In Love with PMDD
Welcome to the In Love with PMDD Podcast, I am your Host Dr. Rose Alkattan, your PMDD Relationship Psychotraumatologist. Each week, I will be teaching you my signature PMDD Trauma Transformational Tools where I help PMDD Partners to STOP Breaking up every month. We Got This!
In Love with PMDD
Oops, I Did It Again: Breaking the PMDD Impulse Cycle
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Have you ever said something in the heat of the moment that you instantly regretted? That impulsive text message you can't unsend? The dramatic exit from an argument that made everything worse? If you're nodding right now, this episode is for you.
Impulsivity is perhaps the most destructive force in PMDD relationships, yet it's rarely discussed as a central symptom affecting both partners. While we often associate premenstrual dysphoric disorder with mood swings and physical discomfort, the brain's inability to regulate emotional responses during the luteal phase creates the perfect storm for damaging impulsive behaviors.
During low serotonin periods before menstruation, the brain's "feel good" chemical plummets, making it biologically more difficult to pause before acting. This isn't just about snapping at your partner—it manifests as blocking them on social media, making dramatic relationship ultimatums, overspending, binge eating, or even threatening self-harm. For partners without PMDD, the chronic stress of relationship volatility creates its own impulsivity patterns, leading to reactive behaviors that further damage trust.
What makes impulsivity particularly insidious is how it hijacks your decision-making. In those critical moments, the brain focuses entirely on escaping uncomfortable emotions, completely blind to future consequences. I share my own experiences with impulsivity—from booking unnecessary trips to binge-eating chips during luteal phase (those Sweet Heat Lay's are my kryptonite!)—alongside practical tools like the 90-second rule that allows emotional chemicals to settle before reacting.
The most powerful insight? Recognizing your personal impulsivity pattern. Do you become impulsive when feeling rejected? Offended? Overwhelmed? Once identified, you can create an "impulse buffer zone" with five safe activities to interrupt the pattern before damage occurs. For partners, simple practices like waiting 10 minutes before responding to heated messages can preserve relationship health during turbulent moments.
Ready to break the impulsivity cycle? Download my "Pause the PMDD Panic" worksheet to customize these tools to your specific patterns. Your relationship doesn't have to be at the mercy of impulsive moments—with awareness and practical strategies, you can navigate PMDD without causing lasting damage to the connections that matter most.
Impulsivity in PMDD Relationships
Speaker 1Today I want to talk about one of the most damaging symptoms that happen in every single PMDD relationship because I don't want you to feel like you are alone in this and that is being impulsive. Impulsivity is a very common symptom and a lot of times you think it's just for the partner that has premenstrual dysphoric disorder, but it is also very common in the PMDD partners. So being in a PMDD relationship gives you the propensity to be more impulsive and it really impacts the relationship in a damaging way. And I'm going to talk to you a little bit about this because it's something that I have so much experience with, because I remember a time being so stressed out, so overwhelmed, and I just noticed that I was really hypervigilant, I was very on edge and I became really impulsive with decisions. I would be impulsive with deciding on things, with talking about things, not talking about things. So today I'm going to show you what that looks like in your PMDD relationship and then also give you the tools of what you can do when you're in that situation where you're finding like it's a common theme, because I think what happens is when you're being impulsive, you also are very kind of become self-aware of it, because when you have a chance to calm down and you look back at the situation, you're like, oh, I could have handled that differently. And you feel a lot of guilt. And that's when you begin to realize, like maybe you know, I was just being and you don't even have to call it being impulsive. It's just when you're feeling guilty about something that you may have said to your partner or something that you may have done after the fact, when you want to be back on the same page, you all of a sudden are like, okay, well, I felt justified to say or do that in the moment, like when it was happening, I felt like it was the right reaction to have because I was angry or I was mad or I was sad.
Speaker 1For me, my biggest thing was when I got offended. I would get really impulsive and want to come out of that environment and I would say, oh, I'm going, I'm going here Like I would, you know, book a trip. That was my biggest thing and I book trips now all the time. But a lot of times I noticed that I was doing it as a coping mechanism to avoid the issues that were going on in past PMDD relationships, because I knew that was my happy place. Traveling is my my happy place. If you don't follow me on Instagram or TikTok, it's Dr Rose, underscore, in love with PMDD, and I show my whole life and a lot of my life is traveling.
Speaker 1So I think when you get to the point of being in a situation where you're stressed and you're overwhelmed in your PMDD relationship, you will lean on your coping mechanisms, whatever they are. So I have, if you, you know, I have clients where, if your coping mechanism is going to play golf or like pickleball is so common here in California, like a lot of people like to play pickleball or they like to go hiking or they go to other things they like to drink or they like to, you know, smoke or vape or whatever. Whatever your thing is that takes the edge off and makes you feel like you're more in control of a situation. You will tend to do that when you're having these kind of impulsive moments, but let's talk about the individual that's suffering with PMDD first. Okay, so when you're in your luteal phase, a couple of weeks or a couple of days before your menstrual cycle, what I want you to understand about PMDD is it is a mood disorder. It basically messes with you having the ability to control your mood? Does it prevent you and I want to be very clear having premenstrual dysphoric disorder does not prevent you from controlling your moods. What it does is it exposes you to more moods that you would have, such as irritability or offense or rejection and all of those things, and it makes it harder for you.
Speaker 1If you do not have the tools, if you're not actively working on your premenstrual dysphoric disorder, then it is absolutely the default mode is going to be for you to be impulsive and to make an impulsive statement or make an impulsive decision. That's going to be the default mode, meaning if you are not working on managing your PMDD at all, then, yes, you are probably going to be really impulsive. You're going to say and do things that you're going to regret later on, but that's because you're not doing anything to manage it. That's because you're not using any tools. It does not prevent you and I'm saying this because I've had so many private sessions with clients and they literally have the belief that, because they have premenstrual dysphoric disorder, that they have no control over reacting impulsively in their PMDD relationship. And that is not true, and I want you to know that, and I'm coming from a place of love, of having premenstrual dysphoric disorder and knowing that, I know that I have to actively do something because I don't like that version of myself that acts impulsively and I don't like the way that it impacts individuals that I'm in relationships with. I don't like that. It makes me feel, you know, being in a relationship and me personally. So I have to put tools in place because I know that the urge, the desire to react impulsively is going to be there as long as you have premenstrual disorder, because it's a mood disorder and impulsivity is part of your mood.
