The Missing Piece In Your PMDD Puzzle
While challenging times will keep coming, our goal is to better manage those moments. And that's what mindfulness is about. It isn't about never again having a big feeling or a negative thought. Rather, it's about responding a little bit differently to these thoughts and feelings.
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How many things are you doing for your PMDD--to minimize your symptoms and optimize your health--and you STILL feel like you haven't found that sense of stability and flow with your PMDD that you're looking for?
How long is your list of PMDD self-care tasks and you STILL feel exhausted and burned out by the emotional rollercoaster--and vicious cycle--that is PMDD?
How many tools do you have in your PMDD toolbox and you STILL resent PMDD because you feel like it still has the upper hand?
That is exactly how I felt. Until I had a thought:
What if what I'm missing isn't another thing to DO but a different way of BEING?
What if the thing I'm searching for is a MINDSET SHIFT? A new perspective on PMDD. A better relationship with my own PMDD experience.
What if I could find a more sustainable way of living with the difficult thoughts and feelings brought on by PMDD?
In this episode:I explain how mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Training have filled in the gap left behind by all the other treatments and self-management tools I've tried and continue to use. I talk about how that is when I really started to feel better in my life with PMDD.
I share how you can take that very first steptoward training your brain to get better at feeling.
What to Listen to Next:
The Mindful Chronic Illness Entrepreneur with Nikita Williams
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Title: The Missing Piece in Your PMDD Puzzle
Episode number: 8
Date: 11/10/23
Solo episode: Diane is the only speaker
EXCERPT (00:00:00)
While I may end up on the other side, feeling like myself again in the follicular phase, there is still perhaps some destruction that may have come with past luteal phases and that may come as a result of future luteal phases. But the other day, I heard a reminder that affirmed for me the reason I practice mindfulness, and that is that while challenging times will keep coming, our goal is to better manage those moments. And that's what mindfulness is about. It isn't about never again having a big feeling or a negative thought. Rather, it's about responding a little bit differently to these thoughts and feelings.
INTRO (00:01:00)
If you want to learn how you can live better with PMDD, this podcast was created for you. This is Mindfulness for PMDD with Diane. I'm Diane, and I'm a registered dietitian and lactation consultant. I'm also a mom, a PMDD warrior, and a trauma-informed mindfulness teacher, and this is where I discuss topics related to PMDD through the lens of mindfulness and meditation, and where I share all about how mindfulness has gotten me to a place of greater peace and acceptance with my PMDD.
I also chat with people who have helped and inspired me along the way so they can share their wisdom with you, too. So let's get started.
SAFETY NOTE / DISCLAIMER (00:01:52)
This podcast is not a substitute for psychological therapy or medical advice. Please take care when listening to this podcast, as some may find certain words or subjects triggering or difficult to hear. Take only what serves you and leave the rest behind.
WHEN DAY FOUR DOESN'T FEEL LIKE DAY FOUR (00:02:08)
Hey, everyone. The last few days, handful of days, I've been having some pretty intense symptoms.
But the weird thing is, these started on day four. I'm always feeling really good by day four. Day four. I look forward to day four. Day four, I'm feeling like myself again. But on day four, I had really crazy mood swings. I was feeling irritable and angry and then just really, I don't know if it was like depressed or just really frustrated, hopeless. It was so bad.
And then yesterday, I got, oh, there was also some dizziness recently, and then yesterday, I had a headache that got so bad, and nothing was helping all day. No amount of Advil and water and rest and everything, eating something. Nothing was helping. And by nighttime, it felt like I was on the precipice of a migraine.
I have a history of migraines, and when I get a migraine, I start to feel really dizzy, nauseous. I start to feel like I can't see very clearly, my vision starts to fade, and I start to feel kind of like I have a racing heart. I started to feel panicky. And all of that was like starting to set in. And so I just called it a day by 8:30 PM, climbed into bed. I was like, I have to make this go away. Because sometimes the only way I can make my migraines go away is just by sleeping it off.
The entire night I was being woken up by head pain. Woke up again this morning with terrible head pain. Got my son off to school. I had some volunteering I was doing in his library at school this morning. So got all my morning tasks done. And by before lunchtime, I was feeling so incredibly dizzy and nauseous and had so much horrible pressure in my head. And I just had this feeling like, I didn't even know if I could make it back home. That's how badly I was feeling.
