Speaker 1 (00:20):
PMDD shaped my life for 17 years before I could name it, I spent those years searching for answers, questioning my sanity, and desperately seeking treatments that actually worked. My painful journey had an unexpected twist. Helping others heal from PMDD became my life's purpose. Hi, I'm Jess, a board certified nutritional therapist coach, the founder of her mood mentor and your host. This is PMDD PEP Talk, A weekly reminder that your suffering is real, your experience is valid, and your future is brighter than your symptoms suggest. Each week we're going to explore the truths about PMDD that nobody talks about, the kind of truths that shift something deep inside you and make you think maybe there's more possible than I imagined. Whether you're in the depths of luteal darkness or riding the clarity of your follicular phase, you're exactly where you need to be because here's what I know for sure.
(01:18):
Healing PMDD isn't just about managing symptoms, it's about transforming your life. This challenge, as brutal as it can be, is an invitation to know yourself more deeply and live a more joyful purpose filled life. PMDD might feel like your whole story, but it's just a chapter and you get to write what comes next. Welcome to PMDD, pep Talk, quick pep talk, pause. Remember that everything we talk about here is meant to educate and inspire. Always team up with your healthcare provider for personal medical advice. All right, now let's get into it. Hello, this is Jess with her mood mentor, and today I am meeting with one of my one-to-one clients in PMDD rehab students. Alex. Hi Alex. Hello. Alex is here
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Too. It's very good to see your face.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
It's so good to see you. Alex is here to share her PMDD story with us and her inspiring symptom transformation. We know how difficult it is to live with PMDD, and it's so exciting to hear from others in our community who have changed their stories. So thank you for being here and sharing with us. Alex.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, your problem. That's how I came here. I saw someone else do it, so I feel like I'm paying it back.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh, yay. So exciting. So let's just start from the beginning. Do you think these PMDD symptoms began or entered your life?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
I think they probably started pretty soon after I went through puberty. I had a pretty tough time at school and I got bullied and stuff, and I think that was one of the things that played into it. And when I look back, I can see how my mood and my kind of behavior would oscillate quite a lot through that time. And in fact, I've spoken to someone that was at school with, and one thing she said about me was, you never know what you were going to get. But at the time I wasn't really aware of it. I was so kind of wrapped up in it being a teenager and everything like that, and it's just carried on and I think three different points in my life since then. There were peaks and troughs with it, but there were probably more peaks than there were troughs and some very messy stuff went on in that time.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, so we're talking decades.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah. Yeah. So I came to
Speaker 1 (03:50):
You when I
Speaker 2 (03:50):
44, so yeah, 30
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Years.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Okay. So of living with these symptoms now, can you paint a picture for us what the symptoms were? Because we hear O-P-M-D-D, we hear a mood disorder, but we don't really understand unless we're living with this, which probably most living with it, which probably most people who are watching this are living with it. But let's describe what that looked like for you. What were the symptoms? How were they impacting your life over that 30 year period?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I got quite a lot of the physical ones. So I would get sort of soreness through in my body down to individual finger joints would be sore in the kind of week, 10 days, sometimes longer. This is before. And I'd get massive fatigue to the point that I'd spend sort of whole weekends just lying on the sofa trying to recover from putting my all into the week. And that was the physical stuff, which is almost easier to manage. But I had an awful lot of psychological symptoms as well, a very irritable, I could get very angry, very hyped up about stuff like fuming kind of anger. That would be something that would kind of come in. I'd get my earlier symptoms, the psychological ones, the ones that would creep in. I'm like, oh, here we go, would be the anger and the sort of body dysmorphia would come in and then I'd kind of go start slipping down into quite a rapid depression that would get really deep. I would start thinking that nobody liked me. I'd get really kind of paranoid stuff, like people were really judging me and it would just kind of spiral into itself.
(05:42):
I would also, at some peak points, I would kind of go into a psychosis where something would happen and I would kind of flip out and then I could see myself flipping out and wanting to stop it, but there was nothing I could do about it. And it was like I could just watch myself exploding things all over the place. And that would go on for days at a time. I'd either withdraw as much as I could so that people just never witnessed it. I managed to go probably 30 years without people ever really witnessing it. I'd hide a lot. And then if anybody did witness it to any degree, just the shame that I would get from that would just compound everything. So I'd end up in this situation where everything was terrible. I felt terrible, physically, mentally, just exhausted. And then I get my period, and then about three days later I start feeling better and I'm like, oh, who is that?