Speaker 1Okay, and impulsive behaviors. So, number one, this is normally going to happen when you're feeling overwhelmed emotionally and this is also going to reflect in maybe you have burnout from having a lot of physical symptoms. Those are the two areas where they're going to show up the most. So what I try to do with my clients is make sure that, number one, you understand the state that you're in when you make these impulsive decisions. You have to recognize the pattern, because the pattern of when you react impulsively is gonna be the same, pretty much standard, for you. So for me it was every single time I got offended I would react impulsively. So if you think about it very simply like that, then it's like okay, it's like a cause and effect. I get offended, I act impulsive. Maybe for a lot of my clients it's rejection sensitivity I feel rejected, I react impulsive.
Speaker 1Once you're able to identify what your PMDD impulsivity pattern is is what I call it when we're working together Once we notice the pattern, then I can help you rewire your PMDD brain to where you have a different reaction that is not gonna cause damage to your PMDD relationship. But the first thing is really really understanding what is your pattern. So think about that right now, like what happens when you react impulsively. What is going on in your mind? What is that emotion, that negative emotion that you're feeling, and it's probably more prevalent in your luteal phase. So, yeah, that's the first thing emotional dysregulation it disrupts what PMDD does.
How PMDD Disrupts Brain Function
Speaker 1Premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It disrupts your brain's ability to regulate your emotion. Pmdd really messes with your brain and it gives you a lot of the symptoms that you always talk about that are damaging to your PMDD relationship. I have always said and if you listen to oh my gosh, I had to send this to somebody that's wanting to be a guest and I have 263 episodes to date that I have recorded so far over the last four years, and if you listen to one of the earlier episodes, I will literally tell you again and again and again that PMDD messes with your brain and I genuinely feel that, although there are physical symptoms that are horrible as well, like the fatigue and the night sweats, I will always tell you personally that I would rather go through the physical pain of PMDD than go to the mental pain, the pain on my brain. This is why I work so much with myself and my clients on rewiring your PMDD brain, because that's the one that does the most damage in your PMDD relationship.
Speaker 1If you just had fatigue or you just had certain things that are happening in your body, you tend to internalize that, meaning it doesn't really impact your partner that much. If you're feeling like you need to sleep a lot or you're feeling like you don't have the energy to do certain things and it's harder for you to maybe come up the stairs or certain things, that's a physical thing, it's a very internal thing. Like is that going to affect your mood? Yes, when those physical symptoms start to impact your mood, that's when it impacts the relationship. So this is why a lot of what we do is cognitively working on the brain and impulsivity is these intense feelings of anger, sadness, rejection or fear, and then they cause you to make sudden, unplanned actions without thinking about the consequences.
Speaker 1That's one of the biggest things is that it's like this, this blocker on your brain, that you're so hyper focused on the emotion that you're feeling, whether it's anger, sadness, rejection, or you're focused on those emotions so much that you're not thinking about how your impulsivity is going to affect your relationship an hour from now, two hours from now, a day from now, and mostly not even when your partner because some partners don't even really address the issue with their partner immediately it's you just immediately feel guilty after you do it. So this isn't even a situation where your partner's scolding you and be like I can't believe you talked to me like that or all these things Before that even happens. Most of the time you immediately feel guilty for acting impulsively because you've gotten that anger out, you've gotten that rage out, you've gotten that sadness out, you've gotten that rejection out through your impulsive actions. And then, all of a sudden, when you come down from that high, then you feel really, really low and you feel like a monster and you feel like I can't believe. I said that. I can't believe. I did that Because a lot of times when you have that emotional dysregulation, you are acting out of character.
Speaker 1So a person with PMDD might suddenly yell at their partner or quit their job over a stressful email. You get an email that you don't like and then all of a sudden you quit your job and then you're telling your partner that you quit your job and then that causes issues in the relationship. Or your partner says and does something where you feel rejected and you start yelling at them because it's a way of you getting out that negative emotion that you're feeling. And the next thing that happens is you have low serotonin levels. So during the luteal phase, serotonin basically is the brain's feel good chemical. It's the chemical in your brain that makes you feel good, right, so that drops during the luteal phase. So however many days your luteal phase is mine is right now it's about 10 to 12 days and that feel-good chemical, the serotonin, which I love so much, it drops. And so what happens is low serotonin is strongly linked to impulsive behaviors during the luteal phase.
Speaker 1This can look like PMDD rage. This can look like overspending, like maybe you go into your luteal phase and then all of a sudden all of these Amazon packages start showing up and then that creates a problem in your PMDD relationship. And then the next thing is, which, more on the serious side, is the self-harm right? Maybe you're doing something to harm yourself because of the stress and the overwhelm that you're feeling and you're going to that sense of relief. So some PMDD sufferers, some of my clients, they binge on food, on alcohol and drugs impulsively during the luteal phase.
Speaker 1If you notice that you have some habits just think about that right now. Do you have some habits that are more active in your luteal phase than they are outside of that Meaning? Are you binging on food? Of course we have that increase in appetite and when it feels like you can just eat, eat and eat and eat and eat and never get full. I get that every month and I'm like so mad at myself because I feel like after I'm impulsive. I will tell you my weakness with food is definitely chips. I noticed a lot of my clients. You're either a salty person or a sweet person, and what I mean by that is you're either craving really salty things like burgers and chips and fries, or you're like a sweet person where you want cakes and candies and all of these things, and so when I go, I literally can tell by my grocery shopping, like when I'm in my luteal phase and I'm hungry all the time.
