Your Partner Texted “Sure” And You Planned A PMDD Breakup

Me Before PMDD: Relationship Reset Toolkit-Couples

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Ever feel like your relationship hits the same wall every month? We’ve been there, and we’re unpacking why PMDD can turn a tiny spark into a wildfire—and how to stop living in the loop. We break down how surface fights about chores, texts, and tone usually point to deeper beliefs about safety, value, rejection, and abandonment. When PMDD heightens emotional sensitivity in the luteal phase, every delay, sigh, or raised voice can feel like proof of the worst story in your head. The fix isn’t fewer conversations; it’s better ones.

We walk through a practical framework to move from reaction to repair. First, name the core belief driving the argument: “When voices rise, I feel unsafe.” Then take ownership of impact without blame, and invite your partner to accommodate the sensitivity—lower intensity, use clearer check-ins, and protect tone. We share the 90‑second pause to break the trigger–reaction cycle and a simple conflict plan that signals space without abandonment: specific words, timelines, and a commitment to revisit. Curiosity beats criticism every time; a question can save you from a spiral an accusation would guarantee.

You’ll also hear how past wounds resurface in present conflicts and how to map those links so you can heal instead of recycle them. Expect actionable prompts to identify your repeating fight, the primary emotion beneath it, and the earliest memory it echoes. By reframing arguments as mirrors—not battles—you’ll start releasing the monthly pain pattern and rebuilding trust, respect, and intimacy. If you’re ready to stop the PMDD argument loop and reconnect with steadier communication, hit play, save these tools, and share them with your partner. If this helped, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us the one fight you’re retiring this month.

Neutral moments shouldn’t feel like alarms, yet PMDD can make a delayed text or a flat “sure” feel like the start of a fight you’ve already lost. We unpack hypervigilance—the brain’s threat detector stuck on high—and show how past blowups and the luteal phase can turn everyday signals into panic, pushing both partners into sleepless nights, silent treatments, and “roommate mode.” You’ll hear why unresolved conflicts amplify anxiety, how catastrophizing takes over, and what it takes to feel emotionally safe again without walking on eggshells.

We get practical fast. Learn the evidence check to separate fact from fear, the 90-second reset to ride emotional surges before you speak, and self-soothing routines that reduce dependence on constant reassurance. We talk about gratitude as a nervous-system tool that trains your attention toward your partner’s efforts instead of fixating on flaws, and we explore how protective withdrawal—pulling back to avoid pain—quietly erodes intimacy. You’ll also get two clear paths for defusing tone and text triggers: request small behavior tweaks when possible, or reframe intent and retrain your own response when it isn’t.

Throughout, we emphasize customized repair—agreements, phrases, and routines tailored to your personalities and schedules—so your mind has proof that the next hard moment won’t become the last disaster. When your relationship has a plan, your body stops bracing for impact. If a thumbs-up emoji can send you spiraling, or you’re tired of the “are we okay?” loop, this conversation gives you practical language and tools to find calm, rebuild trust, and strengthen conne

Transcript

Naming Hypervigilance In PMDD

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When you start interpreting neutral actions as negative, when your partner doesn't text back, when they don't sound as enthusiastic, or they forget something small, your brain begins to fill in the gaps with fear. You get in this state of hypervigilance because you start telling yourself a story about their actions that are actually neutral. You start saying they're mad at me. They don't want to be with me. They want to be with someone that doesn't have this. Today I want to talk to you about something that really ruins your PMDD relationship. And the reason why I want to discuss it is it's because it's something really common in PMDD relationships for the PMDD partner and the PMDD sufferer. And that is something called hypervigilance. Basically, what this means is you're always on alert that something is going to go wrong in your PMDD relationships. And the reason why this is so common in PMDD relationships is because when you've had the fights, when you've had the arguments, when you've had those big blow up moments, it starts to traumatize you and traumatize your partner that it's going to happen again. So a lot of times when I'm working with private clients and we're trying to move forward, this hypervigilance really prevents them from doing so because they're always thinking, if we talk about this issue that caused us so much pain, that caused us to have this big blowup, that we're going to have it again. So the hypervigilance keeps you on high alert. You're waiting for something to go wrong. You're always scanning for danger, even when your partner hasn't done something wrong. So if we're working on tools and I say, okay, this is a way that to mitigate this so that it doesn't happen again. Your brain and your body, especially when you're in the luteal phase of for the partner that doesn't have PMDD, when the luteal phase comes, you become very hyper-vigilant. You're looking at their reactions, you're scanning their face, you're scanning their body language, you're looking to see if they look different. If they look different to you, if they feel different to you, if