(06:34):
But then there was this whole sort of bomb crater behind me that I had to fix, which would then take me into another phase of feeling pretty terrible. And then I'd get maybe four days where I felt like, oh, this is who I am, and then it would start again. So it was debilitating, massively debilitating. I think looking back, it wasn't that bad every single month, but it definitely built over time and there were some really quite extraordinary periods of it being very bad. I feel it was remarkable that I managed to hold my life together as much as I have done in hindsight. But yeah, massive impact. There's so many. I left jobs, I left relationships, I destroyed relationships. Friends gave up on me. I would give up on friendships because I would be paranoid about them. Just all those things over such a long period of time,
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Such a lonely and confusing way to live our lives. We're trying to protect those from us, from the chaos that's ensuing that we don't understand. And in that isolation, we suffer more. I mean, it gets in the way of you working towards goals, of working towards relationships. You don't know what's going to come next, and there's so much hiding and guilt and shame wrapped up in that. And then it's just a perpetuating cycle and the confusion of, oh, I feel this is me. This is who I am now. And then the light switch flips and then you're back in this dark devastating place.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
It was so confusing and I felt always that it wasn't me. I always felt like it wasn't me. It was something that lived inside me and came out Sigourney Weber busting out my chest was just, I knew it wasn't me, but I didn't really know what it was. And through that time, just so many appointments and interventions and ways of trying to address it and misdiagnoses like multiple misdiagnoses, immense amounts of gaslighting, just the ordeal of knowing that something is really wrong and trying to find out what, and then to get better. That is a relentless thing. It was a part-time job. I did work fulltime for, we went to uni, worked full time, and the last time I worked full time was in about 20 12, 20 13. So I haven't worked full time since then because it just kind of got worse and worse. And I think going into my thirties and kind of the impact, it is traumatizing in itself. So it impacts, it just feeds itself. It's a self perpetuating situation. Plus I think then tipping into kind of perimenopausal stuff, it's really exacerbated things too through my thirties. But yeah,
Speaker 1 (09:38):
It's a lot. Well, and something about everyone's story is so different, but something about your story that really stood out to me when we first met was you knew something was wrong. A lot of us are just like, what's happening? And you can kind of be in denial and you do a lot of self-medicating. You were actively seeking out answers and treatments and remedies. So tell us a little bit about what that looked like over that 30 year period. What did you try? Who did you reach out for support? What was the outcome? Because you were very active in making this not be the way that it was for you.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, it took a lot of energy. It takes so much energy, but that feeling of it not being me, I would get those few days and I was like, this feels like me. And I liked that me. And I remember someone trying to suggest to me that maybe that was me being manic. And I'm like, no, no, actually I reject that. And that was a friend who was telling me that maybe this is you just a bit high on life. And I'm like, no, actually that felt really real. And that was a very hard thing to try to hold onto. And I think that just believing that little bit of me actually me was kind of the fuel for keeping going the whole time. Because I mean, this started trying me to resolve or figure out or get to the bottom of anything. It started in my twenties, my early twenties.
(11:14):
There were a couple of periods of me being signed off work, having time out because I was quite depressed and I was really struggling. But then I would always get to the end of the two weeks I've been, well, I feel fine now I just want to go back to work. And everyone would look at me like, well, what was wrong with you? You seem fine. And obviously in hindsight, that was just probably a particularly deep cycle. So it almost seemed like a pattern of every three months. I would get a particularly bad one, although I was still having them. It was a weird sort of thing. And through my twenties, oh God. So the peak thing that happened when I was about 25, 26, no, a little bit later than that. Anyway, in my mid to late twenties, I actually had episodes, like two episodes in a week of stress induced anaphylaxis.
(12:02):
So it turned out to be stress induced. I ended up in the emergency department twice in a week with a face like a balloon, and I couldn't swallow and all this stuff is happening. And I got sent for all these tests and the conclusion was that my system was really stressed. And at that point, funnily enough, a couple of weeks before that, I'd gone to counseling for the first ever time. Things were not good and I was really struggling at work and everything felt really hard and I was looking at everybody else seemingly kind of getting on with things and not really struggling. And I think that sort of opened up to everything just started spilling and my body just went, okay, we can't handle this. We need to step out of life. I was still working really hard and I ended up with a few weeks off work after that.
(12:51):
And that really was, then I went into having much, so I was seeing a clinical psychologist level of therapy. I had a psychiatrist. I was being prescribed lots of different types of mental health medication. And that then was when things started. So I then had about 10 years. So yeah, I went through all of that At one point. I did get my psychiatrist was actually really good. She tried everything. She's like, this isn't working. I think maybe it's something hormonal sent me to possibly the worst gynecologist in the world. He was an awful person. He's dead now, so no libel, but he kind just dismissed everything, did the whole, oh, you'll feel better if you get a boyfriend and have more sex kind of thing. And I found that. So that kind of attitude, it was the first time I kind of experienced medical trauma, but I didn't really know what it was at the time.
(13:48):
And I found it horrible to be there. I just went into a kind of anxiety attack. I just had to get out and I disengaged from the process then. So that was in my brilliant early thirties. And then through that sort of the next, I dunno, eight years, I just kept trying and kept trying. I finally found, we call them GPS here, your kind of standard, you go and see family doctor kind of person. And she was really nice and I worked with her and we were going through, have I got some kind of vitamin deficiency? We were testing lots of those. I was having loads of invasive gynecological things as well. We're trying all different pills, everything, trying more mental health drugs. I went to more therapists, lots and lots of stuff. It's probably even things that I can't remember. I've got medical files.