Physical vs. Mental PMDD Symptoms
Speaker 1Then when I go shopping I tend to buy like a lot of the same things during my luteal phase because of those cravings. I have these cheddar and sour cream potato chips that I the Ruffles ones that I buy every single month. I have the sweet heat Lay's potato chips, which is like this sweet, tangy, barbecue-ish flavor. And then they came out with this new flavor of Lay's which I'm like why did they do that? I forgot what it's called. They said it was like a limited edition because it was Super Bowl, but then it's been months and months and months. I have to get the name of it, but it is like kind of like a sweet and tangy chip.
Speaker 1So I know that I normally do that and I do it impulsively, because I'll go grocery shopping, put all of these bags of chips in my grocery cart and then I'll feel horrible, because a lot of times what happens is after you finish binging your food or whatever, you get inflammation in your body right, because a lot of the foods, whether it's sweet or salty, causes inflammation. When you're inflamed, your premenstrual dysphoric symptoms are worse. So then I'm like oh my gosh, I can't believe. And it's almost like a monthly thing where I'm like I can't believe I did it again. I can't believe I did it again, because I never feel good about myself afterwards. I feel like man, I feel worse, I feel sluggish, I feel lethargic, I feel like I've already gotten weight gain, but then it happens even more.
Speaker 1So then you kind of think well, I've already been eating and like a lot of times you look bloated when you're in PMDD and so you start eating because you're kind of like well, what's the point anyway? Like I'm already going to you know, look, and feel like this, I might as well just get what it is that I'm craving and that I desire. Please tell me. I'm not the only one, not the only one Like please DM me. And because I know a lot of what I share on my luteal phase, I will be posting, like my food, on there, and then I'll have so many individuals that are suffering with PMDD that are like DMing me and like what kind of chips are those or what kind of food is that? Or because you're in that same place of wanting to do what I'm doing. You know and this is not something that I have mastered when it comes to being impulsive with the food because a lot of times when you do it and I have to catch myself doing it and I'll give you the tools that I use for myself, but I have to catch myself because if I don't, I'm just going to continue to do the binging and it's not going to cause me any kind of satisfaction. It's almost going to cause me to feel guilty, and so I have to use the tools that I'm going to cause me any kind of satisfaction. It's almost going to cause me to feel guilty, and so I have to use the tools that I'm going to give to you today.
Speaker 1So the next thing that can happen when you're being impulsive, as the individual who has premenstrual dysphoric disorder, is you get into that fight or flight activation. Why do we always talk about these fight or flight responses? It's a very common thing when it comes to PTSD, when it comes to stress, when it comes to trigger, and PMDD triggers the body stress response. So it makes everything feel urgent, like you have to make a decision. This is why, when you're talking about breaking up with your partner, you're feeling like I need to leave the relationship right now, like it's emergency mode. So this emergency mode, it can really affect people in a way that they act fast and impulsively to escape the discomfort of the emotions in that moment. So in order to get out of that, you're saying I need to leave the relationship. Like it doesn't feel good for us to not have intimacy. It doesn't feel good for us to be arguing in front of our kids. It doesn't feel good for me to be arguing in front of family. It doesn't feel good for me to not be on the same page with certain financial decisions. This doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1So you feel the need to unplug from the uncomfortable emotion and so you do something impulsive slamming the door and leaving the house during an argument without thinking about where you're even going, what you have with you when you're going to come back, what your plans are for the day. A lot of times when you're acting impulsively, you're not even thinking about anything that you normally had to do for the day, any of the logistics of it. I know when I acted impulsively with exes in the past like I. Just it's like the blinders were on. I literally could care less about anything else that was going on. I just knew that I needed to react in that moment to get that emotion out, and it was so. It was almost like the more I tried to hold it in, the worse the response has got, the more impulsive the decisions that I made.
Speaker 1And so the next thing that PMDD does is it can cause rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. So I'm going to talk to you about that on a separate episode. But basically what it is is it's extreme emotional reactions to perceived rejection. So if I feel like you're rejecting me, then I'm going to act impulsively. So this trigger can cause you to have impulsive PMDD breakups or dramatic actions within the relationship that do not warrant the specific thing that happened, meaning you don't get a text back, and so all of a sudden you start texting your partner excessively impulsively, again and again, and again.
Speaker 1Or you're either texting them a lot and saying all of these mean things because it's what's going on in your head whatever's going on in your head is going on to the text or you can block and delete your partner impulsively. Delete them off of social media, take off the location off of your phone. You're doing it impulsively after they don't respond to a text quickly enough. You're feeling rejected because they didn't give you the reaction that you set the expectation for, and so, as a way to not feel rejected anymore, you in turn block them so that you feel like you have more control over the situation. Where it's not like they're rejecting you, you almost feel like you need to be in a place where I'm rejecting you. You're not rejecting me because it takes away that rejection, sensitivity, dysmorphia.
Impulsivity Patterns and Triggers
Speaker 1That happens when you're in premenstrual dysmorphic disorder, specifically in your luteal phase, and so the next thing that can happen is the need for immediate relief. So when you have extreme pain and suffering that goes on during the luteal phase, you are sometimes and you get to the point and I've been here so many times where you are desperate for a quick relief from the emotional suffering that's going on in your PMDD relationship. You're so desperate, you're willing to do anything to not feel the way that you're feeling in your PMDD relationship, because you're recognizing how it's impacting every other area of your life and you're like I just need to get rid of this feeling, I don't want to feel like this right. So it leads to impulsive behaviors that provide an instant comfort, right, even if they cause long-term harm. You want that immediately. I don't want to feel like this anymore. What is something that I can do?
Speaker 1So an example of this is spending money impulsively. When you start doing that, or overeating, like we were just talking about, or starting intense arguments just to release the emotional pressure, you're feeling like I don't want to keep feeling like this or I'm going to, I'm going to spend all this money on Amazon, right, or whatever company that you would spend it on. I know for me, I had to stop, oh my gosh. I had to stop looking at TikTok excessively when I'm in my luteal phase, because I will literally buy all of these things off of the TikTok shop because they have live people that you just sit there and watch them and they're advertising all of these things to buy and I remember it would be hours that have gone by and I'm sitting there watching this person clicking and clicking and clicking and I have all of these packages coming up and I was just like I am spending money very impulsively because I was.
