Awareness as a Pathway to Healing
Never underestimate the power of AWARENESS to change how you experience your life and PMDD.
Brett Buchert · April 1, 2025
It's officially Premenstrual Disorders Awareness Month!
This month is typically seen as a time for those of us with lived experience of PMDD to try and raise awareness amongst those without lived experience.
This is super important for sure!
We need more doctors to know about PMDD so it doesn't take an average of 12 years to get a diagnosis anymore. We need more people in general to know about PMDD so that our family, friends, and employers understand what we're going through.
And a lot of us probably even heard about PMDD for the first time through campaigns like PMD Awareness Month - finally giving a name to what we'd been experiencing and a direction towards feeling better.
But when you live with PMDD, awareness can be so much more than just learning the list of symptoms, diagnosis stats, and demographics.
Awareness is a pathway to healing.
This PMD Awareness Month, I encourage you to focus your awareness inward and see how greater understanding of your own experience can transform it. Here are three ways:
AWARENESS OF THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE
It always seemed strange to me that so much awareness-raising was focused on the condition of PMDD, and not the cycle itself, because in my experience, understanding our menstrual cycle can dramatically shift our experience of PMDD!
The trouble is, most of us were never taught that the menstrual cycle is supposed to subtly shift our energy, mood, thoughts, and sensations over the course of the month. This is physiological normal and purposeful. But when we're not consciously aware of these shifts it can leave us feeling deeply confused or frustrated. Combine that with stress, past traumas, heightened sensitivity, a modern go-go-go lifestyle, and enculturated misogyny and you get SYMPTOMS.
The beautiful thing is that the remedy to this is simply reclaiming feminine knowledge and practicing cycle-centered living. Okay, it's not that simple and definitely takes time and commitment, but it's also completely lifestyle-based and can complement other treatments we might explore.
If you want to raise your awareness of your menstrual cycle, I recommend books like Period Power by Maisie Hill and Wild Power by Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo-Wurlitzer. Or, for a PMDD-specific deep-dive, check out my masterclass on menstrual cycle awareness for PMDD.
AWARENESS OF SENSATION & EMOTIONS
As we begin unraveling our experience of PMDD, the sensations and emotions that lead to symptoms become a lot more clear, and yet that doesn't mean they're easy to deal with. This is where nervous system supporting self-care comes in. My go-tos that are free and always available are sunlight and grounding. Yep, a couple minutes soaking up the sun and sitting quietly on the ground. Hot showers are also such a balm. Movement and breathwork can also do wonders for helping us work with powerful energy within the body.
AWARENESS OF HISTORY
And finally, PMDD awareness is also about understanding the history of women's health and the sociocultural context in which a condition like PMDD can become so prevalent.
For me, understanding this history is what shifted my own belief that PMDD was simply encoded in my genetics and thus there was nothing I could do about it other than medications. While I do believe I have heightened cycle-sensitivity and a genetic susceptibility, I don't think PMDD would develop in a world where we truly valued the cyclical and emotional intelligence of women.
In fact, the patriarchal world we live in now is only about 3500 years old. Before that, feminine deities and goddesses were worshipped, the Great Mother revered for her sacred life-creating power, and cycles of nature honored and utilized to establish personal and cultural structure. I don't think PMDD would exist in that world…
Of course, we can't objectively know, but we can learn.
To deepen your awareness of this history, I recommend these books:
The Cycle: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD by Shalene Gupta
Blood, Bread, and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World by Judy Grahn
You are a Goddess: Working with the Sacred Feminine to Awaken, Heal and Transform by Sophie Bashford
When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone
Never underestimate the power of AWARENESS to change how you experience your life and PMDD.
Happy PMD Awareness Month!
