A PMDD Episode & Epiphany in JFK

After spending a few months in Mexico in 2017, I really wanted to go home for my birthday to see my family. I used money from my 401k plan from when I worked at Planned Parenthood to live on and to travel home with. It wasn’t much, I was able to get home to New York. After living at my mother’s house for two months my partner at the time-Felipe and I decided that we both wanted to go back to California because it was hard for him to find work under the table in New York. After the month of working our asses off cleaning houses, mowing lawns, and de-grouting bathrooms we took a greyhound bus down to New York City where we were going to fly to Los Angeles. We booked our stay at an AirBnB in Brooklyn with a witchy hipster in her late 20’s. 

After Felipe and I got comfortable, I told him I wanted to meet up with an old friend from college and wanted to have some beers with her. We met up with Caroline and some of her co-workers at a modern style bar with wooden decor under a tall building. Everyone was talking and having a great time, we were laughing, remembering the good old times from college, and cracking jokes. It was after the second beer, an inner annoyance switch turned on. Everything Felipe said started to irritate me. I hated the words coming out of his mouth, ‘Why wasn’t he asking them questions about themselves? Why is he so spacey? Why isn’t he paying attention?’ I went into hypercritical mode, but still tried to chat and have fun with Caroline, as to not ruin the cheerful mood. ‘Who would want a hypercritical, hyperemotional person around anyway?’ I thought.  

The drinking continued and we decided to call it for the night. Caroline went back to her spot in Brooklyn, while we went back to the Airbnb. As we were walking back to the spot, I felt the familiar, yet uncontrollable trance of rage come over me, and it was all directed at Felipe. Everything he did was wrong, everything he said was wrong. 

‘Why were you so spacey with Caroline’s friends!?’ I screamed loudly into the sticky hot Brooklyn summer street. 

‘I wasn’t!, I was just being myself!.’ He retorted. 

‘Well it looked like you didn’t even care about them.’ I spat back. 

We continued on like this until we got up to our spot and I proceeded to tell him that I definitely wanted to break up. That when we got to California, I was going to go off on my own and maybe he could go back to Mexico or find his own work in the hills of Northern California, trimming weed. 

Our flight was at 7am, and we had to wake up at 4:30am to catch an Uber to the airport. Felipe didn’t sleep the whole night. He was at the foot of our bed sitting cross-legged, looking out into the smoggy Brooklyn sky. It was hot, and an oscillating fan blew the smell of humid New York wet pavement and garbage around the room. I slept an hour, and when I woke up I felt like a pot of warm water approaching boil. The pot was my body, and the water my emotions. I could feel the way the emotions moved throughout my body, My chest carried a heavy wave of grief, my face was warm and emotion flowed through the front of my face. My biceps tingled with sadness, as they carried my heavy backpack down the stairs into the Uber. I sat in the Uber, longing to reach for his hand, but felt like the dam of emotions coursing through my body would open up through the floodgates of my eyes if any act of love was shown between us. I didn’t reach out, or hold his hand, or say I’m sorry. What I did do though, was look at him, with a sad longing. He looked back and nodded. Understanding. 

When we got to the airport, it felt like things might be okay, but I was still unsure, and still felt like the almost-boiling pot. We checked our luggage, and took our carry-ons to TSA. I slid my shoes off, and put my black backpack through the scanner. I walked through the metal detector without a problem, but for some reason my backpack was taking longer than normal to go through the conveyer belt. The security guard asked if that black backpack was mine and I said yes. He went in the front pocket, and took out the same redwood pocket knife that I had cut myself with in Mexico, and that my mom gave me for Christmas. 

‘SHIT.’ I said. 

‘You’re not getting on the plane with this.’ He said. 

‘Can I put it in my checked luggage?’ I asked. 

‘Your checked luggage has probably already gone to the plane, and you can either check this bag, or you’re going to have to throw the knife out,’ he said.  

I had hardly any money, not enough to check another bag at least, and I didn’t want to throw this very expensive custom made pocket knife away that my mom got me for Christmas. My throat started to seize up, my vision went blurry and my body started taking over. I couldn’t make a decision. There were people behind me watching and people in front of me. Felipe was on the other side, waiting to go into the terminal. I needed control, I had none, so I started digging into my forearms with my nails. I could control my pain. I could control the scratch marks I was making.