Speaker 1Probably I didn't have enough energy to do certain things. If I'm just laying in the bed because I don't have a lot of energy, because I'm fatigued, and I just take out my phone. I noticed that that was a pattern that I was having. I'm like, well, I can't, you know, I can't, I don't have the energy or the bandwidth to do anything else, I'm just going to sit here. When I sat there, I spent so much money. Did I need all of the things? No, but it literally gave my mind a mental break from the suffering that I was going through.
Speaker 1I was suffering with PMDD symptoms, I was suffering with fatigue and, honestly, sitting there watching all the people on TikTok and engaging like it gave me that feeling of that I was doing something, even though I really wasn't doing anything except for spending money. The same thing with overeating. Like maybe you feel like you're feeling horrible with your PMDD symptoms and you feel like, oh, at least I'm getting this kind of dopamine hit from eating whatever I want to eat, and your partner can also contribute to that. Like, maybe they're in a place of wanting you to feel better, so they're getting you the snacks that you want and you're thinking like, oh, that's a nice thing, but it's really just very impulsive because it's excessive. That's the thing. When you're being impulsive, it's very excessive, it's very quick and it's something to really it, and you're doing things impulsively in order to kind of block that, because you want to feel like you don't have that emotional stress anymore.
Speaker 1And so what I just really want you to understand about all of this is impulsivity in PMDD. It's not just a bad behavior like something that you know you just shouldn't do or that's damaging to your PMDD relationship. It's a brain based symptom. It is literally messing with your brain and it's triggered by your luteal face. So again, I'm not saying this because it is something that is inevitable. Like you're always going to be impulsive, you're never going to be able to control it. This is not an excuse to tell your partner that, oh, impulsivity is a symptom of PMDD. So you just need to get over the fact that I'm acting impulsive and just kind of like, move on with it. If you want to be with me, then you have to be with the impulsive version of me. This is not what I'm saying. I'm saying you need to be very aware that this is a trick of PMDD that's going to happen every single month until you start to use the tools to counter that, and so what I want you to do right now is to really think about what is the patterns that you're having when you're feeling like you want to make the impulsive decisions.
Speaker 1For me, like I said, it was like when I feel fatigued. I know I'm probably going to overspend and act impulsively. When you're in a relationship and you do that, that can cause a lot of issues because, say, you have a budget and you're like, okay, we're supposed to be working on this specific budget, we agreed upon this budget, but then, when you get into your luteal phase, you're very impulsive and you make a decision that is not within the realms of the budget and then all of a sudden, you're arguing and you're fighting. So when that impulsive spending comes on and I've seen that a lot with myself it's to feel better in the relationship. So sometimes what I used to do was impulsively buy gifts for my partner or book a trip to fix the relationship. I was like very, very, very. That was a very common response for me.
Speaker 1Whenever me and my exes got into a situation where we were not on the same page, we were arguing and we're fighting. I would always say we just need to go on a trip and I love booking trips outside of PMDD. It's part of the core of who I am, so I literally was using it to fix the relationship. I would be like we'll just be fine after another trip, but you can't spend your whole relationship on a trip, and I learned that the hard way, because we would be good on the trip and then afterwards, whenever we would get stressed out again, it would be going back to our regularly scheduled program and then I was becoming reliant upon that coping mechanism that I was doing impulsively, becoming reliant upon that coping mechanism that I was doing impulsively.
Speaker 1So if your thing is gifts like maybe you become reliant on every single time that you and your partner get in an argument, all of a sudden you're buying them gifts and you're feeling like this is a way to fix the situation, especially if their love language is gifts then you're like I did something wrong. Let me buy them flowers, or let me buy them some jewelry, or let me buy them something that they really really like in order for us to be better within the relationship, and so you can actually get to a point where you're not really working on the relationship anymore. You're just patching it up with all of these things like patching it up with a trip or patching it up with a gift, and then cause you're really just thinking to yourself, no-transcript. Like you can get in the middle of argument and then all of a sudden say I can't do this anymore, I'm done with this relationship. This is too much for me, don't contact me again, I'm out and you're walking out of the house. You're walking out of the getting out of the car like walking out of the restaurant.
Speaker 1When you're impulsive, it doesn't matter where you are. That kind of reaction is just going to happen. And so a client with PMDD suddenly blocks their partner after having a disagreement during the luteal phase. Like you're blocking them. You're like I said, you're turning your location off. You're doing all this because you're not wanting to stay within the realms of that negative emotion. And so then the next one is you can have impulsive accusations of cheating or betrayal. You can start to look at your partner like you're definitely hiding something from me. Or who were you talking to last night at 1 am? Or who are you texting on your phone? Now, all of a sudden, your partner's texting and you're looking down at their text messages. You're taking their phone while they're in the shower or something and you're looking on their phone, you're suddenly accusing your partner of cheating after noticing that they were online and you're creating a whole narrative in your mind that is causing you to suffer because you're having this impulsive accusation of cheating or betrayal, for whatever reason. You're impulsively automatically going to your cheating on me, automatically going to betrayal, automatically going to that, instead of asking them about or instead of just telling your partner how you're feeling.
Speaker 1I'm feeling a little insecure right now. I'm feeling a little jealous right now because we're not in a good place and it doesn't make me feel good for us not to be in a good place, because then I'm thinking that maybe you could go be with somebody else that's not in this PMDD relationship, that doesn't have to go through all this, and I'm not feeling very secure in this. I'm not feeling very valued, and so I genuinely am starting to get you know thoughts of you cheating, and you know I don't. It's messing with me trusting you and instead of having that open and vulnerable conversation, you're immediately assuming that it's happening and then attacking them by saying I know that you're cheating, cause sometimes you can tell yourself stories in your mind that are so convincing because you put the pieces together without actually asking your partner and saying I know that it is and so this can lead into the next one, which is impulsive social media posting or blocking.
