Understanding Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD)

Trigger Warning: This course explores sensitive topics including Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, suicidal thoughts, pregnancy and baby loss, grief, identity after illness, and other aspects of mental health. Please listen at your own pace and take breaks whenever you need to. If any part of this course feels too overwhelming, it's okay to pause and return when you feel ready. This course is intended for supportive purposes only. It is not a substitute for personalised medical, psychological or psychiatric care, and should not be used to diagnose or treat any medical or mental health condition. If you are experiencing thoughts of harming yourself, are concerned about your safety, or feel unable to cope, please seek immediate support from your healthcare provider, local crisis service or emergency services in your area. For many years I thought PMDD was something I simply had to survive. I thought if I could just get through another month, another cycle, another emotional crash, then perhaps one day things would feel easier. But what I slowly came to realise was that PMDD had become far more than a difficult illness. It had changed the way I lived, the way I saw myself, the way I experienced love, the way I understood my own thoughts and the way I moved through the world. This course was created for the women who are exhausted from carrying all of this alone. Together, we begin by telling the truth. Not the polished version, or the version that minimises pain and rushes towards solutions, but the truth about how frightening, isolating and life-altering PMDD can be. We explore what current research understands about the condition, how it affects the brain and nervous system, and why the thoughts, emotions and physical symptoms can feel so real and convincing. PMDD is not only an illness of symptoms, but also an illness of loss. The loss of connection to yourself, the loss of trust in your own mind, and the loss of feeling fully present within your own life. Throughout this course we’ll explore the grief, loneliness and invisible suffering that so many women carry in silence. We’ll look at the ways survival can slowly become an identity and how years of coping can leave you feeling as though you no longer know who you are beneath the exhaustion. Alongside that understanding, there are guided meditations woven throughout the course. Places of refuge where you can rest and soften and stop carrying everything quite so tightly. Spaces where you are invited to meet yourself not with criticism, but with compassion. We also explore the power of tracking your cycle, understanding your own patterns and begin to separate who you are from PMDD. One of the most important things I ever learned was that I was not the illness; I was the woman living through it. This course is not about becoming somebody new or fixing yourself and forcing healing. But slowly finding your way back to the woman who has been there all along beneath the fear, beneath the survival and the storm. The woman who deserves understanding and compassion, and the woman who was simply carrying far more than anyone could see.