YAZ is destroying my life.

I am 19 and I have PMDD.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder for those who don’t know.

PMDD makes me depressed from time to time, mostly when I get my period or around ovulation. Some times it’s a day or two, on rare occasions I have one really good month where I don’t get depressed at all. I like those months.

Some months, it is horrible. Like right now, I am sitting alone in the dark at 4 in the morning, writing to keep my mind busy. I feel far too restless to sleep, therefore it’s better to be busy until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

I feel like absolute shit. For no reason at all. I have not been this depressed since I was 14, when I didn’t step outside my parents house for 3 months. (Which was for the record somewhat influenced by having OCD and being a germaphobe.)

Having PMDD is completely controlling my life and I hate it. I have no reason at all to feel this horrible about myself when nothing particular has happened. I just got a new job, and I got to resign from my current job as a customer service agent which I absolutely despise, I have been dreaming of quitting since the day I started. I have the most amazing boyfriend who goes above and beyond for me, we are even moving in together. I moved to a new country for my current job, and I love the city I am living in now. I have the sweetest, most supportive family. Great friends. You name it.

Every single thing in my life is going in the best direction imaginable, so why do I not feel happy? Why do I feel hollow and like my world is collapsing?

Why is my lights on but nobody is home?

Now look at me, I’ve called in sick to work since last Sunday. I can’t sleep at night. I live off of cereal. I create issues out of nothing with my boyfriend just because I can’t control what I am doing or saying. It is like I’m on auto pilot.

What I have realized now, after dealing with this since I got my period when I was almost 12 years old, is that I know this feeling so well. I know exactly what I am going to do or not do. And I know that it is all because of hormones.

I started taking YAZ a week ago. Seems like nothing, I know. But apparently it was enough. Enough to make me die on the inside and become a ghost that nobody recognizes. I am familiar with this feeling, I get days like this every once in a while, but now - now the feeling is clinging to me. It is stuck. I can’t move without its approval.

I was so excited to be starting on YAZ, you have no idea. I read so much about it, women with PMDD were over the moon, never been happier, never had better skin. I waited an entire month because I had to start it on the first day of my cycle. I wanted it for several reasons, partly for maybe obvious reasons since I have a boyfriend and am not very fond of children. But also because I have had horrible hormonal acne for the past 2 years, and I just can not get rid of it, no matter what I try. And then also because I had hopes that it would make my cycles more ’stable’, I guess. I hoped that I would it wouldn’t be so up and down, that it would be more of a straight line than a wavy one. It was going to be great, I was going to get great skin, I would stop getting cramps brutal enough to give me nose bleeds and migraine, and I would be happy.

Oh how wrong I was. My plan completely backfired.

This might be overreacting, but I feel like it want to die. I feel like I am never going to see light again, like I am going to stay like this forever. I know I’m not from past experience, but every time you ask yourself: ”Is this the time it doesn’t get better?”

Now my GP wants be to switch to a different pill, just because I told her this ain’t working out.

Why do I have to feel like this? Why does it seem like every other woman on the planet is doing just fine? They can take birth control and be just fine, maybe some of them get a little bloated, but who gets depressed? Is that just me? PMDD is not like PMS, its a thousand times worse. It is the deepest, darkest place your mind can become. Why do I have to deal with such a thing? Who decided that? Why do I have to plan my life around when my body decides to become a shithole of depression out of nowhere?

The sum of it all is that I am going to do a deep dive on the internet to find out what can rid me of my acne and how I can find happiness and a bit of will to live again. I have decided that birth control pills will quite literally be the death of me, and I am not going to be there when that happens.

To whoever it is that is living like this, it’s not your fault.