Types of Impulsive Behaviors
Speaker 1You're sending these cryptic messages and this is really prevalent with memes and you're like if you can't handle me at my best, then you don't deserve me at my if you, if you can't handle me at my best, then then you don't deserve. If you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me when I'm at my best. This is one of the most common ones that I see all of the the just messages and memes that act like that. Like, basically, you're not feeling valued in your relationship, so you start posting these quotes or you start posting selfies of yourself with these captions. That is just leaking out impulsively that you're not happy in your relationship and so when you or you could block them on all of the platforms, and while you're posting these cryptic breakup messages where you're doing it impulsively because you're feeling that negative emotion in the moment but you're not understanding that later on you're opening the door for all of these individuals to be coming into your relationship, thinking that you're breaking up. And even if you make up later on, they're still remembering the messages that you posted and so it's kind of like you can say you can be posting something on social media. That's like I'm tired of being disrespected. If you can't love me right, I'll love myself publicly without you. Like you get very independent when you get on this, this, this impulsivity, because you feel like you can, you'd be better off without them. We're not compatible. I would be better off without you.
Speaker 1And then the next thing is the impulsive physical intimacy or withdrawal. So I was guilty of this before. When you feel like you're losing your partner and you know what that feels, like that gut wrenching feeling of like I am losing, they're slipping away this relationship. We've gotten too many fights, too many arguments. It's not sustainable, it's going downhill.
Speaker 1You may start to initiate intimacy out of fear of losing your partner, even when you're not emotionally in it, and you kind of just think in your mind or you even say to them which I've had partners say to me too like let's just have sex and forget this fight. Maybe this will make everything you know okay again. Like thinking that if you have sex that momentary, that momentarily moment, which may or may not be pleasurable, because I'm a person that really has to be connected in order for me to enjoy sex or intimacy, like I can't just turn it on. And so a lot of times when that was used within relationships, it didn't really do anything after the fact, like maybe in the moment I thought maybe it was serving my partner, so let's just do this. But for me I ended up feeling worse, I ended up feeling horrible. So maybe you're in the realm of withdrawal where you're saying don't touch me, I can't stand you right now. So because of whatever that negative emotion is, you're actually withdrawing from intimacy. You don't want your partner to touch you and you're cutting it off impulsively. You're immediately saying you don't want any intimacy, don't hold my hand. You're kind of moving away when they go to put their arm around you or cuddle with you in the bed.
Speaker 1The next thing is impulsive moving out or packing your bags. Threatening to leave the house literally means you're packing your bags dramatically as soon as you're in the argument you could be in the middle of it and you're like literally walking around packing a bag and you're saying I'll leave tonight. I'll stay at a hotel if I have to. I can't live like this another second You're booking the Airbnb, you're calling your family, you're telling them that you're coming over, you're doing all of this to escape the negative emotions that are happening in your relationship and you're impulsively adding in other people that are going to be affected by this decision, instead of you know taking some time to say okay, if I was to pack my bags and move out, how is this going to impact the kids? How is this going to impact us financially? How is this going to impact the family member that I may stay with? Like? Those are the kind of decisions that are made out of. I don't care about anything else, I just need to get out of here. I can't live another second like this. Like this is the impulsivity.
Speaker 1And the next thing is, if you're married, maybe you have an impulsive decision about divorce. Like literally, maybe we should just get married already, right. Like you're saying like, hey, maybe we should just get married already, right. Like you, you're saying like, hey, maybe we should just get divorced before we waste more time. So this is what I mean. It can go both ways. If you are in the middle of an argument and you're not married right, you're not married, you're just dating. You may say within the middle of the argument you know what, maybe we should just get married, maybe we should just get married and just you know, maybe this wouldn't be an issue if we were married already. So then you start to project that maybe marriage is the issue. Maybe the reason why you're fighting and you're talking about all these things is because you're not married. And then, if you are married, you're thinking maybe we should just get a divorce before we waste more time, or I think you deserve somebody better, like you're not happy, I'm not happy, let's just get out of this. So you're kind of using that push and pull with either getting married or getting a divorce impulsively, thinking that it's going to fix whatever issues that you have within your PMDD relationship.
Speaker 1The next impulsive thing that really does a lot of damage is impulsive oversharing or venting to your friends and family about what's going on in your relationship. The reason why I say this is kind of damaging is because it's not sustainable long-term. So you send these long emotional texts to friends and family about the relationship without consenting with your partner, if it's okay. So we're talking mutual friends, we're talking family members that they're going to see and you're literally going in there telling them all of your business in the moment, because you're feeling stressed and you're feeling overwhelmed and you're saying I can't take this anymore. I need to tell someone everything right now. They deserve to know how awful they've been to me. Because you're in that moment of feeling that intense Maybe it's rejection, maybe it's offense, maybe all these things and so you're feeling like I need to talk to somebody about this and you're almost thinking that you feel better after you get it off your chest, but you're not understanding the damage that it's doing.
Speaker 1Because, again, when you're being impulsive, you're very much just thinking about the present moment and getting away from that negative feeling that you're having. And so the next one is the impulsive ultimatums, the all or nothing thinking, the catastrophizing I call it it's. You demand extreme, immediate decisions about their future. Like you literally like, either you change right now or we're over forever. I need to answer by tonight. Like you have an issue in your relationship and, instead of allowing your partner time to think about it, you're like no, no, no, you need to answer me right now or we need to solve this situation right now. You're not letting them walk away. You're following them when they're trying to walk away, where one of your partner you know you may be using one of the tools which is I need to take some space and walk away and instead of allowing them the space and time to do that, you're being impulsive and you're demanding. We need to talk about this right now. We need to make a decision about this right now or we're done. If you walk away from me again, we're done. And I see this very common because they'll be like Dr Rose, like I tried to use one of your tools, which is taking some space and walking away. My partner didn't let me and they made me have the conversation and the conversation ended up being worse because we said and did things within the realm of the conversation. Some of it ended up getting violent because there was this impulsive like. I need an answer right now. We're talking about this right now.
