Do any other autistic ladies here suffer really badly from PMT?

Hi everyone,

I know I don't often post on here but I'd be really interested to hear other people's experiences.

I have had a difficult couple of weeks. I've suffered from mental health issues for years as well as my Asperger's (I was diagnosed with AS just before I turned 16 in 2012, I'm 23 now) and have been concerned about how severe my PMT is for a long time, but what I've only recently come to realise is that my PMT doesn't last a week or just a couple of days; it seems to be the entire second half of the month. Some months are worse than others - this month seems particularly bad. I've realised that the pattern is that the first two weeks of my cycle are bearable, then the wheels seem to come off midway through the month, and it just gets worse from then until my period actually starts. I become unbelievably angry and really struggle to control my anger. I say the sickest, vilest things to my family who are amazing and don't deserve it at all. I get paranoid, I punch windows and walls - I just behave like a very disturbed person generally, my behaviour and speech and everything gets very erratic and I'm just restless - and I live with this huge heavy weight of anxiety and anger in my stomach and in my chest...I can't describe the pain to you; it's like a physical pain. I struggle with sleeping despite being on sedating medication for my mental health, I feel like a caged animal. It makes me think all kinds of bad thoughts which I'm not going to go into here because I wouldn't want to upset or trigger anyone. Although I'm very emotional, I'm not usually a crier if that makes sense - at least, I'm not for most of the month, but for that final week of my cycle, I could keep Kleenex in business! Everything even vaguely sad or stressful or even just a bit sentimental - usually I despise sentimentality and just think it's a bit silly and insincere! - makes me cry, and sometimes I don't need anything to make me cry at all. I was sitting watching a comedy with my parents last night, and I just burst into tears for absolutely no reason, which understandably completely baffled them especially as we were watching a comedy! Often I'll zone out and go into my world then realise my face is all wet, and I'll have started crying without even realising. The last few nights I've cried myself to sleep - it's been really strange as it's been cathartic, crying has felt like I've been getting it out, but the relief is quite short-lived and I'll wake up feeling like hell again. I have a social media friend who is on the spectrum too and she suffers from Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, and I've Googled the symptoms and it definitely fits with the complete torture I deal with every month. Sometimes I wish they could just remove all my working parts so I wouldn't have to go through this. It's not like I need them, I've already made the decision not to have children on account of the fact that I wouldn't be a good mother - and I don't mean that in a self-deprecating way, I mean it in a self-aware way. I believe I have good qualities...I believe I'm basically a kind person who wants the best for others, I would do anything I possibly could for my loved ones and if I can help anyone at all I will (although I am pretty self-obsessed - NOT selfish, if anything I give too much to others, selfish and self-obsessed aren't necessarily the same thing - which I need to work on, but then I gather that's an autistic thing and I've spent so much of my life ALONE, of course I'm going to be self-absorbed) but I don't feel I'd cope with motherhood in any way, and that wouldn't be fair on the child. I'd want to be the best mother I could possibly be in order to bring up a human being who was as happy and adjusted as possible, and I don't think I'd be capable of that. It's the hardest job in the world, and if I'm being blunt I think a lot of parents out there should have looked at themselves harder before having children; i.e. parents who have gone on to abuse their children. I look at what I've put my parents through and I don't know how they've done it. I love kids and I would love my baby more than anything, of course I would, but from what I understand parenthood is not as simple as just loving. Also, my love can often come out in quite a destructive way, i.e. in anxiety, and again, that wouldn't be fair on the child. Anyway, I'm sorry, I've gone off on a tangent.

Sometimes I wonder if my PMT is worse when I'm more stressed out, like it's holding up a mirror to things I already feel rubbish (to put it politely!) about. Things have been hard generally over the last few months, as they have been for everyone. So many awful things have happened to a lot of people I love recently. My 21-year-old sister has a suspected cancerous mole on the back of her leg amongst other things. Covid, of course, has had a huge effect on me. It's hampered my uni experience - as it has done for so many other students - which has been heartbreaking. Most disappointingly of all, it made me cut my semester abroad in Adelaide (in Australia) drastically short and I am as cut up about this now as I was the day I realised I was going to have to leave due to the global situation, as the day I looked down from the plane window at my new home city and saw it get further and further away. I didn't know I'd fall absolutely madly in love with Adelaide - I thought to be honest that just getting through the whole studying abroad thing would be an achievement, there was a time when it just wouldn't have been conceivable that I'd be able to travel to the other side of the world on my own and study there and build a life there for a short time - but it's like I've left a huge part of me there and I won't be complete until I go back. As an Aspie it's been so hard to find my place in the world. When I'd been in Adelaide for a few days, I knew I'd found it. I just knew. Sometimes gut instincts are so powerful. Now, I know how lucky I am that I got to go in the first place. I know how lucky I am in so many ways. I know that far, FAR worse things have come of this pandemic - the loss of life and jobs and this latest horror show with exam results which is impacting the futures of so many young people. But I have felt like a shell of a person since coming home. Things haven't got easier at all. My family have been amazing and are letting me go back there in 2022 all being well, after I graduate but before I do my Masters, and this is the only thing keeping me going, but it's stressful too, as it will take a lot of money and organisation, and I wanted to study there and I'll never get that back, and that's a bereavement in itself, and what if something happens and I never make it back there? I want to move to Adelaide for good one day but that's another worry...you have to have money and skills to move to Australia, and the only thing I can do is write poetry, which isn't valued and doesn't make much money. I'm useless at most things. I'm also concerned about my mental health history getting in my way; you have to have pretty good health to move there too. Finding your place is not as blissful as you might hope - it can make your life more complicated than when you were just drifting! I worry about my future more generally too...I worry about not being able to find a life partner, because I'm so difficult to be with, and I need disappear into my own world in order to stay alive, and I get into such states, and my family can barely stand it and they have to be with me, so what hope would I have with somebody who could choose to leave me whenever they wanted? And what if I was mad about them? What would I do then?

I'm so sorry to have gone on so much! It's helped me a lot to get it out, though. I really am struggling right now and would appreciate anybody reaching out - just knowing I'm not alone would be nice - but especially I'd really like to hear from women in my position who have suffered severely with PMT, and how they've managed it. Any advice would be hugely appreciated. I don't really want to try any hormonal treatments, but if they've been helpful for other people then I might reconsider.

Thank you so much for reading if you've got this far without running a mile!