PMDD and AuDHD Overwhelm Stole My Day

This PMDD and AuDHD flare hit hard! I thought I was better! I thought I was improving. Turns out, I was just going through a good phase for a few months. Partially because my mum and nan were living with me, not giving me the space to really get low because I was too busy, and partially because I was off work. Three weeks back at work though, and the autistic overwhelm is flooding in.

PMDD and AuDHD Quick Facts

If you are interested in breathwork practices read How Breathwork Healed My Anxiety, Depression and Endometriosis

Neurodiversity Spikes Before My Period

My neurodiversity spikes something chronic before my period. It’s like PMDD and AuDHD had a really awful baby! I can’t find my words. I don’t know what day it is. I forget appointments, and today I even cancelled my dinner plans with a friend. For context, I never cancel plans unless I’m dying!

I just couldn’t face it. Well, I could. I’m sure if I had gone, I would have had a good time, and I would have enjoyed dressing up and having a nice dinner. However, I woke up feeling like my nervous system was fried. Have you ever been to a concert or club where the sound vibrations echoed through you to the point you felt like your molecules were vibrating even after you left? Well, I felt like that. It was as if every atom of my body was in a low-volt microwave just buzzing furiously.

The Cancel Regret Vortex

The minute I cancelled though, I started crying. I realised that I would now have to spend the evening at home. I didn’t want to spend the evening at home. Why wouldn’t my husband have pointed out to me the very real reality of if I cancelled, I would then have to sort out a dinner at home? And be at home? Why was I so stupid I didn’t even think of that?

However, I totally made the right choice because I knew it wasn’t good for me to go. It was a long drive. I didn’t want to drive in peak hour on a Friday afternoon, and it wasn’t just my friend at dinner—it was her two other friends too. I’d have to mask. I didn’t think I had enough mask left… but now I have to make dinner. I could get something from the freezer, but I hate all the food right now. I never want to eat again. I hate everything! I hate these PMDD and AuDHD eating spirals.

These thoughts rolled around my head in less time than it probably takes to sneeze, and yet it started doomsday. Since then, I have not been able to stop crying. I must have cried at least 7 times since then. I was just crying before I started writing this because I realised it was 6pm. I didn’t want it to be 6pm. I need to water the garden and I don’t want to; I don’t want to so venomously I’d rather all the work I put in the last 4 months shrivels up and dies than water it. Now I have only two hours before dark to do it.

Also, it being 6pm meant I’d be hungry soon—and I don’t want to manage my food. I don’t want to cook it, make it, put it in a bowl. I don’t even want to eat it. Yet here I sit, writing, feeling a bit hungry and feeling upset over the fact I got the stew out of the freezer rather than the chilli, which I now feel like I would have enjoyed more.

Bloody hormones!

Harry Potter-Level Escape Fantasy

To any Potter Heads out there: when Uncle Vernon says ‘We’re going away, far away, where they can’t find us’ and the next scene, they are on an impossibly inaccessible rock island with a lighthouse surrounded by storm — that’s where I want to be right now! I don’t know where I would go but get me out of here.

Problem is, my hormones would follow me.

I’m just so angry that my hormones can control me like this. Generally, I’m so much better now. And I wonder how much power I have over myself when I have days like this? Could I have stopped it in its tracks early on? Was it because I blamed myself, considered myself ‘weak’ and ‘bad’ and ‘useless’ for cancelling on my friend, supporting the false narrative in my head that I am not good enough because I am neurodivergent and hormonal and therefore can’t handle life like the rest of the world?

Emotions Fuel Hormonal Reactions

Emotions create a hormonal reaction. Our reactions create a physiological response. If you think about a sexual desire, your body will release appropriate hormones to prepare you for a sexual experience. Our bodies follow our minds.

My mind felt like a failure because I decided to protect my space and not push myself. But I guess I didn’t do it with enough grace. I didn’t allow that to be okay. I slipped back into old habits of blaming myself for not ‘being good enough’ because I wasn’t performing how I felt I should be performing in my life.