And when I got back home, it felt like that urgency to get into bed and try to rest it off because I felt like I, I just felt so dizzy and so nauseous. It felt like, oh my God, I've got to park myself somewhere. But again, I took some Advil and drank more water and ate a little something because any of those things might help or just the combination of them. And got into bed and only now, 2 p.m. on day seven, am I starting to feel okay.
And also, it always boggles my mind when I'm coming out of the luteal phase, I'm expecting to feel better, and then I don't. I'm always trying to suss out exactly what's going on. And of course there are other things in life that can make you feel poorly, either psychologically or physically or cognitively. But because of PMDD and because the luteal phase always comes back around, and because that's usually the source of my not feeling well, it's always like this shock to me when I'm feeling unwell and it's not the luteal phase.
Anyhow, that's where I'm at today. Day seven, finally feeling good after a crazy few weeks. And, yeah, let's get into it because today I want to talk about the missing piece in your self-management puzzle.
Also, this episode comes with a meditation that will be live next week. So normally I post a new episode every two weeks, but because I want you to be able to apply today's learnings sooner rather than later, I'm posting the meditation for you next week. So you can look out for that. All right, here we go.
SURVIVING YOUR WORST DAYS ISN'T THE SAME AS FEELING FREE (00:06:00)
So you've probably heard the saying that you've survived a hundred percent of your worst days, right? And while that's true, it doesn't always feel super helpful. At least not to me.
I think the point is that bad things happen and even though they suck, so far, you've always found yourself on the other side. I just think that for me, and anyone with PMDD can probably relate, I know that the challenges of PMDD will keep happening from month to month, likely with varying levels of intensity, but potentially for two whole weeks at a time.
And while I may end up on the other side, feeling like myself again in the follicular phase, there is still perhaps some destruction that may have come with past luteal phases and that may come as a result of future luteal phases.
But the other day, I heard a reminder that affirmed for me the reason I practice mindfulness, and that is that while challenging times will keep coming, our goal is to better manage those moments. And that's what mindfulness is about. It isn't about never again having a big feeling or a negative thought. Rather, it's about responding a little bit differently to these thoughts and feelings. Specifically, it's about responding in a kind, open-hearted, curious, and judgment-free sort of way.
MINDFULNESS ISN'T ABOUT FEELING BETTER - IT'S ABOUT GETTING BETTER AT FEELING (00:08:00)
So, to put it another way, in the words of Shamash Alidina, the aim of mindfulness is not to feel better, but to get better at feeling. And if we do feel better as a result of mindfulness, it's a really nice, really welcome added bonus.
Now, frankly, I think that we do often feel better, and I know that I do, as we start to incorporate mindfulness into our lives, especially when we do it within the framework of acceptance and commitment training, because of the spaciousness and new possibilities that it opens up in our lives. But the aim of the practice is to get better at feeling, because we can't just make our PMDD disappear. Maybe someday, but not today.
And we can't make our brains stop presenting us with warnings or flagging threats or coming up with all sorts of things to worry about or beat ourselves up over. That's just not how the human mind works. PMDD or no PMDD.
In fact, negative thoughts and feelings may just become stronger and more intense the more we try to fight them or avoid and distract ourselves from them. But what we do have control over is how we respond when faced with these stressors and challenges. And I think that is just so perfect for the PMDD experience.
WHEN YOU'RE DOING ALL THE THINGS AND STILL NEED SOMETHING MORE (00:10:00)
Because even as we do so much to address our symptoms, and I know, I KNOW that you are doing a ton, there will still be times where we perhaps might have a really tough luteal phase. Maybe life throws a few extra stressors your way one month, or for several months in a row, and that exacerbates your symptoms.
This is where I really feel the magic of mindfulness, and this is why mindfulness is the anchor of my PMDD management. Because even when I'm doing all the things, quote unquote, the SSRI, the diet and the exercise and the sleep and the walking, the cycle syncing, the symptom tracking, the knitting and mindful coloring, and just really being deliberate about my use of my time and my energy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Even when I'm doing all those things, I might still have a month marked by irritability or sadness or anxiety or rage or overwhelm.
And in those instances, I still can turn towards my mindfulness tools to help me get through specific moments. And I can turn to the renewed outlook that I've experienced as a result of mindfulness to help me live better with my PMDD.