(14:39):
I have two medical files this big of just all of the notes from that time trying to get to the bottom of it. And then it all kind of started coming together when I was about 36. And a friend of mine was like, I've heard of this thing and maybe it seems relevant to you and it's PMDD. And I read it and I was just like, oh my god, this is it. So I started reading around it, but I didn't know where to go with that. And it seemed like this kind of new sort of hokey idea. And this is probably about 20 16, 20 17 maybe. And then eventually I was living in London at the time, and I found by Googling, purely by Googling that there was a specialist clinic for PMDD in London. And I got my GP to refer me and I went there and this was like 2019.
(15:35):
So I was 40 in 2019. This is a couple of months after I turned 40. And I went to that appointment and spoke to, they had that specialist GP that I spoke to there, and it was the first person I spoken to. He was like, yeah, this is what it is. And it was within 20 minutes, having gone through 20 years of wondering what the hell was wrong with me, 20 minutes. And I found out that that's what it was. She just confirmed it. So I had the diagnosis, but obviously 2019, it was just before the pandemic. So getting care after that was not the easiest thing. And I started on their kind of protocols of, here are different things you can try. I told 'em about the things you tried before. So I didn't have to go through trying pills and stuff. Oh no, I did.
(16:23):
Oh God, they put me on one more kind of pill that I ended up suicidal for 17 days in a row because suicidality, I should have said earlier, was part of what I experienced. Things would get that bad. And I stopped that. But it was also this thing of, I was saying to them, this is how terrible I feel. Should I stop them? Will it get bad? And they were like, well, it's up to you. And I'm like, yeah, I just need someone to help me tell me what this is. Is it going to get better? Do you know of people that it gets better? Should I persevere? Anyway, I stopped that and then obviously the pandemic came, so I couldn't carry on attending that clinic. And then I moved away from London and then entered a service where I am now, which was diabolical and had just, I went on the Zoladex, they're called the Gianna h. I get all the letters around the wrong way, but the shots, they give you the little horrible painful pellets that shut all your hormones down. And then here's some estrogen patches. So I went through a test of that. It's supposed to confirm it. And then you can have
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Chemical menopause. Chemical
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Menopause, yeah, chemical menopause. And then if that works, then you can have the hysterectomy. That was the plan. And I went through one round of that, but it was so badly administrated. I wasn't given any estrogen adv back that I went into really severe estrogen withdrawal. And I was just off the wall. I was crazy and I felt terrible. I had real bad vision problems. I was falling over all the time. I had pain through my body that my back was in so much pain. I didn't have enough estrogen. They left me without anything for three, four months. So I then asked to see a different doctor and they, I mean throughout this whole thing, they've never admitted they've done anything awry. But he was like, oh, I want to run my own experiments. I had to go through it again. And it was really rough for me. And all I could find were, and all they would talk to me about were examples of this treatment being really effective, and it's the only way to prove that you've got this.
(18:34):
And actually with the second time I went, which I've now subsequently done my own research and found out that if you go back to Zoladex, you can actually have far more severe side effects. And I did. I didn't stop cycling. I had a cycle throughout the whole thing, but it was seven weeks long and it was absolutely brutal. So the first time I was on it for six months, second time I was on it for seven months. And I just kept hoping it would get better. And it was an absolutely terrible time in my life. It was just so traumatizing. And it was also a time when I was getting some of the worst gaslighting I was having, these hideous symptoms, these hideous periods. The gynecologist was refusing to accept that I could be having a cycle that, and he was like, well, these, because I was having really severe psychosis and I was just collapsing the whole time. I don't even know how I managed to get through work. I couldn't even think I was so tired all the time. Massive fatigue, loads of pain. When the periods came, it was like someone had been murdered. It was just so bloody horrendous. And the psychological symptoms are really extreme. I was having quite a lot of psychosis, just completely hair trigger every single day and crying a lot months, just months, months and months of, this
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Was like seven months and nine months or something.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And there was only a few months gap between, so it was 18 months of it. And his response to my description of being honest about my psychological symptoms was to send me to the psychiatrist. So treating me, I was crazy. And when I went into the psychiatrist, I took all my medical notes and I told him, I was like, do you know what PMDD is? I'm going to explain it to you. And went through all this stuff and he was like, yeah, you don't need to be here. This isn't my remit. You shouldn't be here. And I came out of that and it kind of gave me a bit of confidence to be like, this is not working for me. But I was already on the list for the hysterectomy. He was like, oh, we'll just do that. And I got a call for the operation. They had a cancellation. They were like, do you want to come in a week? And I just went, no, I don't. And the thought of that man putting his hands anywhere near me when he didn't even believe that I was having these experiences, I was like, I can't. So I completely disengaged. And that was in about May june time last year. So only about 18 months ago.