they sound different to you, this hypervigilance gets increased and you begin to think the same thing that happened before in that traumatic moment is going to happen again. This happened to me so many times when I was in a PMDD relationship where there were lots of fights, lots of arguments, so much to the point that my ex used to say, I don't want to talk about the issues that we have because it felt like the same thing that happened before was going to happen again. But the thing is, you can't really move forward in your PMDD relationship if you don't really address the things that started that root incident that happened before, that traumatic moment that happened before. It could have been a hurtful word. It could have been a hurtful action that somebody did. It could have been the fact that you've did it in front of your children. And so now every single time you get in front of your children and you have an argument or you have a fight, you automatically think that your child is going to see something damaging, that it's going to be traumatic for them, that this is the kind of relationship that you're going to have, that you're putting them at risk to growing up and seeing your parents fight and argue and that can impact their life. And we'll talk about that on another episode. But what I really want to give you tools for today is being in that state of hypervigilance. Because the thing is, when you're hypervigilant, your cortisol levels are increased. Your stress level is increased. Cortisol is the stress hormone. So when you're in that state of assuming that what happened before is going to happen again, you're putting yourself in that moment that happened before, even though on the outside it looks like nothing's happening. Your partner isn't really doing anything, but you're addressing them as if they have done something because you're mirroring what they did before. So you may see a shift in their tone, and you may remember that at the beginning of the argument, the traumatic moment before, they had the same tone. So you're like, here we go again. And you get really anxious and you get really hyper-vigilant. And for the partners, this is really damaging for the partners that do not have premenstrual dysphoric disorder. This is damaging to you because this is when you begin walking on eggshells. If you haven't gotten my program about walking on eggshells and about my partner has PMDD now, what? Please go to the link in my bio and get that because it's really going to address what you're supposed to do when you get in this hypervigilant state. Because for the partners, it affects every single area of their lives. I've told you so many times before that I've had clients that the partners have lost their jobs. They have gone off on friends and family members all because they were hypervigilant because of what was going on in their PMDD relationship. They couldn't control what was going on inside of them because they started to get anxious in certain moments. You could be at a party and you see your partner's mood shift, and all of a sudden you're assuming that by the time you get back to the car, you're gonna have a fight, you're gonna have an argument, it's gonna be this big blow up, you're not gonna get any sleep that night. Because a lot of times when you're in these PMDD fights, you're not getting sleep. Your partner's staying up, you're staying up, you're talking about the issue again and again and again, and you feel the strain of having to wake up the next day and feel drained and feel overwhelmed and feel not like yourself. And you're assuming that, oh my goodness, we're gonna have a fight like we had before, and I'm not gonna get any sleep. Like you could literally go down the rabbit hole. This is catastrophizing. You're gonna play out the moments that happened in the last scenario and you're gonna begin to assume that it's gonna happen again. I'm not gonna get any sleep. We're not gonna be seeing eye to eye, we're not gonna be intimate, you know, it's gonna affect the child. I'm gonna have to take on more duties and chores around the house because they're not gonna want to do it. We're not gonna be talking, we're gonna give each other the silent treatment. It's gonna begin to feel like roommates. I'm gonna be feel emotionally rejected, they're gonna feel emotionally rejected, all of these things, and you're feeling like you're gonna have to dig yourself out of a hole even before anything has happened. This is what hypervigilance does. So it's a constant state of emotional alert. All of your emotions are alert and waiting for something to go wrong, even when nothing has happened. So the thing about hypervigilance is exhausting. It's exhausting to feel like you're gonna be in this state again. So many times, what really hurts partners and the sufferers of premenstrual dysphoric disorder is knowing that every single month you have the propensity for the same issues that happened last month to happen again. This is why I say if you do not address the issues that have happened last month, you're putting yourself at risk for them to happen again, which is fueling that state of hypervigilance. Because if you haven't fixed the issue that you have with your partner, what's stopping it from happening again? If you had an issue, you had an argument, and you never came to a resolution, you never came with a plan, you never developed a tool, you never had counseling for that specific issue, what is stopping it from happening again? You have no guarantee that what happened before is not gonna happen again in your relationship. And when you don't have that guarantee, when that hypervigilance starts to come up, you have nothing to tell it. When you get in that anxious state, when you get in that emotional