Speaker 1And then the next one is impulsive self-harm or threats when you have the suicidal ideations and this is a trigger warning right here. When you have suicidal ideations or even suicidal attempts because of the overwhelm that's happening in the relationship. It is very stressful to be in a PMDD relationship where you're not seeing eye to eye and you get burnt out because there's no break. You know it's going to happen again the very next month, and so you may feel so overwhelmed and say, like, if you leave me, I don't know, I don't know what I'll do. I can't survive without you, like threatening as if if you leave me, if you walk away, then I'm going to hurt myself, which is basically what you would be saying. Or you're so stressed out and overwhelmed within the relationship and you don't really you know trust what you're gonna do. You just want the pain to end, and so what I want you to do right now is to really think about when you've gotten impulsive before.
Speaker 1When you have gotten impulsive before, has it given you the result that you've wanted? Because one thing that you really have to do is recognize how damaging it is, because the more that you connect with the fact that impulsivity causes damage, then, when you get to the point where you're about to do it, you'll be able to stop yourself, because you'll be able to recognize okay, okay, this is going to cause damage. I probably should do something different. This is going to cause damage. I probably should do something different. This is gonna cause damage. I probably should do something different and I'm very big with you know, setting mantras, because you have to stop yourself cognitively, you have to stop your brain from going to that default mode which is acting impulsively.
Speaker 1So let me talk to you about the tools for impulsivity for the partner that has PMDD. The PMDD suffer the 90 second rule. So emotions can only last 90 seconds is what you do after the 90 seconds. That keeps that emotion going and I teach this a lot with my private clients, because you assume that you get into this negative emotional state and it lasts so long when really, if you're able to manage it during the first 90 seconds, it allows the emotional chemicals in your brain to settle. So what this means is, when you're using this tool, wait at least 90 seconds before responding to your partner. If they're talking to you crazy, if they're yelling, if they're this and you feel yourself about to do one of the impulsive moves like for me, like maybe it's if I'm scrolling on TikTok and I find myself about to go you know, be financially not responsible by paying for all these things that I really don't need I wait the 90 seconds before I go to do that, because I know the pattern of that or if you feel like your partner is yelling at you and they're talking crazy and you want to walk out. Wait the 90 seconds, allow the emotions to settle in your brain before you do anything, and you can use this script that I'm gonna give you. It says I feel like reacting, but I'm gonna pause for 90 seconds before I speak or act irrationally or impulsively to my partner. You literally can tell yourself this, whether you say it out loud or you say it to yourself, it doesn't matter. You're just letting in and, honestly, you don't have to say this to your partner, because I don't know how beneficial it would be to tell them like hey, I'm going to pause for 90 seconds, like I don't. Maybe you all have like a.
Tools for PMDD Sufferers
Speaker 1What I do with my private clients is we kind of have a code word, basically for a lot of the tools that we use. It is I'm going to say this word and that's going to let you know that I'm using this specific tool without having to really break it down and explain it, right? So the next thing you can do is create an impulse buffer zone list List and you know me if you follow me on social media, I'm always outside. That's one of my tools that I use. What I want you to do is create five safe things that you can do instead of reacting impulsively Go outside, go take a shower, go to the store, go get your nails done. It doesn't matter how long you do it, but basically you need to have five safe things that are very accessible. And I say, when I say create the five things, I like to do it in a way where you're not depending so much on external factors Because, say, if you're like, oh, I'm going to drive, but you're not anywhere near your car, or maybe you can't leave the house because the kids are at home, so you don't want to create a situation where you have things that you want to do to create that buffer but you're not able to do it.
Speaker 1So for me, going outside and taking a walk has really, really helped me. I have a dog, so I have to walk my dog anyway and he's always up for a walk, like literally the other day we went at like two o'clock in the morning and I live in a very nice gated area where my condo is, so it was safe for me to do it. But it doesn't matter when you start to feel impulsive, you need to do something to shift not just your actions but also your environment. You need to get out of that environment that you're in in order to create a buffer, in order for you to use the 90 seconds I don't just mean take the 90 seconds and stay sitting there staring at your partner, because it's going to create a situation where you're continuously being triggered. So you're going to create that impulse buffer zone list. That's five safe things.
Speaker 1So just take some time and think about that right now and just have it. Just put it in your notes app, because a lot of times when you're feeling impulsive in the moment, you don't always have your journal, so that's why I'm always big majority of people have their phones on them most of the time Go put it in the notes app of your phone. The next thing is, if you're feeling like you are about to send an impulsive message to your partner, I want you to type it out the way you would in a normal text message, but put it in your note tab, not in an actual text app. Reread it after 30 minutes and then decide if you still want to send it. But I do believe in getting out the emotion and not holding it in. So if you want to type it out, if you want to write it out, if you want to put it in an email, however, you want to do it, do it, but then don't send it. And you can use this mantra I'll write it out, but I won't send it until I've cooled down. So you're giving yourself the opportunity to say everything in the most real, raw way, but then you don't send it. Therefore, it doesn't do damage in your PMDD relationship.
Speaker 1The other one is the PMDD safer with your partner. I talked about those a lot. Just don't do anything super generic, like timeout or let's pause, like please don't do things that are not in alignment with who you are and how you would normally speak, because I want this to be a natural thing and not something that's super like woo, woo, because then you're going to, you're going to your ego is going to be like that's not even going to work, like that's so stupid, blah, blah, blah. Like for me, one of the mantras that worked really, really well for me when I'm feeling about being impulsive is I always say it, and I think I've said it on a couple of episodes now. I've been intertwining, intertwining my mantras on here and I say it all the time. I say that's a scam. Whenever PMDD is doing something to trick my brain, I literally say that's a scam. Whenever PMDD is doing something to trick my brain, I literally say that's a scam. And it helps me rewire my PMDD brain because I no longer believe what's going on, and I'm a big.