(21:17):
And I did think, well, what the hell am I going to do? I was like, well, I'm 44 now. I've probably got 10 years to just white knuckle it through the next 10 years and then it'll just stop and leave me alone. And I was like, I didn't really want my life to be wishing with a menopause, but I guess that's where I am. And then at that time, just one of those serendipitous moments of you popped up on my Instagram as some kind of, I dunno, algorithmic thing because followed a couple of PMDD things and I just thought, well, I've tried everything else. Maybe I'll just give a load of money to some stranger in America and it'll be fine. And then my life changed. So yeah, that's how I got to you.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
The algorithm led us together. It is magical in that way, how so many of my clients come to me. So it was basically desperation that motivated to work with me. You had literally tried everything that you
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Could, everything, yeah. I don't think there's a single thing I hadn't tried before that.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And really, I remember when we started working together, so we started working together at the end of October in 2023. It is now November, 2024, which is so manageable. We'll get into that, the fact that we're having this conversation a year later. But moving into this approach, there was a lot from you, a lot of trust in my process because you were just like, what do I have to lose at this point? Which was so beautiful to see you still having hope after everything you had been through, the fact that you showed up, you entered the program, you gave it your all after the medical trauma that you went through. And then just years of living, 20 extra years of living with this undiagnosed and misdiagnosed. Let's just take a moment, Alex. That is so inspiring. The women I work with
Speaker 2 (23:34):
As you're saying that, because the weird thing is one of the symptoms is severe lack of hope, severe hopelessness. And I would get that severe loneliness. I would feel that I am alone. I'm so powerless. There is nothing I could do. And I think that's why I always felt like this isn't me, because there was weirdly looking back, I always thought I was a very real pessimist and real hopeless person. But actually I always, I've always believed that things can be better, and that applies to the work I do, but it obviously applies to the way I felt about my life. I just thought, this is not right. And there was enough of a kernel of my good self in there to be like, that's how I can be. And yeah, it is quite astonishing that I could keep for that long. Sometimes I'm like, if I'd known what was going to happen, I would've like, no, no, no, we're not doing this. So yeah, I'm quite proud of the fact that I've made it through all that, and I just hope nobody else has to take it for that long.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Well, in your story, I mean we're only getting into it now, but is so inspiring after everything you have been through and then in comparison to what this last year of your life has looked like after the process, the mysterious process. So let's talk a little bit about how you have, wow, I'm stuttering. I'm so excited. I can't even talk. I've worked with thousands of clients dealing with this. You have the unique experience of trying more things than the majority of them. Very few of my clients have taken the chemical menopause route on route for a ectomy and then come to me. That is unique. So you have a wider pool of wisdom to pull from in the experience of taking the approach that we took versus taking the western medicine approach. What was different? How did this process land different for you? What changed as we took this approach in comparison to the other approach? Kind a super clear question, but do you
Speaker 2 (25:58):
No, I totally get it because there were things that I did, but that helped for sure. But I think an absolutely massive part of the change was how we did it, that the approach was so key to it. And it's kind of, I think just finally being somewhere where in an environment where somebody completely understood, there was zero judgment. You weren't waiting to show me everything you knew. I'd never really understood symptoms as information. They'd been punishment for such a long time, such a long time, and they felt bad. And really, you completely reframed my view of that, of actually it's just my body trying to tell me something. And that was really important as well as actually being listened to by somebody who understood and being listened to, but also that it was, here are some things we can try. What sounds good to you?
(27:02):
That kind of choice about what happened and everything that was given to me was given to me. It wasn't like, I'll give this to you now and then you have to come back and you have to come back and you have to keep dealing with me in between. You just got to wait. It was always just waiting to see what happened if this worked, if I felt better. Whereas with you, it was like, here's something that every day I'm doing something for myself. You've given me choice about what I choose, what I do day to day. When we next talk, what are we going to, it was just choice and options and all in my hands and not in a way that felt like overbearing responsibility because there's a lot, just going through the process of 30 years of trying to get an answer is a huge responsibility, but it didn't feel like that. It was control. It was control. And I'd never been given control before. I'd never been given power to help myself. It was always come to an appointment with me and I'll tell you how I'm going to do that to you. And it was completely the other way around. And that was so helpful because I'd got so stuck in this horrible kind of spiral, this medical trauma spiral, and I was so relieved to completely step out of that and be in a very different feeling environment. I think that was really, really important.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I never know what people are going to say when I ask these questions, and so interesting to hear the different perspectives. But speaking to that direct approach versus the collaborative approach, when we are working within the western medicine system, and I'm not bashing western medicine here, there's absolutely a place for it, love it. Super helpful for a lot of things, but it takes a directive approach where I am the practitioner, listen to me, I'm telling you what to do based on my expertise. And there isn't a personalization aspect to it. There's trained to do a certain thing. I do the thing I'm trained to do. In integrative medicine, we take a collaborative approach and especially in the coaching process that we work through where I don't know your body, Alex, I don't know your life. I'm working to know it and I'm working with you to understand how we can take all of my knowledge and take all of my approaches and find the right ones for you and fit them into your life.
