Living with PMDD

Most people know me as bright, driven, always moving forward. But what you don’t see is the second body I’ve carried for 25 years, one I never asked for, but have learned, somehow, to live with.

PMDD- Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, is not “just bad PMS.” It’s not moodiness you can brush off with a joke about chocolate cravings. It’s a severe, often disabling condition where your hormones hijack your mind, your body, your sense of self. It’s your brain turned against you every month, like clockwork- whispering doubt, feeding exhaustion, flooding you with emotions so sharp they slice right through your best intentions.

I didn’t have a name for it when I was fourteen. In Vietnam, I sat in hospital corridors while doctors poked and prodded, looking for an infection, a reason, something they could cure with an IV or a handful of pills. All they saw were fevers, rashes, headaches, mystery pain that moved around my body like a ghost. They didn’t see the part where my mind went dark and heavy, the way my chest locked up with dread for no clear reason, the rage that sat under my skin like an electric wire.

They didn’t see how I’d crawl into bed so tired I felt hollow, then lie awake at 2 AM, thoughts spinning so fast I couldn’t hold a single one still. They didn’t see how my skin would burn in sunlight, like punishment for wanting to feel warm.

When I moved to the U.S., I dragged PMDD with me, hidden inside my body like contraband grief. No matter how hard I worked, how much I smiled, how much I built and gave and achieved, there it was, once a month: the fog rolling in, the tightness in my chest, the ache in my bones that told me I might not survive myself this time.

The hardest part wasn’t just physical. It was the mental and emotional toll- the weeks I’d feel perfectly capable, strong, hopeful… only to wake up one morning trapped in a mind that called me worthless, lazy, unloveable. The days when it felt impossible to answer a simple text. When someone asked, Are you okay? and all I could do was nod, because how do you explain a darkness that lifts for no reason and returns for no reason too?

And yet, I showed up. For work, for deadlines, for my family, for my children. I made dinner with a body that felt like lead. I smiled through meetings with a brain that whispered, You’re failing. You’re failing. I held space for everyone else, even when I couldn’t find any for myself.

Pregnancy didn’t free me,PMDD just shifted shape, made my pregnancies feel like tests of survival. Breastfeeding came with its own storms. And when I look back, I wonder how my body, so relentless in its punishment, also carried me through. I wonder how I didn’t crumble under the weight.

But here I am - 25 years later, still standing. Still learning. Because I am not here to pity myself or demand pity from you. I am here because more people need to know: PMDD is real. PMDD is brutal. PMDD is so often invisible.

So how do I live with it now? I practice self-love in ways that aren’t always pretty. I let myself rest when the fog comes. I communicate with people I trust: I’m in my phase. I ask for help, something I used to think made me weak. I mother myself gently when I want to disappear. I choose food that nourishes my hormones, not punishes them. I track my cycle like a map to survive the weeks when my mind tries to lie to me.

I remind myself that the thoughts in the darkest days are not me, they are the storm passing through. I am the sky behind it.

PMDD is still here. But so am I. And that, maybe, is what makes me strong,not the pretending, not the powering through, but the soft surrender to keep showing up for my life, my body, my kids, and this raw, imperfect woman I’ve become.

To anyone reading who lives with a second body- an invisible burden you carry so quietly, this is my hand reaching for yours in the dark: I see you. I believe you. And you are not broken- you’re surviving something most people never even imagine.

PMDD is a disability. It hijacks your mind, your body, your days, and yet it’s so rarely named, so easily dismissed as just hormones or just mood swings. But it is real. It is disabling. And yet, like so many hidden disabilities, it doesn’t define my worth or limit my power. My body is imperfect, just like everyone’s body. That’s not shameful. It’s human.

I don’t want pity. I want understanding. I want people to know that mental health is health. That what we call mental illness is sometimes mental fitness, the strength to get up when your brain is telling you to stay down, the courage to speak your truth when your mind tries to silence you. The awareness I have now is not a weakness- it’s a kind of superpower. It makes me kinder. It makes me gentler with myself and others. It makes me me.

So here’s to my imperfect, miraculous body- for carrying me through this storm for twenty-five years. And here’s to yours too, however it shows up: flawed, strong, tired, unstoppable. May we keep talking about it. May we keep lifting the stigma. May we stand in our truth, together- storm and all.