Since moving to Riyadh, I have been having the worst PMS imaginable. It is unbearable. A week before my period I start to feel like I'm getting sick, like my stomach has been replaced by a bottomless pit, and am overcome by horrible feelings of being overwhelmed. Oh and let's not forget the extreme anxiety, the rage directed towards my husband, the uncontrollable crying, and of course how I suddenly turn agoraphobic. It lasts the entire week prior to my period and the entire 9 days of my period and it is pure hell! I have always had pretty bad pms...but this is just cruel.

I mentioned it to my mom, and she mentioned that it sounds a lot like PMDD...WHAT?! There's a name for this hell I have been going through? It's not just PMS?! So I look it up and it matches nearly everything I have, except in the symptoms they say it starts the week before your period and ends once your period begins...that's not the case with me. I have two weeks of pure hell...

Since researching it, I've also noticed that I have a tendency to become incredibly sad and miss a certain person a lot more than I normally do. And do incredibly stupid things...and act like I'm living in a freaking romantic drama... blah. Then when the two weeks of hell are over I sit in shame and just want everything to go back to normal...

:|

I found a group on facebook (thank god for facebook) and the posts were like I had written them myself. One was by a husband concerned for his wife and the way he described his wife it sounded like me...well almost like me...this woman obviously has more issues than just severe pms..or pmdd.

I took a deep breath and sent a post and asked if pmdd can be triggered by an emotionally unhealthy living situation...I should explain why I ask that. End of December, we took a family trip to London and my period came and went with none of the anxiety or other awful symptoms I have recently started to have. Then the next month, back in lovely Riyadh..all the symptoms were back again.

There was a resounding YES! If you have a stressful living situation then it can trigger PMDD. Great! Just fucking wonderful...how do I fix that?!

So I'll be doing lots of research and hopefully will be going to see a doctor in the summer....because I don't trust doctors here...majority of them are incompetent morons who would have had their licenses revoked if they worked in the States.