(29:26):
But I can't come to you and say what that's going to be. That's we're both wasting our time here because we all live very different bodies and live very different lives. And so the triggers and the drivers to our symptoms are all different. And so that personalized approach and taking that collaborative approach, which is so much more fun and so much more nurturing, and it's one of the reasons why we got on this call, and I was just down to business. I was like, I just want to cry and scream and wiggle and flail my arms and dance. And so I was so excited to see you because over this three to four month process, we become very close. I'm there with you the whole time. We are working to change your life. And it's just such a, it's incomparable to the relationship of you get with a directive
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Approach. So
Speaker 1 (30:15):
It's cool that you brought that up. That
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Wasn't, yeah, and it was also, I remember that we had one appointment, I think it was only maybe half, I don't think it was even halfway through. I think it was three appointments in maybe a third of the way through. And I'd had a really, really bad day. And I came on and I was like, oh, I was really messy. I was symptomatic. So yeah, it wasn't even that far in. And I'd been driving and something got in my eye and I had to stop and I couldn't get it out. And it was trying to get somewhere, and it was just like everything. It is one of those things where it's not really that big a deal, but it just turned into the world's biggest deal and it ruined my whole day. And I came onto the call with you that night and I was all like, oh, I don't even know if I can do the call.
(30:59):
I'm just such a me. And it was like, what are we going to do? And we had this plan of what we were going to do in the appointment, and you just went, let's not do that. You could see that I needed something completely different and you gave me three options of things that we could do. And one of them was a visualization, which I'd never done before. And I was like, I've never done this. It feels a bit wacky to me, but right now I guess I just need to do something different. And we did that, and that was a really pivotal moment. And I think it was something that really showed me the power of my own mind, but in a positive way. And I'd been so stuck in this power of my mind in a negative way. And I love that it was the trusted friend, I can't remember the name of the visualization that you
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Had,
Speaker 2 (31:39):
The little pal and they tell you something, and actually it's you. And I love that one, and I still do that myself. And yeah, it went from, I was a jittering mess at the beginning of that to just feeling calmer than I'd felt in years at the end of it. And it was because you could see that's what I needed. And if it had been a standard medical appointment, it would've been, well, here's the plan. We've made the plan, we're not going to deviate from the plan. And it was just like, I can see that you do not need the plan right now. You need something else. And having that sort of flexibility that mattered so much in that moment, and after that experience, everything just started shifting and clicking into a completely different way. That was, yeah, if I had to pick one moment that that was the start of everything changing really significantly. And it's weird because I would not have thought that, and I was not a visualization person. It was like, oh, that's weird. But now I'm like, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah, well, the process is, it's very mysterious. I was joking about it earlier, but yes, I have a framework, a trusted and a true framework that I have been able to apply to all of my one-to-one work. But the reality is that we all, again, different biology, different lifestyle. And so I can't come to you and say, this is what we're going to do. We're going to do it at this pace. We're going to do everything in this regimented way because our nervous systems can't handle that. We hit our upper limit and we start to self-sabotage and we have self-sabotaged enough, right, Alex? And so I tell my clients over and over, I'm not here to waste your time. You're not here to waste my time. You want to change your life, let's go. I can help you do that. But if you're not ready to step into that place, you're not ready for this. And it's scary because we're both like, is this going to work? I go to these sessions and I'm like, I don't know if I can help anyone. Yes, I have this framework, but there are a lot of days where I sit up here in the same seat with my giant water bottle every day for seven hours a day helping people heal this. And I'm like, I don't know if I can help anyone. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
But
Speaker 1 (33:53):
The magic of the process is showing up and hearing the person and just pulling from what I have to give back. And we both had to enter into that collaborative relationship, trusting the unknown. I am extremely confident that I can help you reduce and manage your symptoms. No doubt I can help you do that, but I can't do it for you.
(34:22):
So that's where the collaboration comes in. And I have to trust that you're going to trust me and I'm going to trust you to show up and we're going to do the thing, but we don't really know how it's going to unfold because of the hundreds of one-to-one clients I've worked with, it hasn't unfolded in the exact same way every time. And that's what keeps me going because like I said, when I ask these questions, I don't know what you're going to say when I work in the approach with you. I don't know what's going to happen. And that's fun and exciting to
Speaker 3 (34:48):
See
Speaker 1 (34:48):
What happens for people. So let's talk about that next. What happened for you? When we started, you were reporting, we were mapping, because we do a lot of data here. We were mapping 10 to 14 days of moderate to severe symptoms. You were talking about bloating, insomnia, fatigue, severe psychological symptoms, suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety, things like this. What started to change over the course of the coming months?
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, it was pretty quick. We were doing the market, the start, and I had a lot of severe days filling in the little spreadsheet and I'd already started tweaking my diet. We spoke and then you made more suggestions. And I went on the supplements, and I definitely think that helped on the physical side of things for sure. And then we had that episode and then we had the little visualization thing and things started tweaking. But I think it just sent my brain into a completely different place. I think it took me to that sort of positive place I needed to be, and I can do this, and I'm doing things and it's helping and my symptoms are information. And it really was pretty quick after that. And I feel almost like it's, it's really hard to describe it because it had been so bad for so long, so long.
