BPD, meet my Hormones, you two have a lot in common!

Maybe its because I'm a teacher and I like cute little graphic organizers like this, but I feel like my emotional life can be summed up in a big Venn Diagram. The pink side A is Borderline Personality Disorder, the blue side B is my hormones and my other lovely diagnosis, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder. The purple area, where they overlap, is just plain hell.

Today is my second day in the purple area. Sorry to all the guys who might be reading this, but today I'm gonna rant about my time-of-the-month problems.

I've had PMDD for years now, and have been on birth control pills for it many times. Because of the side effects I chose to go off the pill, and have only been treating my PMDD with progesterone cream. It helps a bit, for instance with it my cycle is 28 days instead of 32, which means less pre-menstrual days to go crazy. But, like the pill, it doesn't take away all of the symptoms, and some months the main symptoms I have, mood swings and disphoria, are worse than others. After a week of bloating and backaches I started on time yesterday morning - 28 days exactly, which I thought was a good sign. But I have been completely exhausted and out of it since yesterday morning too, and that sucks. Yesterday, I was soooo irritable I got frustrated that I couldn't even find something to do to keep my mind off how irritable I was: I tried reading, writing, painting, watching TV, working out...but each time I started a new activity I just got all angry and quit it. Its irrational, but that's how my mind works when its flooded with hormones.

And even though lately the BPD side has been pretty good (that's why I chose it to be pink in the Venn diagram) last night I got SOOO frustrated and overwhelmed with all the stuff I had to do I felt an emotional attack coming on. (For lack of words, I've decided to coin the term "emotional attack" to describe those times when my emotions take over and my logical brain checks out) I was tired, worn down from my period, and had so much to finish before I could go to bed, even though I was too worked up to go to bed. I am glad that one of my medications makes me sleepy, because once I took it I was able to conk out and sleep and sleep and wake up to a morning when, hopefully, I can watch the anger and chaos of purple fade to calm lavendar.