My Luteal Phase is Trying to Kill Me – Lived Experience

Guest Blog Contributor – Phoebe Vickers

It is 2022 in a dark uni room in Southampton, and I am googling the symptoms of bipolar disorder surrounded by Jaffacakes and ASOS parcels I don’t remember ordering.

I hate my life. I hate my friends. I hate this university, and I am not smart enough anyway. I should lose weight. I should dump the boy I’m seeing. I just shouted at my mum on the phone and I don’t know why. I hate the way this top fits and I should go travelling. I should book a flight tomorrow. I’ll quit my job tonight.

I become the only girl I know who actively looks forward to her period starting. Whilst my friends nurse hot water bottles and argue with their boyfriends, stomach aches and ruined underwear mean my life is back on track.

My internet history is clear of suicide hotlines and self-help books for two and a half weeks.

I can exercise again; I sleep for longer and go on nights out without crying. I definitely don’t want to drop out of university, because I love my course, my friends, my life.

I cycle through a fortnightly rota of utter despair to complete normality for two more years, as ADHD diagnoses overshadow any theory that my chaos is hormonally induced.

Some months it is barely there – an increase in appetite, a few mood swings or sleepless nights. Other times it carries an authority I don’t know how to challenge, I find myself unable to argue against the fact I shouldn’t be here, no one likes me, I have failed. I am too anxious to go to work, to go to lectures, to leave the house.

It doesn’t feel hormonal, it doesn’t feel out of the blue, it speaks to me like it is the clarity I have always needed. The ordinary, happy, successful parts of my life weren’t really that way, I just hadn’t realised how awful I was yet.

I wouldn’t wish a night alone with that voice, with that darkness, on my worst enemy.

On the outside, I don’t really talk about it. Nobody wants to date a girl who can’t trust herself for 14 of 31 days. My friends think I am funny and chaotic, they think I’m joking when I quit my job but don’t remember doing it. My family thinks I can be angry, suddenly withdrawn, something I’m not telling them until I get the energy to reply to their messages again.

When I think about the future, I don’t think I’ll be alive in a few months. If next time it is louder, stronger, I don’t know what I could do. I pour myself into trying to fix my ADHD, I take the meds but feel sick everyday, I buy 300 notebooks and a sunrise alarm clock. No joy.

My mum calls me one day after watching a show about women in America who’ve killed their boyfriends in premenstrual rage.

She says they remind her of me.

Thanks mum, I think.

She tells me about a disorder in the infancy of research, where women experience bipolar-like and depressive symptoms as their hormones change before their period. It’s characterised by mood swings, dramatic changes in self-esteem, sleep issues, and weight fluctuations. Some women become angry, manic, or even hallucinate.

It’s called PMDD.

In the discussion around women’s health, neurodiversity, and mental illness, I have never really understood the crowd irked by those who want a label. I don’t think it’s madly woke to want to know what illness you have and how you can fix it. I stayed silent for so long because I was terrified of being mislabelled and mismedicated, deprived of the language I needed to feel ill fully but also scared of stealing anyone else’s word. This is not a cultural accident. Women’s health has always been under-researched, under-described and perhaps most of all – under-believed.

My battle with PMDD was not over just because I could name it.

My GP Googled it in front of me, declared I probably didn’t have it, and asked if I wanted birth control like it was a side of fries. Under-advocated for, I saved my student loan for a consultation with the only private PMDD expert on this side of the Atlantic, and received a diagnosis and treatment plan. Women carry an accumulated dossier of proof – of illness, of harm, of the things they have endured – and being believed, being really believed, by those with the power to help you is both an affirming and unnatural experience.

December 2024 was the first month, in the 12 years since my periods had started, where I was sure, for all 31 days, that I deserved to be alive.

The year that followed has felt like my first one on earth.

I still battle with ADHD. My GP called me last summer and told me I had PCOS, Celiac Disease and Endometriosis in the same breath. I might never escape the perils of my own womb, but I do know now, the darkest place on earth does have a lightswitch.

I started a TikTok about my PMDD in 2024, and received hundreds of messages from women, often teenage girls, stuck in the same scenario. Similar stories filled my inbox of NHS dismissals, suicidal thoughts, and wrongly prescribed medications.

It is unfathomable that a disorder characterised by an uncharacteristic desire to take your own life has fallen by the wayside of priority.

We hear a lot about men’s mental health, we hear a lot about women being good at talking to each other. I think that’s true, but we often only discuss the not-so-frightening stuff – anxieties, insecurities, low, but fixable moods.

PMDD feels like an amalgamation of the extremes of anxiety and depression, the chaotic nature of manic conditions, and for some women, hallucinations, and delusions that mimic schizophrenic symptoms. Hormonal conditions, from PMDD to post-partum events, brush up against the distress, volatility, and distortion of mental illnesses that society hasn’t quite made peace with yet.

Talking about feeling crazy is hard, but feeling crazy, all by yourself, is harder.

Globally it is suspected that over 45 million women are living with PMDD.

In the UK alone, that is roughly 1 in 20 women, with experts suggesting it is likely considerably more. Of these women, one third will attempt suicide in their lifetime.

As PMDD becomes more widely understood, as charities, support groups and research emerge, I am hopeful for better care, understanding and justice. For the millions of women who have spent years questioning their own minds every month, however, this condition isn’t new – only the recognition is.

Explore our FREE downloadable resources, including Getting a diagnosis of PMDD, What is PMDD? and more…

Check out some of our other blog articles on various lived experiences of PMDD.

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