Living, Loving, and Working with PMDD—What it’s like to live a half-life under hormonal siege

For two weeks out of every month, I am sunshine.

I wake up, stretch, and feel like I have a future. I laugh easily. I love with openness. I work with focus and joy. Relationships feel like silk: soft, flowing, unforced. I am the kind of friend you want to vent to, the kind of daughter who sends sweet texts, the kind of partner who listens, who laughs, who leans in.

Then the other half arrives.

And like clockwork, I disappear.

No, not in the dramatic, “catch me under a blanket binge-watching sad-girl TV” kind of way. I mean, I disappear into a fog—depressed, anxious, irritated by the sound of chewing, the texture of conversation, the sheer fact of someone else’s breathing next to me. I become someone I barely recognize, someone I’d cross the street to avoid.

I have Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. PMDD, for short, but there’s nothing short about the way it slices into my life.

PMDD is often called “PMS on steroids,” which is both wildly reductive and disturbingly accurate. For me, it means two weeks out of every month are punctuated by a soul-deep ache. Not just cramps and cravings. I’m talking suicidal ideation, fits of rage, a complete aversion to intimacy, and a gnawing desire to be left the hell alone.

The Relationships It Shatters

The havoc this monster has wreaked on my relationships has been nothing short of diabolical.

My partner has been on the receiving end of mood swings that felt, at the time, completely justified. A glass left on the table? Grounds for World War III. A suggestion for sex? Are you kidding me right now?

What they saw was a sudden coldness, a person who seemed to push love away. What I felt was overstimulation, fury, and the weight of something I didn’t have language for yet.

Friends and family? I disappeared on them.

Small talk felt like sandpaper on my brain. The version of me they knew—the sunny, engaging one—dimmed to a flicker. And I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone noticing the flicker was all that was left.

Not even my mother—especially not my mother. She endured the worst of it when I was a teenager. I became irritable, shut down, almost cruel. I know now that I was in survival mode. But I can only imagine how much it must’ve hurt her to be shut out like that by her own daughter.

At work, I was two different people.

One week: “She’s such a joy to work with!”
The next: “Did I do something to upset her?”

I could feel their confusion, but I couldn’t explain myself. I didn’t understand it either. Why was I so exhausted? Why did my brain feel like static? Why did emails feel like cruel jokes?

The Silent War Inside

But honestly? The worst damage wasn’t outward. It was internal.

I judged myself relentlessly. I’d beat myself up for the days I couldn’t focus, for snapping at someone I loved, for flaking, for not meeting my own impossible standard of consistency.

Lazy. Rude. A mess.

That was the inner monologue. And let me tell you—PMDD feeds on shame like it’s on a keto diet and shame is pure protein.

And perhaps the cruelest twist is that I know it’s happening.

I watch it happen. I feel myself losing grip on my softness, my compassion, my ability to feel love or desire. I push people away—not because I want to, but because everything feels too much. Their voices. Their needs. Their love.

Especially their love.

And then, the fog would lift. Like it always does. Suddenly, I could think clearly again. I could breathe. I could feel love. And in the light of that clarity, I’d look at the damage and wonder: Was that really me?

Naming the Monster

Then came the diagnosis.

Three words: Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder — and suddenly, this pattern I’d lived with for years had a name. It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t broken. I was living in a hormonal loop that disrupted my brain chemistry like clockwork. And I had been surviving it silently for years.

There’s something powerful in naming your monster. In tracking its footprints. In setting up shelter before the storm hits.

Now, when the fog rolls in, I see it coming. I can brace for it with gentleness. I’m honest with my partner now:
“This week is a PMDD week. If I’m quiet, distant, or irritable—it’s not you.”

I give my friends a heads-up.
I give myself permission to rest.
I let myself off the hook, just enough.

And maybe most importantly, I no longer see myself as weak or erratic. I see myself as someone who’s endured a body that betrays her every single month—and still built a life worth waking up to.

Reclaiming My Life

PMDD isn’t a weakness. It’s a medical condition. It’s a hormonal hijacking. And with medication, support, and awareness—I’ve learned to navigate it. I’ve even started to reclaim time from it.

PMDD used to steal half my month. Now, it borrows a few days. And I’m charging interest.

I share this not for pity—but for connection. If you relate, know this: you’re not broken. You’re not lazy. You’re not unstable. You’re not too much.

You are not your worst two weeks.

You’re navigating something that even many doctors barely understand. And you’re doing it without a map, most of the time.

But maps are being drawn.
Conversations are being had.
Light is being shone.

I know that having a map of the terrain you’ve been lost in for years doesn’t fix everything, but it explains everything. And that matters more than people think.

It gives you context.
It gives you a new language.
It gives you the audacity to be compassionate with yourself.

And if my story helps you recognize your own, or helps someone love someone with PMDD more gently—then that’s two weeks well spent.

Cynthia A. Murungi

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