This Is Actually Happening 399: What if a hormonal disorder rewrote your identity?
Mar 24, 2026
Anonymous, a private storyteller who endured lifelong hormonal turmoil, recounts how PMDD and perimenopause upended decades of stability. She describes resurging symptoms, a late-in-life shift in sexual attraction, the ethical turmoil with family and marriage, and a year of therapy, medical care, and new love as she rebuilds an authentic life.
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Teenage PMDD Triggered Suicidal Visions
- Teenage puberty brought PMDD symptoms: rapid highs and crushing depressions with chronic suicidal visions and impulsivity.
- Anonymous describes vivid classroom suicide visions, mood ping-pong, and dissociation that she kept secret due to family silence.
Hormonal Birth Control Can Stabilize PMDD
- Combined hormonal treatments like birth control can dramatically reduce PMDD-driven suicidal ideation by stabilizing hormones.
- Anonymous felt 'birds and rainbows' after starting birth control at 20 and interpreted improvement as escaping family stress rather than hormonal effect.
Perimenopause Rewires Emotions And Identity
- Perimenopause can recreate adolescent hormonal chaos, producing extreme mood swings, suicidal thoughts, hot flashes, and cognitive fog that feel like a different identity.
- Anonymous woke at 50 with intense attraction to women and week-long hot flashes, nausea, palpitations, and recurring suicidal imagery linking to her teenage PMDD.