Hi Steve,
Well, I might sound like I am sitting in the cat bird's seat because my wife has started to DO SOMETHING about this problem, but...
Its been a long road. She's always had this; I met her when she was 18 years old and I was a dirty old man of 22. I dated her for a year and a half where she was basically living with me, and it was such a living hell at times that we ended up splitting up with no possible hope of reconciliation. I wouldn't even speak to her anymore (after standing in the middle of a busy street while she screamed "F*CK you and F*CK off, forever, and by the way, I slept with THIS GUY, THIS GUY, and THIS GUY last week!!!" I was inclined to take her at her word). The funny thing was, even after doing that she would still call me up for emotional support, which I didn't feel it was my job to give after that. Well, as a result of all of this, she ended up in the suicide ward, went through a long period of depression and did a lot of very, very unhealthy things that resulted in a lot of health issues we still deal with today, not to mention disturb me greatly. After a break of a year and a half, and a time where I hadn't talked to her in many many months, I bumped into her on the street one day and here we are. She (at the time) seemed that she had cleaned up a lot of her issues, which at the time I blamed on lack of maturity, things like that and figured she would grow out of it.
Well, guess what, she never did. Somwhere around 1995 or so, I realized that there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with her. After our daughter was born in 96, it took a turn for the worst, to where I was attacked physically several times and I was afraid to leave her alone with our baby. Things improved at bit for a while, then we had our son and made a move to a different city, and things took such a horrible turn I din't know what was up. I collect classic motorcycles, one day she went after one of them with a baseball bat and I didn't know what to do so I just stood there and let her do it. I just felt totally powerless in all of this. So I stood there and let her attack my pride and joy, I just didn't know what else to do. Bikes are always fixable, right? I'd rather let her have the chance to get it all out of herself. Or worse - target me instead. I'd rather be hit with that bat then listen to some of the verbal abuse she's heaped on over the years.
In '01, she had a series of major episodes, she was also getting hit with the autoimmune portions of this - back pain, got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, investigated IBS, switching birth control methods, skin irritations, diarea (can't spell it) for six months, huge weight loss. After all of this, she finally called me out of a training class at work threatening suicide, which I have to admit, with her, I would always wonder how serious it was. Even her documented attempt seemed a pretty poor try for someone who is serious, but I've since learned my lesson. Point is, suicide threats were a monthly thing, to the point where I felt she was threatening it just to piss me off. This time sounded more urgent though, so I left from work, ran home, came in the house to find a rope over the rafters, her collapsed on the couch sobbing, and my kids in the middle of it.
That was it for me, that was where I stepped in and said that she was getting medical treatment NOW. Since she was in no state, I arranged psychologists, doctors, etc. an as a result, her gyno finally said, "Hey, you've got PMDD. Here's prozac."
Well, the prozac capped a lot of the bad, but prozac has some really bad effects otherwise. The good times were gone, the bad times were lessened, and she developed a loss of social inhibitions that was hurtful and at times horribly embarrassing. Kind of sucks to hear "You are fat, you are bald, you look like crap" all the time, even worse to know she really MEANS it... (For the record, I'm 5'9", 175 lbs with a heavy build and I still have hair, not as much as I used to but I ain't bald either. Can you tell I really hated hearing this stuff all the time? At the time, I was maybe 10 lbs overwieght and my hair had started to thin).
SO, I withdrew. I stopped sleeping in the bed (didn't feel welcome), wouldn't talk much more than grunts. Sex? Maybe once a month, honestly that was the only form of communication we had. She can't apologize, I think its part of her denial actually... so she makes up for it by wanting to have sex, and frankly, after this long, I need the words. Sex wasn't doing it anymore, it wasn't enough for me to know that she acknowledged the pain she had caused and felt bad about it. Communication, if it happened, came in screaming matches.
Late last October, she announced that she had had it with me and was looking for an apartment. Basically, everything was all my fault. Never had she looked at the reasons WHY I might have been acting like I was acting. If you run through the "Abuse Checklist" on this site, I think I fit every single criteria on it, I think that's a pretty good explaination of my behaviour. Most of my reactions are typical of someone in that situation. Looking at myself as an abused man was actually kind of eye-opening, though most men I know would NEVER admit to being "abused" because its so emasculating.
That was what it took to get into couples counseling. Her overcoming her resistance to entertaining the possibility that her disorder was doing a lot of the talking for her didn't start to creep into the picture until April or so, with a lot of gentle suggestion from both me and the counselor that she is STILL very resistant to.
Out of that, well, now I go to counseling because I realized I have to get over my bad habits for things to improve. She went to a psychiatrist yesterday, basically to get a reality check on her tryptophan ingestion, and to see if there was anything else she could be doing, and she got a lot of suggestions. She was referred to a therapist with PMDD experiance so she can begin counseling.
Well, if you are still here, hope you liked my life's story!
My long-winded point is: It took from 1991 to 2004 to get here. It was a brutal ride, the highs were high, but the lows were so f*cking unbelieveable I sometimes can't understand how in the hell we still are together. Most of the time, actually. I guess the realization long ago that she really wasn't in control of herself can take the credit for the fact I'm not single.
However, buck up - you got it easy! PMDD wasn't in a doctor's vocabulary when we started looking at possibilities, and as far as there being stuff on the 'net, well, in a lot those days, there WASN'T an internet. Still today, I find almost nothing in bookstores on this... its ALL on the net. And there's a lot of good information out there. If I knew then what I know now, the last ~5 years would have gone a lot better, I can assure you.
Since you won't have to do as much footwork to figure out what the heck is going on, you should be able to spare yourself a lot of this. Knowing the problem really contributes to solving it, even if she isn't listening, don't give up yet. Your reactions to her bad days will change; you know what's up and it isn't going to affect you so badly if you know the situation. Who knows, maybe changing YOUR behavior will help her see how hard you are trying, how understanding you really are and stuff like that. THEN, maybe, just maybe, she will start to reach out to you for help and support, and THEN your progress will start.
The best thing is, once it starts, it snowballs. Things aren't perfect, but they are LIGHT YEARS better then in April. Now that she's starting with a counselor, the ball ought to really get rolling. I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this time, it doesn't appear to have a train attatched to it.
The other thing is that so far, 1 day into the "bad days" this month and the first month with no Prozac, only tryptophan, vitamins and the like, she is more relazed than I have EVER seen her around this time and I'm getting text messages on my phone all day about how wonderful I am. Granted, I got 9 or so more days of this trepidation to go, but you find hope where you can, right? So far, I'm loving this.
SO\o, this isn't to toot my own horn or because I'm an internet psycho who need to blab on and on about my life to make myself feel important... I was trying to show you that yes, this is a very long and difficult road. She's probably going to miss some obvious stuff about herself, and she will fight tooth and nail to avoid responsibility for any of it... you can't imagine how I felt when I was told the motorcycle/baseball bat thing was MY fault ("well I needed to, because YOU DON'T LISTEN TO ME")... but be patient, things can improve. I found it helpful to find something positive every day, no matter how pitifully small it was - "Wow, she hasn't called me a f*cking *sshole for a WHOLE DAY!!!" Hey man, its something.
Hope it made you feel a little better.
