To My Husband, from Your Wife with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

To the husband whose wife has premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).

I know it’s not your fault. I know you didn’t mean to bring home the wrong milk. I know you didn’t climb inside my fallopian tubes and set my ovaries on fire. I know you’ve had a long day at work, and the last thing you want to do is come home to me, your wife, in tears again. This time because I ran out of chocolate or because the TV show I wanted to watch didn’t record.

It’s true I’ve cried over the wrong sandwich filling before. I’m making it sound funnier than it is. It isn’t funny. Not at all. There’s nothing funny about my hormones making me want to kill myself at least once every month. There’s nothing funny about me threatening to leave you every time I’m ovulating because I can’t cope with the depression the change in hormones bring. There’s nothing funny about the pain I feel when my uterus is about to start shedding and the agony that follows it’s onslaught. It’s not easy for you, to live with this unpredictability. It’s not easy for me either; I don’t recognize myself some weeks. I can’t sleep, yet sleep is all I want to do.

I know it must be completely mind-boggling for you, when one minute I am “Psycho Sasha” (the name I’ve given to the me that PMDD releases) and one minute I am just me, your wife, again. One minute I want to rip your clothes off or cuddle up close, and the next, I quite literally want to punch your face in. Your touch makes me recoil.

I know it’s not your fault when I beg you to turn the rugby down on the TV because the noise is giving me sensory overload. I know it’s not your fault the bubble bath you ran me has to be emptied because the bubbles you added are causing my skin to come out in hives. You didn’t know, because it didn’t do that last month.

I know it must be hard to keep up, I know it must feel like you can’t do anything right. But please know this — you are doing something right. You are sticking with me. You are amazing to put up with me.

You are a hero for supporting me. If it’s possible to ask any more of you, I ask you this… please read about my conditions, please familiarize yourself to better understand the signs. Please educate yourself. That is how you can help me, and in turn I will try everything available to me to help me control it. It’s not easy, and because of my other conditions some medications are counter productive. Because of how I feel emotionally, counseling can be triggering, but together we can ride this storm better. Thank you.