Speaker 1When you have premenstrual dysphoric disorder, what you believe is going to impact your mindset. What you believe, what you think about, is going to impact your mindset, which is going to impact your emotions. So if you buy into whatever it is, maybe it's a rejection sensitivity and you're starting to feel rejected. If you buy into the fact that your partner's rejecting you, then you're going to get that emotion. If you don't want to get that emotion, don't lean into a thought. So, as soon as the thought comes, just say that's a scam, right?
Speaker 1The next thing you can do one of my yogi, my yogi friends, taught me this one I is grounding right the five, four, three, two, one Name. Five things that you see, four things that you can touch, three things that you hear, two things that you smell and one thing that you taste. When you do that, you're giving your brain a break from whatever the negative impulsive emotion that you're having and you're turning it. You're focused to that. During that time, the chemicals in your brain will be able to calm down and you'll be thinking more rationally and less impulsively.
Speaker 1You can do visualization. I use this a lot. It's like your future self-filter, right? So if I was calm, what would the calm version of me do, if I was happy, if I felt free? I know one of the biggest triggers for me when I'm feeling impulsive is feeling trapped. I'm an Enneagram seven, I'm a Sagittarius, I'm a free spirit. If I feel like there's something going on in my relationship where I'm feeling trapped, I get claustrophobic. And so when I start to think about I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here. I will just ask myself, like my to leave right now. If I was to book a trip right now, would that help my relationship or would it make it worse? Like literally just asking yourself if you do the action that you feel like doing when you're being impulsive, is that going to help your relationship? Is it going to help you? So you're kind of visualizing that like what is that going to look like? If you're my private client, you know I say that a lot. Well, you can't just speak to me and say, oh, we're going to do this and we're going to do this. Okay, but what does that look like? Because then it gives your brain an opportunity to paint a picture and then, when you paint that picture, when you visualize it, you may say, oh well, that actually won't work. You know what I mean. That actually won't work for me. So then you're able to make a different decision because you've taken that time.
Speaker 1The next thing is redirecting your physical energy rage and you're feeling impulsive. You need to get that energy out right. This is a lot of times when I go to the gym thank goodness for 24 hour gyms or I'll go outside, but it's not a situation where I'll just go outside and do like a leisurely walk. If I'm feeling like I have a lot of impulsiveness going on, I will go do sprints. I'll go, you know, just run really fast and then walk, run really fast and then walk, like just to get to break a sweat and to get it out of my system. Or I'll go to the gym and maybe do a HIIT workout or lift some weights. I'll just do something and it can take as little as like 10 minutes, 20 minutes, like you may feel like staying in that moment, but you need to get the physical aspect because what happens is when you're holding onto all of that stress, it's in your body, the trauma, the stress overwhelm, all it's in your body, the trauma, the stress overwhelm, all of that is in your body and you're gonna start to feel it and you're gonna be like this is when you're gonna say, oh, you're making my PMDD symptoms worse and then set like a no major decisions rule Most of my clients have this where you're not making major decisions during the luteal phase, we're not breaking up, we're not quitting jobs, we're not spending excessively.
Speaker 1Until after my period comes. Am I willing to address all of those things? Absolutely, but I'm not going to make a permanent decision about them while I'm in my luteal phase. Aka, that's a scam, because you already know, when you're in your luteal phase and you're feeling impulsive, the decision that you make is probably not going to make sense to you or feel aligned with you once your cycle comes, when your cycle comes and you feel that sense of relief, at least cognitively, at least mentally, yes, you're going to have the physical symptoms, but cognitively, when you have that sense of relief where the cloud, the PMDD cloud has been lifted from your brain and you're looking at your partner and your relationship with this renewed sense of hope, like I got this. You're not going to want to have made all of these permanent decisions that you now have to clean up the mess from it, right? You're not going to want to have to clean up the mess from the decisions that you made when you were in a state that you just wanted to get out of it, right? You wanted to get out of the negative emotion. So this is what your partners can do PMDD partners. This is for you now. Okay, so these are the tools for the partner.
Speaker 1Before responding, say you got this text message from the individual, your partner, that suffers with PMDD and they're saying mean and nasty things Like let's just be honest, let's be real, there's a lot of mean and nasty things that can be said via text message. When you guys are arguing, I want you to wait 10 minutes before you text back. I know a lot of times you have your read receipt on, so the partner may have seen that you can see. So that creates an issue. I know for me, what I used to do is I wouldn't click on the message. If I knew that I was in that state of being impulsive and all the things, I wouldn't click on it because I don't wanna create a read receipt. If I have that on and then my partner see that I'm not responding and then that causes a deeper issue. If I know that I'm feeling impulsive because we've been fighting or arguing and all the things, I wait 10 minutes.
Speaker 1And you know a mantra that you can use for this. One is I care about us more than this argument, but I need 10 minutes to think about it before I reply. I need 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, like this is what you're saying to yourself. I need some time before I reply, cause I already know, thinking about future self, I already know, if I was to respond right now, the things that were. Have you ever done that when you literally thought about what you were going to say to your partner, like in your mind, and then you're like that was harsh, like before you even send it, like you have the awareness of, like I'm going to tell, I'm going to tell them this, and then you're like, dang, that was nasty. And then, if you don't do it, you're going to be very proud of yourself that you didn't fall for that trap, because then when you're texting, the thing about texting is you can always pull up a text later on. So it's one thing that can keep arguments going on, because they'll be like I never.
Speaker 1After you're finished, being impulsive for the individual that doesn't have PMDD, you may say I never said that to you because you're not feeling like you're in that state of those emotions. But what can they do? They can pull up this text message and say, look, look, look, you said it right here, look what you said. And then they'll start screenshotting it to you and sending it back, and then it's going to cause the argument to be even worse. And so if you never send the text, you won't have that proof. That's sitting there later on when you're in the middle of an argument or even trying to repair an argument.
