I spend a week in dark clouds of anger and depression that, while it's happening, I never seem to be able to remember is hormonally induced. Before tapping out and getting myself an anti-depressant, some of these days included suicidal ideation and entire days spent in paralyzing fits of tears.
Then I'll have two, sometimes as many as four, pretty good days, where the clouds just seem to have lifted and I might just make it after all.
Then I wake up feeling like I gained twenty pounds in my sleep, and ran a marathon the day before. I'm sore, bloated, exhausted, cramping, and, well, might as well say it, bleeding. That lasts five days, none of them are generally morale-inspiring.
Then, just when I think things are about to settle down, the hormones chill long enough for me to see clearly the fits of rage, depression, fear, anxiety, nightmares, sleep avoidance because of the nightmares, lack of appetite, and, on bad days, flash backs. This lasts for the two weeks until the hormones kick up again.
I am guaranteed two good days a month.
The rest of the month, I am drowning in a person I don't want anything to do with, let alone be.
It's taken me so long to even begin to separate PTSD from PMDD, and, well, I suppose they're not completely separate issues, anyway. The nightmares and anxiety tend to get a lot worse during my week of anger.
I am tired of this black hole I seem to get sucked into. This person who just spent two hours crying, overwhelmed at the laundry, the dishes, the angry cramps and extra weight in my abdomen, combined with, well, life. If I didn't have to get up at 0430 tomorrow to accomplish any of what I wanted to get done before work, if I didn't have to spend a ridiculous amount of time in uniform with people I have some pretty mixed feelings on, if I hadn't promised to take out a very good friend of mine to dinner and our favorite bar tomorrow night for her birthday- and farewell, really- well, then, the laundry, dishes, errands and physical misery might just not be so overwhelming.
I have to make a very big change. I am trying my damndest to get treated for the PTSD, but, between many parts of the Army mental health system being of the policy 'if we didn't break it, we ain't fixing it' (only treating COMBAT RELATED PTSD, not that other, less important stuff like PTSD from being raped a time or two) and the fact that, well, let's face it, the Army is systematic. There's not a lot of things they accept as being therapeutic, no matter how much it helps me, or how little talk therapy does.
So, that, really, feels like a dead end. The PTSD seems to get worse by the day at times, all too often aggravated by a feeling of being trapped in these same situations with these same people who are triggering bad memories and thoughts.
So, the PMDD. I already got myself put on anti-depressants, which have definitely helped- the crying jags are much shorter, far more controllable, and there's none of that suicidal crap floating around in my head. However, I need to do more. I can't stand the thought of birth control, but, until I have kids, suppressing ovulation is simply not something I'm doing. I want babies, and I will have them, and then they can take my ovaries out and feed them to their dog for all the trouble the things have caused. I'll take estrogen for the rest of my life, a half dozen pills a day if I must, so long as I don't have to keep going through these two weeks of darkness- or at least not this badly.
So, for the first time since I got my tubes tied in 2004, I'm going to ask to be put on birth control.
Let the research phase begin.
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