state, you have nothing to counter that and say, oh, but I know that this is not gonna happen again because Dr. Rose gave us these tools. This is the benefit of having my private clients where we go on and we address each individual issue one by one and I customize the tools for you. Because the next time you get in that state of hypervigilance, instead of feeling helpless, instead of feeling like you want to avoid your partner, instead of feeling like you want to avoid the issues and not talk about it and not have that fight and not have that argument, you are equipped with a tool that is specifically designed to help you and your partner that you have agreed to. When I'm customizing the tools for each one of my clients, I'm making sure that it's something that is customized to your personalities, to your lifestyle, to what is going on in your PMDD relationship. And you have agreed to them. So you have the ability to go to your partner when you're in that state of hypervigilance to calm that level of anxiety within yourself and your partner and say, hey, we know that we're both in this state where we feel like, you know, it may happen again, but let's just use a tool that Dr. Rose gave us because we agreed to it. And then what that does is it calms your nervous system down. It releases that pressure from your nervous system, it releases that pressure from your cortisol levels and allows you to come out of that state of hypervigilance. On the opposite side, if you have nothing to tell your PMDD brain, if you have nothing to tell your mind for the partner that doesn't have PMDD, if you have no proof and no fact that this is not gonna happen again, you will stay in that state of hypervigilance. And the problem is it's not sustainable. You're going to begin to burn out mentally, physically, emotionally, and it's going to start to impact every other area of your life. So you're never going to be in this state where you feel emotionally safe. When you're walking on eggshells, you are not emotionally safe. This is for both partners. You're always feeling like there's something that you can say, there's something that you can do that can shift the mood. And if you have PMDD, it's especially tough because your brain and your body, when you're in your luteal phase, are already more sensitive to the things that your partner is saying, to the things that your partner is doing. So you're already in that state of hypervigilance. You're already in that state of feeling like maybe your partner's gonna reject you. So today we're gonna unpack 10 ways that hypervigilance can ruin your relationship. And I'm gonna give you the tools as to what you can do to counter that. And how I'm gonna explain to you how it triggers the PMD stress and what you can use that's really gonna help you stop getting into those stressful moments where you feel like I don't want to talk about it. You want to avoid, you kind of want to retreat because you feel like that's your tool. And I know a lot of you are right there right now where you're feeling like, oh, the best thing I can do is just avoid having a fight. I remember so many times where I began to think that not talking about my issues was the tool to release that hypervigilance. Because if I wasn't addressing it, then I wasn't getting into that hyper-vigilant state. I would just try to ignore it. But what PMDD does is it rips the blanket off of every issue that you have in your PMDD relationship. It doesn't allow you to ignore it. So if you've ever found yourself overthinking your partner's tone, how they're speaking to you, your partner's text messages, how they're communicating with you, assuming the worst when they pull away. Maybe they're not texting you at their normal time, maybe they're not talking to you at their normal time. And so all of a sudden you're assuming the worst and saying, oh my gosh, they're pulling away. They don't want to be with me. I'm such a horrible person, all of these things. Or you're really feeling like you're going crazy because you're overanalyzing everything that your partner is doing or saying. You're in a state of hypervigilance. You're not feeling like you're emotionally safe. You're always feeling like you're on edge. Your brain is scanning for danger, it's always keeping you stuck in survival mode. You're not in a place where you're feeling emotionally safe. And so you're feeling like you always have to protect yourself from where you've been before. You're literally picturing that traumatic moment that happened in PMDD or happened during a fight or happened during an argument. And you're telling yourself, I don't want to go back there. So you're feeling like you're gonna do whatever it is that you need to do to not go back into that moment. And a lot of times the biggest thing that you do or the most common thing that you do is avoidance. But when you're avoiding your partner because you're trying to avoid a fight, what you're doing is you're diminishing the intimacy. There's no intimacy in those moments that you are diminishing that communication, that level of, hey, this is what's really going on with me. You actually don't really want to address it with your partner because you're you're thinking to yourself, what's the point? What's the point of addressing something that we're not gonna get a solution for? How many times have you said that? How many times have you genuinely felt like I don't want to address an issue that I have with my partner because we're not gonna come to a solution and I'm gonna get drained and I'm gonna get burnt out. And there's really no point in bringing it back up because I end up feeling worse about it after the fact. If you don't have tools for hypervigilant, you're gonna feel worse talking about the issue because