(36:19):
And I thought, well, I'm going to come to you and we're going to work on it, and this maybe is going to take years, but I'll feel better gradually. And it really was six weeks, I think after we started talking. I was filling in, I was filling in my day-to-day, I was filling in my symptom tracker, and I just wasn't using the severe color anymore. There wasn't anything. And it would be a blip of like, oh, here's the moderate one. And it was all just like by the end of the year, by Christmas, it was just pretty much nothing. There was really low grade over a relatively short period of time. My period became really regular, which it hadn't been. It sort of was. And then it would go like a three week. I was having three week ones. And coming off the chemical, menopause was just messy as well.
(37:11):
It was all over the place. And it just started going like 28, 29 days, boom, boom, boom, really regular. And I could say, well, this is a week before. So I just watch out now and I wait, drink coffee, and just, it was new. The things that I could do. And honestly, I think it was from about December until today, I could probably count the severe days. I've had on maybe one hand pushing into two, and that's it. And those have been because of very particular circumstances, I've been really stressed in a situation. Something's been really on top of me. I could see from the work that we went through around what's matters in my life, what's having an impact on me, those areas of your life that you take people through what my really kind of push points were. And I could then see, well, obviously I'm feeling a bit rubbish today because I've got a lot on in this sphere, or this thing has happened or I've had to deal with this situation. And it stopped me going into that kind of spiral of fear of my symptoms that I'm about to get punished by these things. It's like, oh, my body's trying to tell me, take it a bit easy. Maybe just don't drink the coffee today.
(38:30):
And yeah, really honestly, from about December, I just got to a point, I think I went away quite a chunk of January and then we came back together towards February, and that was the end of our time working together. And by then I just had stopped registering anything more than kind of mild symptoms. And I feel like basically, even though there have been a couple of days where I've had some not great times and nothing like these to be, they're really isolated. And to be honest, I just class it as PMS. I don't have PMDD anymore. And I remember having a conversation probably about three or four months ago with someone where I was just like, well, I'm just not a chronically ill person anymore. And I was like, I'm just not sick anymore. And I was like, it was coming out my mouth. And I was like, yeah, that's actually true. I spent so long with this kind of identity of being chronically ill and I don't feel like I'm a sick person anymore. It's completely different.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
Like speechless, no words. Oh my gosh. I was falling over my chair. And it's been a year. We started in October of 23. It's November of 24. And you're saying not only did you reduce the duration of symptoms crazy, you reduced the severity of symptoms. Not only that, you are saying now a year later, it's not pmm DD, I'm not experiencing the severity to fall in the PMD category. And not only that, I'm just not chronically ill anymore.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
No, no. Give it together. It
Speaker 3 (40:23):
Together.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah. I don't feel like that person. It's, it's almost like when you asked me at the beginning to describe what it was like, it's almost like I can't remember it because it just feels like a different lifetime. It's really hard to remember those feelings, which I'm so glad of because I'd be thrown into them so much of the time and I can call them back and I can remember some times and I kept diaries to a lot of it, and I've gone back to them for the first time. And my God, some of that stuff is so bleak, so dark, really just awful how I was. I can't believe in some ways that I survived it. It was horrific. But although I know that's me and I don't identify with that, it is just not my life now. And I am me now. I never got to be this person. And now I am because of you.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
It's not just because of me though. We did it together. You showed up. It's so great to hear that I helped make such an impact on your, I mean, it's just incredible, but it really was. Both of us, we both showed up for you and it changed the entire course of your life because you held out just a little bit of hope to try one more thing.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
And I really didn't think that with someone who experienced for so long and so deeply that it could happen at all, let alone as quickly as it did. And it seems just inexplicable really. And if I'd watch this, because I watched a video with someone before I signed up to work with you, and I was like, what if I could just have a little bit of that? That would be good. But is there still a part of you that's like maybe Paige and maybe she's an actress and it's all fake. And if I'd seen me talking about this a year ago, I would not have believed. I would not. I just would've thought it was made up. But honestly, if it can give somebody hope that it can happen, and maybe it's not as quick for other people and maybe it won't be as different, but to be honest, if you came 10% off what I was having, that would've been enough.
(42:43):
And I'm glad, I'm glad I didn't have to wait, but another decade till my period stopped completely to actually get my life back. But I've lost a lot along the way. I really have. But I'm kind of so determined not to lose anymore. I am here to do stuff now, and I never felt like plans were for me, and I get to make plans and I've got so many ideas and I've been doing loads of things. I've done a playwriting course and all sorts of things that I just couldn't before. I get out of the bed in the morning, go for a walk at half, six in the morning, and that was not something I could do. So yeah,
Speaker 1 (43:20):
You're living a completely different life. And I remember you reaching out to me saying, I really want to share my story, but I'm living for the first time and I just need to deal with this for a moment. I didn't have time. I need to live my life for the first time since I
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Was, and I remember when we kind of wrapped up and you said to me just a couple of things. One of them is your symptoms can come back and not to worry and not to get too pulled in by that and just acknowledge them. And then the other thing was at some point, grief will hit and it did, and I did go through a kind of grief phase and something like that makes you really rattled. She's like, oh my God, is this symptoms? Is it symptoms? And then I was like, actually, no, I'm just really sad about everything that I did lose. And then I gave myself the space for that and I got to have the space. I wasn't being bombarded by other illness type stuff, and I went through that and I'm actually just, I've been really busy being me and yeah, that's why it's taken a while because I just want to, to have that space and it is a weird thing and it's something I'm sort of in that phase now and it's going to carry on for a little while of reconciling being myself. What does it mean to live a life? It was a part-time job being sick, the being sick and going to the doctor. There was some weeks I'd have four medical appointments in a week.