Tools for Partners
Speaker 1So the next one is name it to tame it. So if you're the partner, I want you to name whatever emotion that you're feeling. I'm feeling angry, I'm feeling pissed off, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling rejected, I'm feeling hopeless. I'm feeling whatever. You're saying what you're feeling before acting on it. So I'm feeling blank. Acting on it might make it worse. I'm feeling pissed off.
Speaker 1So acting on feeling pissed off is probably going to make our relationship worse. That's the mantra I'm feeling pissed off Like be honest with how you're feeling, don't try to deny it. Don't feel like, oh, I got it. You know a lot of times. How many times have you gotten into a situation where you're like I can talk about this. You feel like you're capable of talking about a situation calmly, but then you end up talking about it and you end up going off. And then you regret it later on and you're like I should have never brought it up. Yeah, if you give yourself that mantra ahead of time and just say, hey, I'm feeling like this, I'm not feeling good about this situation, I'm feeling betrayed, I'm feeling like I'm getting the short end of the stick. I'm feeling like I'm not understood, my needs aren't met. If you're feeling like that, then acting on it right now may probably make it worse. And I'm not gonna get my needs met by acting impulsively right now.
Speaker 1The next thing you can do as a partner is have a physical exit strategy for overwhelming situations, and this has to be something that you agree on so you can say I need to step away for a few minutes so I can show up calmer, like right now. I've said this before where I've told partners to say this as well and it's really actually worked. And it's like I love you too much to stay in this situation because I know what I could potentially say might hurt you and I don't want to hurt you any more than you're already hurting right now. Like I see that you're hurting right now and I'm sorry for my part in it. I just need to take some space right now because I don't want I don't want to make it worse. I'm going to be back in like 30 minutes. Can you, can you please do that for me? Can you just give me 30 minutes so I can regulate myself right now or calm down, like however you speak, and then that gives you the space and time by validating how they're feeling, taking accountability and responsibility for your part in it, and saying like, hey, I don't want to make things worse for you. Like I already know I probably hurt you when I said this or I did this. Take accountability and I don't want to make it any worse. Can you please just give me a couple minutes so I can make sure that when I come back, that I'm giving you the respect that you deserve, right, when you approach it that way. It's way better than just you know walking off and then them never knowing when you're coming back.
Speaker 1So the next thing is you can use an anchor statement. This goes back into the grounding that you can use for the partner. This isn't personal, it's the PMDD, and this doesn't mean it's an excuse. But when they're reacting in a certain way, in order for you to not internalize what they're saying and doing, you can just say it's PMDD or this is a scam or whatever your mantra is where you're calling out the behavior and saying it's premenstrual dysphoric disorder. My partner, a lot of times, what can help is showing some level of sympathy or empathy, like my partner's really suffering in their luteal phase right now. They're really suffering with PMDD right now. They don't really mean this. I'm pretty sure we're going to talk about this later on and get this all sorted out.
Speaker 1The next thing is accountability check-in right. This is when, a lot of times, when you're feeling impulsive, my private clients will reach out to me and send me an email or book a session to really, if it's like a situation that is, they really need to work through it. Having that level of accountability was saying no-transcript really work through that. It's better to do that with me versus doing it a lot of times with your partner, because you may say or do something that you may regret later on, impulsively, because you're in that moment where you're seeing a situation a certain way and what happens is when we go on the private session, I'm able to give you some insight into the situation from a partner, from an individual's perspective, of someone who has premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and then give you the tools of what you can do based off of the emotions that you're feeling. So when you do interact with your partner, it's not in a damaging way, and so you can also do the post-cycle perspective, like, basically, once my partner gets out of PMDD, what do I want that to look like? This really helps because you don't like where things are right now in your PMDD relationship, maybe in the moment. But if you're like, hey, when she goes into her luteal phase, like I want our relationship to look like this. Well, if you want your relationship to look and feel a certain way, then are your actions, when you act impulsively, is it going to give you the result that you want, or is it going to make things worse, right?
Speaker 1The next thing is you can do hopefully you're tracking your partner's cycle. I know things can get tricky if they have perimenopause and it's very sporadic, and I will. When I say tracking, I don't mean you put it on your calendar and you say these are the days that you're in PMDD, these are the days that you're not, because our cycles can fluctuate so often that you don't want to get too rigid Like I've been in that situation before where partners are like it's the 20th of the month, like you're supposed to be in PMDD, where I wasn't in PMDD yet, but because it was the 20th of the month, they were like assuming no, but it says and it's like you cannot be that rigid. Our bodies don't work like that. We have a lot of ebbs and flows and so, based off of the stress that's going on in our lives, our cycle might change. So I would say your partner's cycle, make sure that you're asking them in a nice non-critical way how are you feeling? Are you in your luteal phase, getting that confirmation before you start assuming that they're in PMDD?
Speaker 1So what I want you to just recognize from this whole episode is for the individuals that are suffering with PMDD. Impulsivity comes from intense emotions, right Like the PMDD rage or the panic For the partner. Impulsivity comes from getting defensive, from feeling burnt out or feeling helpless in your PMDD relationship. So if this is something that you know that you need help with, I have designed something for you that is really going to help you break down all of these tools that I've been teaching you, and it's going to help you just put them into play. It's called Pause the PMDD Panic your impulse control worksheet. What this guide is going to do is give you the tools and you can customize it to the patterns that you're seeing.
Speaker 1Like I said, when I'm offended, this is when I'm impulsive, right, so it lets you work through it and it lets for the partner that has PMDD and the partner that doesn't have PMDD. So this is something that you need help with. If you want to even book a session right now, during the month of July, I do have those discounted sessions. So if this is something you want to work on on a private session, this would be a good opportunity to really dig deep and, instead of you just guessing on the worksheet, we can actually get to the point where we're saying, okay, this is the tool that you specifically need, and then have your partner do the same thing. Because what I will say is for my private clients when you feel like you have a plan, then it's restoring the hope in your PMDD relationship, where you're not feeling like so impulsive, where you're feeling like you have to break up. So until next time. We got this, I love you.
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