I lived with PMDD for ten years before coming to the decision to have a full hysterectomy in 2019.
Things are more nuanced than a nice before/after, sad/happy comparison.
And I wanted to write about my experience in full, as a personal outlet and in the hopes that at least one person might feel less alone after reading this.
I do not regret my surgery, and it ‘worked’ as I don’t have PMDD anymore. Also, I did not come away unaffected by the whole shindig. I spent about two years recovering from the years living with PMDD, the actual surgery, and the repercussions of the surgery. I had months where I barely managed to get up off the sofa.
I am overwhelmingly grateful to be alive, and so proud of what I have managed and the person I am. I don’t think I’m a ‘better’ person because of what I went through, painful things sometimes just hurt. And they make you angry and mean you spend precious time rebuilding yourself when you would rather be getting on with living. However, It’s taught me a lot and I know I’m a better therapist because of it.
No one, should have to live with PMDD and I hope that awareness brings better options for treatment, and better understanding of the causes. Not being able to trust your own thoughts or feelings, and living in a cycle of your life falling apart and then having to put it together again was unbearable.
However, I don’t feel like I would go back and change things even if I could.
Occasionally (less and less often now) I feel so overwhelmed with grief it knocks the wind out of me. I have accepted that this will come and go forever and learning to live with grief is a very human and humbling experience.
Something that no one warned me about was how much pressure I would feel to 'make the most' of my new found freedom from PMDD. The months after surgery, when I probably should have been the most gentle and understanding with myself, I threw myself into work. I experienced a type of survivors guilt, being immersed in the advocacy world of PMDD and seeing how dire the situation is for so many people. Watching people who were no less deserving of treatment than me, continue to suffer because of where they were in the world, or having a lack of options, was humbling. I wanted to use my experience for good, and make it mean something bigger than just the pain it caused me. I stepped away from the PMDD world for a while, in order to heal and allow some distance. I was able to just be a person without chronic illness, and this was the best gift to myself.
There's plenty time to use my experience to help other people, but I learnt an important lesson that I needed to sit with my own feelings and find out who I was after PMDD. This let me move through the painful feelings, so I no longer need to help other people to make sense of my pain, I just want to do it because I can.
Now I am able to support people through their own PMDD journey without it weighing heavy on me.
It's all a bit messy, but I hope me being honest let’s someone else feel more accepting of all their complicated painful feelings about PMDD.
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