Exhausted Despite Sleep

Well, I’m exhausted. I went to bed at 9.30pm on Wednesday night. Usually, I have to be dying of the flu to even contemplate sleeping before at least 11pm. I wound up sleeping for 9.5 hours, and the next night managed to clock the same. Yet here I am, fatigued to the point of inexplicable exhaustion that I don’t think it’s physical tiredness, I think it is autistic overwhelm. Classic PMDD and AuDHD fatigue despite sleep.

It does make sense. My current work is exceptionally high demand, and probably not autism-friendly in the slightest. But I feel like I am making a bit of a difference in the world, so I am doing it for now. I just wish it didn’t wipe me out!

More importantly, I wish I didn’t wipe myself out. It has genuinely taken me at least 6 hours to sit down to write this, when this is how I probably should have started. Instead, I spent time doing busywork, getting more and more frustrated each time I felt like I was just wasting my valuable time, each time stopping to cry because I was judging the work I was doing rather than being grateful that I was doing something.

Urgency Overload in Overwhelm

The thing is, during times like this, I feel like everything needs to be done right now. Like if it isn’t all worked out in this very moment, then none of it is worth anything and it’s never going to happen.

If you are still reading, it is probably because you empathise with the insanity which is neurodiverse hormonal fluctuations. It’s insane how much more our hormones impact us.

Synaptic Pruning and Sensory Overload

Neurodivergent brains often skip that full synaptic pruning stage that neurotypicals go through, retaining extra connections instead of culling about 50% of them, which ramps up sensory intensity to 5-10x normal levels.

Autistic and ADHD people therefore process sounds around 3-5x louder with much lower tolerance thresholds, and studies show hyperacusis kicking in at 70-80 dB for us while neurotypicals feel comfortable past 90 dB.

That’s the overwhelming bit, and PMDD and AuDHD cranks that sensory chaos up another 10x.

Imagine life hitting 10x harder: sounds blaring louder, colours deeper, skin hypersensitive, more options when you are retrieving information (no wonder we get lost and confused).

Right now, I am aware of my lower back strain, a tickly bit of hair on my neck, the sunlight reflection off the fence out my window, the ticking of the clock, the drone of the refrigerator, the evil bloody down lights – they are just horrifically uncomfortable. I hate these lights; they are like onions in your eye burning your retinas. And I’ve had latex, so I actually have experienced burning retinas! Oh, and I’m hungry, which is annoying.

All day I’ve been trying and failing, or I should say, trying and crying, trying and crying. Now here I am: exhausted from the emotion, devastated it’s heading into the evening, and also glad I’ve written this, even though I feel like this particular rant will not be appreciated by Google.

Now I want to do more. I feel I actually could do more. I feel a bit more regulated now, and yet I’ve wasted the whole day and realistically need to wind down for the evening now. Otherwise I’ll be hyped up, stay up until 3am, and then ruin my sleeping pattern, putting myself back into a state of jet lag when I go back to work again.

That Deep Longing for Home

I just wish I could go home. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s like if you were ever a kid who went on a school camp or slept over at a friend’s and all you wanted was to go home? That deep longing for safety, security, comfort, and care. I just want someone to wrap me up in a blanket like a burrito and spoon-feed me my Omey’s soup.

Navigating PMDD and AuDHD Daily

So, I’m not going to be inspiring here and tell you that if you just push yourself you’ll get out of this funk. You might not. I tried and cried at least 7x today. But my husband was right: it’s better that I tried 7x than none. Even the busywork I did is worth something, even if it is only pennies and dimes!

But my suggestion: get it out. Call a friend, write, scream, kick something, dance angry if you can muster up the energy.

What I will say is, our hormones do naturally fluctuate, and as neurodivergent people, those hormones impact us more than most. However, our mood, is how long we choose to focus on the impact of those chemicals. I still have the nasty chemicals pouring through my veins, but writing to you, my focus is elsewhere for a while. I think I might even water my garden after this.

But also, it’s okay if today sucks—just utterly, completely, and totally sucks. You are not alone. You are not a failure. And I love you regardless.

For more on PMDD read PMDD in Women with Endometriosis, or how to accept yourself more fully with neurodiversity, see Why I Finally Started Feeling Good Enough, and if you are struggling with your neurodivergent identity, check this one out AuDHD Identity: You Are More Than Enough