Every time I start to get the feeling that EVERYONE around me is hell-bent on annoying the crap out of me deliberately and just being UNBELIEVABLY irritating, to the point where I really want to just punch someone... a day later I get my period.

In fact, I knew I was pregnant when it was one day before my period was due and I didn't want to kill anyone.

I bet the new DSM will soft pedal psychopathy - hits a little too close to home for most psychiatrists.

Anyone who is willing to believe that being a woman is a pathological disorder probably needs SOME kind of pills. I am sure someone will think up a fancy name for that disorder and a cute name for a pill - like Gullibilify - ask your health care professional about it!

I get incredibly stupid. I get really foggy, can't keep a thought in my head, I can't focus, I can't pay attention to anything. I get really frustrated and cranky, but that seems like a pretty rational response to suddenly finding myself seemingly lobotomized out of the blue. Fortunately for me and my continued employment, it only lasts for about a day.

Boy do I miss the Pill... :(

Yeah, men never get mad like that.

/ducks

Buddy, even if there were no hormones involved, YOU have your stomach tied up in knots for a week, YOU have your hands and feet swell up so that your socks/shoes/rings/watch pinch, and YOU deal with blood pouring out your crotch day and night, and then tell me if you don't want to kill everything in sight.

make men act like jerks every day of the month

Speaking as a man, I have no problem just explaining that sort of behavior as the woman just being a jerk.

There is nothing more annoying than to be annoyed or sad legitamately at something, and have some male question the status of your hormones.

Never just emotion, it is either PMS or Menopause.

So a female is only allowed to have emotions (that are inconvenient to others) when they are 10 or younger - or 60 and older?

Gah! That make me so pissed off! Is there a drug for that?

While I agree that it is unspeakably irritating to have every mood or feeling belittled as being "hormonal" (I can't tell you how angry it makes me if I'm legitimatly angry about something and am told that its simply "my time of the month), I disagree that for some reason, it can't become pathological. I spent two years fighting weird cyclical depressions and anxiety, and they always happened at the same time every month. When I started the pill, while they didn't go away, they got much much better. I honestly believe that my depression was related to my period. So does it belong in the DSM as a mental disorder? I'm not sure. But I can say from experience, PMDD isn't totally bunk.

Agree - there is a hormonal-emotional connection. Probably stronger is some than in others, probably stronger at some periods of life than others.

Personally - I know I am more pessimistic right before my period - just as I am more euphorically energized after those few days.

It is the discounting of any negatively perceived emotion as "just" hormones that make a lot of women mad to the point they won't even discuss the connections that are there.

And I guess I resent how dismissed as hormonal, any reaction to life that seems inconvenient to the men involved with the woman. An example of that would be getting mad at something that the male find angry provoking - that is an OKAY responce. Getting mad at something he doesn't, seems to provoke the question of hormones.

Men never act like jerks.

If we did, I am sure they would have made a pill to treat it and sold it to us men with a fancy name like Mellowril or Jerkanon.

All the men would take it and give testimonials as to how much less jerky they were after being diagnosed and treated.

then they would freak out and go postal at a sports club.

A smart man will make that mistake once.

You need to hang out with smarter men.

...Big Pharma benefits from women taking anti-depressants for PMDD doesn't mean PMDD or PMS aren't real. Some company making and selling Tylenol (whichever company it is) doesn't make headaches less real.

Let's keep all these different issues straight: Some women get PMS, some don't. Some women get symptoms that some doctors might diagnose as PMDD, some don't. Some of those women take anti-depressants, some don't. It doesn't necessarily add up to pathologizing normal or non-existent symptoms. It could be just what happens.

I get bad PMS. I don't know if I get full-on PMDD - I have my low moments but they are not constant. I just get through it as best I can with lots of rest, favourite movies, nice food, and other creature comforts. But my experience really has nothing to do with another woman's experience. If taking anti-depressants is what she needs to keep functioning for a few days, that's her business.

As an aside, I get very bad cramps, and it's interesting that every single person to whome I mention has an opinion about why I get cramps (like there has to be an explanation, cramps can't just happen) and what I should do about them. It's like my body isn't just MY business, it's fair game for everyone to diagnose and prescribe and judge. Just today, a MAN (for f**k's sake) got all judgy with me for taking painkillers for cramps. I'm like: get a uterus and then we'll talk.

I know that I am less capable of denying myself the pleasure of a massive blowup when I'm physically suffering from perimenstrual symptoms. For me it's like being cranky from hunger or irritable due to a headache. I've long denied that it was a mental condition, or one that should be treated with drugs in my case.

I've also seen full-blown bipolar disorder misdiagnosed as PMDD, so there is a danger that caregivers are dismissing larger mental disorders as "woman troubles".