 The guard put my bag and knife on the table, and a kind woman security-guard came along and took me back to where we started, at check-in. As I followed her, my hands took over and made deep scratches on my chest and neck, my arms, my head, my stomach and any available skin I could get my nails into. Before she turned around, I stopped because I didn’t want her to see me wrecking havoc on my own body. 

She asked ‘Are you going to be alright Miss?’ 

I quickly answered, ‘Yes, I’ll be fine.’ 

I walked away as she handed me the knife and my book-bag. I frantically looked around for a solution. ‘I know!’ I thought. I’ll gift it to someone, that way it won’t go to waste. I started to search for someone cool and hip enough to receive my tool of self-injury, gifted to me by my own mother. The absurdity of it. I saw a guy in a Red Hot Chili Peppers shirt. Surely he would want my pocket knife. I went up to him, teary eyed, scratches on my neck and chest, hair a mess, and hungover and asked if he wanted my pocket knife. A look of pity, fear, and the need for a quick escape crossed his face and he said, ‘No thank-you!’ And he turned away. I asked a few other people and everyone said no. I had to get through soon, we had a plane to catch. I looked at the garbage, an in an instant I knew I had to throw the knife away. I looked at the knife and immediately chucked it in the bin. As I walked away I thought, ‘Maybe it’s for the better, maybe I won’t cut myself anymore.’ 

I got through security, and was so mean in my head to everyone around me. ‘Fucking cunt’ I would say to myself. ‘Fatty, bitch, fucking happy ass motherfuckers.’ I had been meditating for several years now on and off and was aware that I was thinking these thoughts at people. ‘Stupid dick, fuck you for not letting me bring my fucking. knife, I’m not going to kill ANYONE.’ As soon as I would think these thoughts, I’d have a wave of shame. ‘Look at you, you’re terrible for thinking these thoughts, you can’t even be kind. You worthless piece of shit. You’re a terrible girlfriend, how could Felipe ever love someone like you. You’re too emotional, too mean, too crazy.’ 

I eventually got through security again without a hitch. Felipe had waited for me and we started walking together down a brightly lit hallway. I was walking slowly and thinking ‘This is too much, this life.’ I just couldn’t take it anymore and I collapsed with my backpack on, laying on the floor of the JFK airport. 

Felipe came over me and said, ‘Chelsea, get back up, we have to catch our plane.’ 

I could see him out of the corners of my puffed eyes, but I said ‘No, I can’t do this anymore.’ 

For minutes he begged and begged me to get up. I wouldn’t move. Eventually a woman came along and asked if I needed medical assistance. 

I grunted at her ‘No, leave me alone.’ 

She said ‘I’m calling medical attention right away.’ 

I said ‘NO’ loudly, and heavily pushed myself up. 

This will be one of the first of many times I push away medical attention for PMDD. I hobbled down the hallway to a restaurant, leaning on Felipe, and collapsed into a booth. I’m pretty sure people were asking Felipe if I was okay. He answered ‘Yes, she’ll be fine,’ in his Mexican accent. He ordered me some orange juice and some eggs. I couldn’t order for myself. 

While waiting for the food to come, I started to feel cramps. ‘My period!’ I thought. ‘Is that what this was all about?’ We got our food, and I ate slowly. The cramps were growing, and I kept wondering if my mood was severely affected by the alcohol I drank the previous night and if I really was about to get my period. Sure enough, an hour later I went to the bathroom and started a heavy, heavy bleed and I was relieved. This mood wasn’t just me. There was something here. I had to do more research. I immediately googled ‘Severe PMS’ And PMDD came up. I researched more, and had an AHA moment when my symptoms matched the symptom list online. I didn’t care how much money I had, but I immediately ordered the book ‘The PMDD Phenomenon’ to where we would be staying in LA, and started my journey into healing. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me what was going on, but I still eventually saw one anyway, and she prescribed me anti-depressants, the ones only ‘she was familiar with.’ But these made me feel flat, and coming off of them I also had psychotic episodes where I felt out of control and self injured. I didn’t give up hope, and I kept reading, researching and looking anywhere I could to figure out how to help myself.