What if My Mood Baseline Shifts Back
The unnerving return of PMDD feelings I'd semi-forgotten...
After last week’s glorying in The Capableness, I find myself feeling *quite* disabled and indeed drifting a little into the arena of the unwell. Very aware of my struggles with executive functioning. In spite of this, I’m at work, and I’ve already somehow (mainly via the power of fruit shorties) delivered a seminar.
I committed to posting on Thursdays and so here I am, trying to use my words, though my brain has turned against me. Reg me, aka non-luteal (is this even the right language; I’m so undereducated about my biology) would call this a victory. (God, she’s intolerable.)
And maybe she would have a point. Because I work full time, have a book under contract, am trying to finish a novel, plus have a completely beautiful and wild toddler at home and somehow I am managing. Kind of. Doesn’t feel like it today, actually. Mostly I’ve been dreaming about fleeing my office and driving to the mall to claim a free burrito. Still might, tbh.
I’ve only recently gotten my period back, after having The Baby, and I have to tell you, it’s been a drag. Since giving birth (i.e. having my baby cut out of me while under anaesthetic ), my emotional baseline has been surprisingly chipper. It has been wonderful! But it also makes the return of these low, swampy DOOM days feel even more unbearable. Is this what I used to feel like all the time?
Is it coming back?
I’ve been aware of PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) for a while, and self-diagnosed (my fave) as soon as I learned about it. More recently I discovered it’s especially prevalent in Autistic women, and how common - and under-recognised - it is, generally. It’s a whole new (NOT VERY FUN, ACTUALLY) thing I haven’t explored yet, and I *might* need to learn more.
Can anyone help? Does anyone have any solutions? Please send them to me asap, if so…!
One thing that does help with all the NOT VERY FUN, ACTUALLY topics I keep needing to educate myself about is reading other women’s writing on this stuff - neurodivergence, hormones, mental health, unravelling and rebuilding. I’m so grateful to be living in a moment where more of us are putting it into words, earlier in our lives, and sharing and building communities. (EVERYONE’S AUTISTIC NOW, wahey.)
I wish I could have been having these conversations in my 20s, rather than wasting my time, drunk, and arguing with sexists/misogynists/wind-up merchants in pubs. But hey-ho. We move.
Anyway, brain no use, basically. Just catastrophising, planning snacks and meals, and survival today.
So here are two Substacks I’ve been especially grateful for lately, and that I recommend wholeheartedly if you enjoy truth, humour and heart.
🖤 Ebony Nash - honest, vulnerable, validating writing about Autism, and being a person.
🖤 Becky Handley - raw, thoughtful reflections on diagnosis, identity, and self-acceptance. Plus she lives in my home county of Derbyshire!
Late diagnosis (and the late sobriety that facilitated it) brings up a lot of grief (could be the hormones, mind) for the years I spent flailing. For that younger me who was so sure (and with pretty good reason) she was just bad at life. Doomed, etc. I feel sad for all of us who didn’t know why we felt so off-kilter until much, much later. There are so many of us! I hear from people all the time; it’s what keeps me writing on Thursdays, even when I feel like this.
I guess this is the joy and ache of finding the right language: it doesn’t undo the past, but it helps us understand and heal in the present. And that counts.
📚 Chelsey Flood is the author of award-winning novels Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE. She is currently working on a book for Jessica Kingsley Publishers about the connection between undiagnosed neurodiversity and addiction + her first domestic noir. 📚
Can the three of us be friends pls 🥹 don’t want to sound like a fan girl (I am), but your writing was genuinely one of the biggest reasons I wanted to start sharing on here too - feel very seen in your story.
Also PMDD is the most under-researched cherry on the sometimes-shitcake of being an autistic AFAB gal, my god. I’m gonna write about it soon, but it’s hard to without going bleak bleak bleak on it all.
Anyway, thank you so much for the mention, I went running to my boyfriend like “omg my Substack twin shared one of my pieces in her pieceeeee”.
Gah! Sorry to hear that. I was diagnosed with PMDD when I was about 36 and then had to wait 4 years for a hysterectomy. But like you I suffered in the week before every period. Weirdly, even post hysterectomy there seems to be a small monthly shift in my moods, and medical science can't seem to explain that. Obviously peri-menopause will help you in a way but my advice is to keep changing doctors if you can until you get one that knows something about hormones - my mood is much more stable on HRT estrogen. I had no idea until recently that pmdd was more prevalent in autistic people... autism seems to explain everything I've ever experienced. Hope you feel better soon, and keep writing! xx