you have no resolution, you have no conclusion. It's sucking the life out of you mentally, physically, emotionally. Your body is getting drained, your mind is getting drained, your emotions are getting drained because there's no resolution on the other side of addressing this issue. So I remember one time in one of my past relationships, I remember I remember I was assuming the worst case scenario when it came to hurtful words. I had gone through this pattern of an ex saying really hurtful words to me, name calling, all of these things in the PMDD relationship. And I literally started to assume that every single time we had an argument, they were gonna say something. And I knew how far the hurtful words would take me back. When it came to name calling specifically, calling me out of my name, I knew how far it was gonna put me in the hole of emotional distance, of feeling rejected, of feeling abandoned, of feeling disrespected. And I knew how long it took me to dig myself out of that hole. So I began to assume every single time that we argue, they're gonna say something, they're gonna do something. And then all of a sudden, I'm gonna feel this emotional distance and it's gonna take me days to come back from that. So I would start to avoid and be in this state of hyper-vigilant. Oh my gosh, I want to make sure I say the right things and do the right things so that we never get to a point where my partner is saying something to me that could cause me to look at them differently. Because how many times has your partner said something to you or they've done a specific action and you start to look at them differently? You start to monitor their character, you start to have doubts and questions about whether you should even be with them. You start to doubt whether you're even happy in the relationship. There's so many things that your partner can do that makes you spiral over your whole relationship. And you don't want to be in that state because it's not safe for you to feel like you don't know if you really want to be with this person. And it's because of a specific action that they've done that really hurt you to your core. So I really want you to ask yourself, what is it that your partner can do or has done in the past that has put you on such a state of hypervigilance that you started to question your relationship? I said, for me, it's the hurtful words. I started to question whether I wanted to be connected to someone that was willing to call me out of my name, that was willing to disrespect me in that way. That did not feel emotionally safe for me. Your thing may be different. It may be a lack of support, it may be a lack of intimacy. You may be feeling starved for emotional connection. And you're feeling like, do I really want to stay in this relationship where I'm not feeling emotionally connected? Do I want to really stay in this relationship where I'm not feeling physically connected? Do I want to stay in this relationship where I'm not getting my needs met? You begin to question it. So you're in this state of hypervigilance, you're always scanning for proof that you shouldn't be in this relationship because you've had that moment where it's really hurt you to your core, where you felt so rejected, so abandoned, so verbally abused. And maybe it's even physical abuse. I have a lot of private clients where when they've come to me, it's because there's been a physical altercation that has escalated from not addressing prior issues. And now you got to that big moment, and one of you put your hands on each other, or one of you have physically, you know, attacked each other. Whatever that looks like. A slap, a strangle, or whatever. It's something where you've gone so far to where you've never thought that you would ever go that far in a relationship. And so now you're in that state where you're trying to repair it, but you're always looking back at that moment and you're always assuming, well, what if they get triggered again so much to the fact that they're doing it again? So the first thing is when you start interpreting neutral actions as negative, when your partner doesn't text back, when they don't sound as enthusiastic or they forget something small, your brain begins to fill in the gaps with fear. You get in this state of hypervigilance because you start telling yourself a story about their actions that are actually neutral. You start saying they're mad at me, they don't want to be with me, they want to be with someone that doesn't have these issues, they're losing interest. So, what you can do in that moment is you need to separate the fact from the fear. You need to break the cycle of assumption. Whenever you're assuming that your partner's action means something, you need to ask yourself, give yourself an evidence check. What actually happened? Name the thing that you're assuming that your partner is doing a negative action for. What story am I telling myself about what happened? I remember every single time I started to misinterpret an excess action, it was because they raised their voice or they got in my face, or they, you know, they started to ask me questions over and over and over again that were very accusatory. And one of their things was every single time that they, you know, asked me this question and they raised their voice, I was assuming, oh my goodness, they're about to call me out of my name and it's gonna become this big thing. And so I was assuming I had to break myself out of that level of assumption and ask myself, okay, what is my partner actually saying at this moment? I'm not gonna live in the land of what happened in the past. I'm gonna live and address what is actually happening right now. And what happens is when you do that, you're breaking the cycle of hypervigilance