m still good. I’m still in the game and I’m still a badass player. I guess I’m just getting reacquainted with this level and I don’t have to like it one bit.

As stupid as it sounds, it’s going to be ok. 

One last tidbit about the emotional scale, because it’s importance is weaved into truly everything: you only have access to feeling and understanding the emotions 2 or 3 rungs up or down from you.

So, if you’re feeling disappointment and doubt, you can understand how abandonment and loneliness would feel. You have access to that vibration and can easily jump down to that level without much work.

From that same point, you can also understand what contentment and stillness might feel like, and you can talk yourself into those pretty easily with some breathwork, EFT tapping, somatic shaking, a run/workout, etc.

However, when you’re sitting at the bottom of the spiral at depression and you're trying to think about joy, it's not even the same language. You don’t have access to that. That is so many emotions above you that it may as well be damn lightyears.

That’s why it is so overwhelming and frustrating for a depressed person to hear “you will be happy, you will be ok”. It doesn’t click.

When I’m depressed, I don’t give a damn if I’ll be ok soon, I want to know that this will never, ever happen again because it hurts so bad I wish I could rip my skin off but instead I lay down and scroll.

And, to a human experiencing joy, they don’t have access to the vibrations of depression. It doesn’t exist to them, it’s a different language. How could something that dark be real when they are experiencing so much light?

It makes sense why they might not feel like it’s real, or that it "can't be that bad".

They don’t have the emotional capacity for depression at that moment in time just as a person experiencing hopelessness doesn’t have capacity for joy in that exact moment.

Moving up and down the emotional scale is a gradual, steady process. Any improvement is room for celebration. ANY. Improvement.

So let’s all give ourselves and the people around us, grace. Maybe you don’t have access to the vibrations of joy right now, that’s ok. What DO you have access to? Can you move up the emotional scale from there in the slightest?

That’s taking control. That’s taking responsibility. And getting help is a part of that responsibility. Let’s be graceful to the people around us, they might not have access to what we’re feeling right now (good or bad) and we truly only have control over how we feel. 

I’m writing this while I’m experiencing contentment and peace (writing usually increases my position on the emotional scale) so if you’re depressed reading this and you want to say “shut the fuck up you are so happy, you don’t get it, and taking responsibility sounds like the hardest thing in the world hard right now” I hear ya.

I understand that I don't understand it right now, but I know how angry and empty the version of me that does understand it is, and I know that I am somehow now feeling contentment in this same body that was feeling helpless.

So I get it, sometimes surviving is as good as it gets.

But, see if you can’t find an angry thought. Or even a resentful thought. Now, see if you can't find a sad thought, or a frustrated thought. Now, see if you can't find a worry, just one single worry to placate in a way that you know will be ok and find a moment of stillness.

Look at that, you just worked up the emotional scale. And hey, even if you can’t, you’re still a human being and you’re still so so so good and worthy. 

Below is a copy of the emotional scale for reference.

Help is always availble, do not be shy about using the suicide crisis hotline by calling or texting 988 or by texting 741 741. I love you so so very much <3