(44:54):
It's taking up so much time that it was a part-time job, and now I don't have that part-time job. I've got the part-time job that I get paid for, and even though I'm talking about trying to get more work, do more work, because finally I feel well enough to, but there's too many things that I want to do around that, and it's just observing myself in a way of like, oh, I get to do these things and I get to make a plan, and then I get the plan. It can happen because I don't get sick the week before and then feel terrible or I don't go there and intending to have a great time and then just shout at someone. It is a weird feeling and something to get used to of having this kind of life that for other people is so ordinary, but I never got to have before.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
Yeah, this is a part of the healing PMDD conversation that not very many people get to have because they haven't experienced the transformation that you do. And when you come out of my program, that's something like you're saying we talk about is that when you feel better, you can see how sick you were. You don't know how sick you were until you feel better,
Speaker 3 (46:03):
And
Speaker 1 (46:03):
There's a lot of joy and celebration attached to that, but the grief will hit of the reality of the two selves and what you went through, and now you can see it so clearly because you can live your life in a new way and you're not being held back and it's a beautiful pain. It's a beautiful growing pain, and it's a testament to how far that you have come to be able to feel that not everybody gets to reach that place. And so even that place, which we talked about, even when you hit that place and it can feel hard, that is something to celebrate because again, it's another signpost of how far you have come to even be at this place where you can recognize, wow, I have enough time now I can actually get another job because the amount of time I was spending trying to heal myself and survive was taking up 30 plus hours a week of my time. It's so wild. So
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Wild. And it's like the job that I get paid for I'm really, really good at because I get to actually do it now. Yeah. Something that's tied to so much I've been able to do, buying a little house, it's all happening.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Yeah. I mean, it is so beautiful to see because people through the process come out with different things. One of my clients bought a house in Germany with her partner. She never thought she could do that, and they're starting a yoga studio when she couldn't work for years because of the symptoms. Another started canning and is really into canning because she's like, I have all this time now. I just don't know what to do, so I'm canning. She sents me. It's apple sauce.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
What do you do with all this time that's not wasted on feeling terrible or trying to sort out feeling terrible? It's such a weird thing. I was just like, it's very quiet.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah, it's bizarre and amazing. Such an incredible and inspiring story. Alex, would you like to hear some of the quotes you said in our last session and in February? Okay, I highlighted them here. There are so many, I can't even read them all. There are so many. I do talk a lot. It was amazing. Let's see. I've had the best health I've had in years.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Still relevant.
Speaker 1 (48:28):
I feel that my mind is now in my control
Speaker 2 (48:32):
Still relevant.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
Yeah. I've never felt that I could be proactive in my life now I want to make plans, show myself that I can follow through.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
I feel like me most of the time now.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I've never had consecutive months without severe symptoms and I'm into my third now.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Yeah, I think I must be on 10 now.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
I've never not had depression, suicidal ideation, mood swings and hopelessness.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Yeah, I just do not have that. I have sad days, and sometimes I might have a little cry in the toilets, but just like a normal level,
Speaker 1 (49:27):
I don't feel like I have to hide parts of myself anymore.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
No, no. That's a weird thing of another reconciliation of your own personality of it's almost like I am this loud and big,
Speaker 1 (49:44):
And this might be my favorite one because it's a motto for everything else that has transpired in your life. You said, I thought this was an unachievable dream.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I don't even remember saying that, but yeah, honestly, it was, I could not imagine not having it. It was just completely outside my capability to imagine a life without it. And it's almost like I can't properly remember stub your toe, it hurts, but the next day you can't remember what the pain is. It's like that. I can't really remember it happening, but I just can't feel the pain of it anymore.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
Wow. It's amazing. The human body and the human psyche is so fantastic that you can endure severe suffering for decades
Speaker 3 (50:40):
And
Speaker 1 (50:40):
Then you can very rapidly start to heal it, and then it just, you're kind of just forget how bad it really was.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
It's an extreme experience. Most people don't go through this, and I think I felt like the way I felt was normal and I didn't really realize it is not, it's very far from that. And anybody who has it and is dealing with it, it is really extreme. But also I think even if you're just moving forward day by day, that's an enormous achievement. So I think it shows that just the resilience and the resources that you have within yourself, and that's the weird thing. We talked a bit about the weird gift at one point of you go through something that extreme and actually you can then see how great you are from it, but it's not a great way to learn that. But a lot of people don't get to learn it, and they almost miss out because of it. I don't think I'd ever choose to have been this way, but it's informed so much of my life and how I work in a field where I have to be really deeply empathetic, and I don't think I could do it without this. So it is that weird gift.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
It is. It's shaped who we are, and even through the healing process has shaped who we have become, and that's at a point something you have to make friends with and see for what it is. So it's so exciting a year later, Alex, to see you thriving like this. I mean, I just can't even sit still here. I'm going to have to do some breath work after this. Before we wrap up, what would you like to share with the community? Any wisdom, any message of hope for others who are, say where you were 16 months ago feeling like this is who you are. There's no way out. You've already tried everything. What can you share with your past self or with the people in that situation now?
