After I had Marlo my emotions were a MESS! I would cry, every day, literally, every day at 5:30pm. Not sure whether this time of day is when my body made internal changes or what, but I would just start bawling. I soon learned that if I kept myself busy or distracted, the crying wouldn't happen. Phew!
Once I had the 5:30 pm cry sessions resolved I thought I would just go through normal hormonal changes until after about a year post-baby. WRONG! I had slowly become so angry during PMS that I could hear myself and it upset me to know that I was being mean and mad, yet every time I would try and fix it, I couldn't. It became very frustrating, so I finally decided to call my doctor.
Let me first start off by saying that I LOVE MY OB/GYN. I heard that she was going part-time, and almost had a heart attack. I'm not done having babies, she can't do this to me! This was later confirmed untrue. I made an appointment with her and we determined that as she went through the laundry list of symptoms I was having that I now have PMDD or Premenstrual Dysmorphic Disorder. I'm sure a lot of you are pondering to yourselves whether this is just a cop out for being a raging B**** the week before Aunt Flo arrives. WRONG!
PMDD is described by WebMD as follows, "It causes emotional and physical symptoms, like PMS, but women with PMDD find their symptoms debilitating, and they often interfere with their daily lives, including work, school, social life, and relationships." http://www.webmd.com/women/pms/premenstrual-dysphoric-disorder#1
As I continued to read more and more about this, the thing that bothered me the most was that my PMDD was interrupting the somewhat harmonious relationship my husband and I used to have. I was constantly bickering with him or yelling at him for stupid things. I felt horrible for how I was treating him, and I didn't want my baby girl to grow up when me behaving like this!
My OB/GYN put me on birth control (ortho-cyclin) to see if this would simply level out my hormonal disfunction and get me back to "normal." She said that if I didn't recognize a noticeable difference within the next 3 months to go back to her office, and we would try adding an anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication in the mix. She said that I can simply start taking one when I notice the symptoms coming on, and I don't have to take it all of the time. I'm still a bit skeptical on taking anti-depressants, even though I'm in the mental health industry and tell people to take their medications all the time, but it's a scary thing. Having something in your body, when really you don't know what it's doing to your brain chemistry. At least they know with birth control that it works with your hormones, whereas a lot of anti-depressants and anxiety medications are kind of a trial and error process with each individual. I feel a bit better with the birth control, but I am going to give it the full 3 months to make sure it's working to the best of it's ability.
Please feel free to comment if you're having similar experiences. I would like to chat with those to see what you all have tried.
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