because you're stopping yourself from being anxious about something that happened in the past and you're addressing what's actually happening in the present moment. If you keep going back to the past, your brain and your body are gonna be assuming that you're back in that moment and you're gonna be reacting as if that person is doing the same thing to you that they did before that was so hurtful. And this can even happen in in from a previous relationship, meaning your partner, your present partner hasn't done anything, but you're remembering in the past where your ex used to, you know, not be emotionally sensitive to your feelings. And so if your present partner is showing that sign, you're gonna start addressing them and say, oh my gosh, here, here we go again. I have another partner that's that's not paying attention to me, that's not really studying me the way that I need, that's not really in tune with my emotions and what it is that I need. I'm gonna be in another relationship where my needs are not gonna get met. And so you're gonna live in that land of hypervigilance, always looking for, I don't want to feel like I felt in that past relationship. So I'm gonna do everything that I need to do in order to put myself in a position to where I'm not experiencing that again. But when you're in that state of hypervigilance, what you look for, you will find. If you're looking for your partner to do something that mirrors what happened to you in the past, you're going to find it because subconsciously you're going to be creating the reality of your past in your present relationship. That means you haven't left the past in the past. You haven't released your emotions from those traumatic moments in the past. You're always looking at your partner to make sure that they're not going to do to you what a past partner has done to you because you know how that made you feel. You know how that made you feel abandoned. You know how that made you feel neglected. You know how that made you feel drained. You know how that made you feel devalued. And you put yourself in a position where you're saying to yourself, I never want to feel like that again. So I'm going to make sure, I'm going to make sure that I'm never treated like that again. So you start looking at neutral actions that your present partner is doing and assuming that they're negative, assuming that they're going to mirror what your ex-partner did. That means you haven't fully healed from what your ex-partner did. And so you're constantly in that state of hypervigilance where you're looking at your partner and saying, Are they doing this? Are they saying this? Are they doing anything that my past partner has done? Because if they have, I'm out. Some of you are like all or nothing. If I see one sign of my present partner doing what my past partner has done, I'm out because I already know what that's going to look like. You're not giving your present partner a chance to show you who they truly are because you're mirroring what your ex-partner did because you're in that state of hypervigilance. You need to heal that core wound that your ex-partner damaged, that they, that traumatic moment or those traumatic moments or that pattern of traumatic moments, those need to be healed so you can come out of that state of hypervigilance and start to feel emotionally safe to be open with your present partner and know that it's not going to happen again because you are with a new person. You have to break that cycle by giving the facts of who you are with, giving the facts of who you're choosing to be with and showing how they're different from the partner in the past that put you through those traumatic moments. And this is something that you have to do to continuously rewire your brain and pull yourself out of it because the default mode is your brain and your body are gonna want to protect you from going through those moments that you went through in the past. They're gonna say, oh no, no, it's happening again. You need to let them know that you're not gonna stand for this. You need to let them know that this is not gonna happen again. And you almost get into this state of demanding a certain behavior. You will not treat me like this. I'm not gonna stand for this. I'm gonna only do it with this. You get in a state of demanding your partner to do something or not do something, and they haven't done anything. They're being neutral, they haven't done anything actually to damage you, but you're so stuck in the moment in the past that you feel the need to drill into your current partner. I'm not gonna be putting myself in a situation where I was verbally abused or I was emotionally neglected or I was physically neglected or my needs weren't met. And you're telling them and you're telling them telling them, and your present partner is like, I haven't done anything. You're never gonna be emotionally safe and able to fully connect with your present partner if you're treating them like they have the propensity or they have the ability to hurt you in a way that your your past partner has done. You're not giving your present partner a chance to show you through proof, through facts of who they are and what they can provide to the relationship because you're so stuck in the past of what happened before and you're trying to protect yourself. And what's happening when you're protecting yourself is there's a wall up. And what that wall is doing is it's breaking the barrier of intimacy that you can have with your present partner where you can be emotionally safe with them. Or maybe you've you've gone to counseling with me and you've kind of tried to get past some of those traumatic moments and you've apologized and you've done everything that you know to show to show changed behavior. But