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I think just even knowing what it is is such a massive thing that it's massively helpful, but also means that you're at the start of something. Again, you get the diagnosis, you're at the end of that bit, and then something else big start. So that is really hard, but I think if someone has ended up I seeing your stuff, then there's definite hope and there's so many things you can do, and that is probably the most useful use of your time and money is to do this because I tried everything else, and I know everybody's body is different, and maybe some people have tried some of the things that I didn't were for them, but if you feel like nothing is working, then this works. It totally works. I don't think there can be many, because I remember you saying that I was quite a bad case, and I hadn't really thought that. I thought this is just what happened to people who've got this, but it had gone on so long and it was really severe, and I honestly did not believe it could change, but it can change, and it's in your hands to do that, which feels like a weight, but actually it's really precious because feeling like taking that power back is what's going to make the difference.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
That's such a good piece of wisdom and so much empathy too, to be able to say, yes, it can feel like this isn't happening to everyone else. My neighbor doesn't have periods that make them want to die. My sister, why is this happening to me real? We feel very victimized by these symptoms, and then that perpetuation, we just get beat down and beat down. The more we lose to the condition. But really stepping into your power and learning, you're the only one that can heal yourself. You might need some help, but that makes you unstoppable and that makes you start to feel undeniable because if you can heal suicidal ideation, if you're not experiencing suicidal ideation for 12 months now after experiencing it for 30 years, you start to think, what can I not do that seemed like you said, unachievable. If you achieve that, now you're asking day after day, I've seen you over the last year, what can I not do? And that is a power that is a priceless. There's no amount of money that can provide that level of autonomy for you.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Yeah. It's like every day I feel more confident about myself and more sure about myself in a way that I just couldn't before because I was so afraid of the judgment. And it's an incremental process. It's not quick. I don't wake up one day and I'm like, I'm the best person in the world. I mean, I'm never going to be like that, but I feel more sure in myself because I know, which I know that's me in there now. There's nothing, there's no little alien trying to blast out my, but yeah, it is so much easier to ground into myself. And one of the things I've been working on the last few months particularly is really feeling my own, trusting my own intuition. I think getting that trust back in yourself is one of the really major steps of once the symptoms subside, is learning how to trust yourself again and trust how you feel about yourself. You spend so much time hypervigilant and reading everything about you, but not feeling your feelings so much. It is just like scanning, scanning the whole time. I over intellectualized everything. It was like watch everything, report everything. And just coming back into feeling what I feel and recognizing my own take on myself and my own intuition and trusting myself is the next big thing that I'm doing now.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah. Well, and it's so interesting too, because you come to me, right? All of my students and clients that come to me and they're like, I just want to feel better. Just help me feel better, help me reduce the symptoms. And I'm like, girl, I got you. I can help you do that. That is my job. No question about it. I can help you reduce and manage your symptoms, but that is not what this is. That's what you're here for. That's what draws you in. But what you uncover through the process of healing PMDD, and we're not talking about curing, right? We're talking about reducing and managing symptoms is so much bigger, and that's what, when we're suffering and we're just reaching for a lifeline, we can't see, I just want to reduce my symptoms. Okay? Do you know what's coming after that? Because it is a life transformation that is so much bigger than feeling better. It's
Speaker 2 (57:58):
Becoming
Speaker 1 (57:58):
The person that you want to be. It's working towards your dreams that you thought were impossible. It's believing in yourself for the first time in your life. Those are sweating. That's not, I have less bloating and cramping and my boobs aren't right. We're not messing around here. It's a big, big deal. And that's where when I send you off after the four months, I'm like, please know that there's more coming. There's more to this journey than you're just reducing your symptoms. It will continue to unfold. And so it's been so beautiful to see how that has happened for you, and I'm so grateful for you to include me and trust me in your healing process to show up and to see how your life has transformed is so exciting and so inspiring and so fulfilling, and just keeps me motivated to continue helping others because this is what it's all about. It's not about having less symptoms, it's about changing your life.
Speaker 2 (59:02):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've done that. You've been a big part of that happening. Honestly, it wouldn't have happened without you, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much. Really excited. To share this with the community and to continue connecting with you and see where your journey takes you.