So, when I was doing all the things, I was finding varying degrees of PMDD relief, but I still experienced a feeling of instability and burnout from riding an emotional rollercoaster each month. And in addition, I was feeling resentful, disappointed, and hopeless about those feelings of instability and burnout.
Right. So it was like, all those things were helping me to some extent, but I still felt this feeling of, oh, I don't know if I could do this every month or like, this is insane. This is really quite an emotional ride for a person to have to go on over and over and over.
THE SHIFT FROM FIGHTING PMDD TO WORKING WITH IT (00:13:00)
But when I dove deep into mindfulness, including acceptance and commitment training, and decided one day I need a mindset shift and soon after decided I'm going to lean into acceptance, I quickly discovered a release of tension, a release of pressure, and a release of all these feelings of inadequacy and resentment and all the rest.
I stopped adding more things to my list of things I need to do every day to minimize my symptoms and maximize my health, because I was doing plenty already. I needed time to actually do life, right? I didn't need to keep adding more tasks to my self-management list.
And instead, I committed myself to the brain training I had started. To help myself have a better response to, and better relationship with, the problematic and really negative thoughts and feelings caused by PMDD. And holy cow, I almost immediately experienced a sense of spaciousness and openness and a sense of possibility for myself and my life, where previously I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel and I didn't see the possibility there for me.
I felt like I could breathe again. I felt like I could enjoy life again. And I began to feel like myself again. I think because I freed up so much time and energy that I had been spending trying to fight my feelings and my symptoms. And I could now put that energy into working with my PMDD experience.
So it was a time of realization of maybe it's not that there's another thing for me to do and another thing for me to do. And when I finally find that right thing to do is when I'm going to feel better. Maybe it's not another thing to do. Maybe it's a different way to think. Maybe it's a mindset shift that I need.
And it was also a time of this feeling of like, oh gosh, I've been fighting this thing, haven't I? I've been fighting PMDD. And that's why I'm so, so exhausted with it and so burned out and feel so helpless. And maybe what I need to do is figure out how to work with PMDD, alongside it.
Look, it's not that I don't still take my meds or talk to my therapist or take care of my diet and exercise and sleep, because I do. I do all those things. But mindfulness and ACT have filled in the gap left behind by those things. Mindfulness and ACT were the missing puzzle piece I was looking for all along.
A GENTLER WAY TO MEET THE NEXT HARD MOMENT (00:18:00)
So yeah, the luteal phase will keep coming along and challenging moments will keep coming along, PMDD or not, because we're human and that's life. But what if we looked at each of those moments as a chance for us to practice being kinder and gentler to ourselves? For a start.
Might we manage big feelings or negative thoughts with just a bit more ease the next time so that rather than get hooked by negative thoughts and being dragged down a deep, dark hole with them, maybe we can acknowledge their presence and how they make us feel and then let them move on. So that we don't end up in self-loathing and despair.
And no, we're not perfect. So we're not always going to get through each and every moment with kindness. It's real to feel. As my mindfulness instructor, Nikki, used to say, it's real to feel and I'm going to be real with you, okay? But I offer you this thought to just consider whenever you're ready. I'm just going to put it out there.
What if we made the intention that each challenge is a chance to practice being kind and gentle to ourselves, and that's what we're going to start to do? And then, what if we held that intention in our hearts so that maybe not every time, but sometimes, and hopefully more and more often over time, that intention may resurface and present itself to us in a difficult moment?
And because we've already set that intention, it's perhaps just the tiniest bit easier, even just one percent easier, to pause in the midst of one of those really challenging moments and ask, how can I be kinder to myself about this? How can I be more gentle with myself right now?
So next week, I will answer that question with a little intention-setting exercise that we can do to sort of kick off this idea of training our brains to start responding to difficult thoughts and feelings in a different way, a way that isn't an impulsive and unkind reaction to our experiences.
OUTRO (00:21:16)
You guys, thank you so much for sharing this time with me today. It really means a lot, but even more, I appreciate you for showing up for yourself.
Meanwhile, you can find our next meditation right here next week. See you then.
Thank you so much for listening. If you liked the show, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. For links to everything mentioned in this episode, you can check out the show notes, and you can find me, Diane DeJesus, on Instagram @mindfulnessforpmdd. Now, I invite you to pause, take a breath, and look around.