because you're so stuck in the past, you're in that state of hypervigilance of assuming the worst anyway. Any specific action is going to take you back to that moment. So the next sign that you're in that state of hypervigilance is you're constantly seeking reassurance from your partner. When you're anxious, you might keep saying, Are we okay? Do you still love me? Do you still want to be with me? Are you still in this with me? This temporary relief feels good for your partner to tell you, yes, I still love you. Yes, I want to be with you, but it trains your brain to rely on external validation of your partner instead of internal regulation. What I mean by that, your brain is starting to desire and need constant reassurance from your partner in order for you to feel emotionally safe. That's external validation. What this means is I only feel safe when I feel anxious, I can come to you and you could calm me down. You're training your brain and your body to be dependent on your partner to calm you down when you're in that state of hypervigilance instead of depending on internal regulation. What internal regulation means is when I feel like I'm in that state of hypervigilance, I'm going to self-soothe, which is one of the things that I teach my private clients is you don't have to always go to your partner when you're in that state of hypervigilance, hypervigilance and you're feeling anxious. You don't have to go to them and say, I'm feeling like this, I'm feeling like this, because a lot of times it puts a lot of pressure on them to calm you down, to get you back in that state of emotional regulation. What you need to learn is internal regulation. Remember, emotions normally last 90 seconds. When you feel the urge to go straight to your partner during those 90 seconds, let the anxiety peak in those 90 seconds and then come down before you begin to speak. So oftentimes you're gonna find that reassurance that you needed from within. You're gonna be able to tell yourself the things that you need to calm yourself down. So one of the ways that I self-soothe, and of course, you know I have my PMDD partner's morning routine that I do every single day. But when I need to self-soothe because I'm in that state of feeling like I'm hyper-vigilant, I literally remove myself from the moment. And instead of going directly to my partner, I go take a walk. That is my tool for calming myself down. When I take a walk, when I'm in nature and I put my headphones on and I listen to some music, I allow the thoughts to come to my mind. I allow the emotions to come out. I allow the fears to come out. I allow the questions to come out. I'm not stifling it, I'm not ignoring it, I'm not avoiding it. I'm allowing myself to feel whatever I feel, think, whatever I think, however ugly it may be, however scary it may be. I'm allowing myself to feel it so that I can get it out so that I'm able to articulate it in a way to my partner to where they're not feeling like I'm accusing them of doing anything. So a lot of times when you're needing that external validation and you're asking them, are we okay? Do you still love me or do you this? Your partner can perceive that as being needy, as being clingy, as being insecure, as being jealous, it's all of these things and it becomes a burden for them. It becomes really heavy for them because they're always feeling like they're having to get you out of that state of being hyper-vigilant and it puts a lot of pressure on them because what if you're needing that constant reassurance at a time where they're not available to give it to you? You're calling them at work, you're calling them while they're doing something that they really need to work on, you're calling them while they're taking care of the kids, you're calling them while they're doing something else, and you're asking them to drop what they're doing to put the attention on you because you don't have the ability to self-soothe. I'm not saying that you can never go to your partner to get that external validation. I'm saying that should never be your only source in order to calm you down and get you out of that state of hypervigilance. Your partner should not be the only thing that gets you from that state of being anxious. For some people, you may need to take a nap. You may need to sleep on it, you may need to allow your brain to process what's really going on, to go back to the first tool to address the facts of what's going on, not the stories that you've made up in your mind. So you can ask yourself when you're trying to calm yourself down and get out of that state of hypervigilance, and you're asking yourself, oh my gosh, do they really love me? Do they even want to be with me? Look for the proof in your mind of what the things that they've said and done in the past to show you that they really want to be with you. They've shown you, they've proved to you that they really want to be with you in the past, and you've been okay with that. But in that moment of anxiety, of hypervigilance, you've forgotten that. All you're thinking about is that they don't want to be with me. They could be some with someone that doesn't have these issues. They they should be, maybe I should just be single because sometimes it doesn't feel good to be in that state of hypervigilance and you're depending on your partner to soothe you instead of being able to self-soothe yourself. So the next thing that can happen when you're in that state of hypervigilance is you're focusing on the flaws of your partner instead of their efforts. This is when you start to nitpick everything that your partner is doing or not doing. And this is when you're starting to say, My partner's not supportive. I need to be with a more supportive partner. When you're in that hyper-vigilant mode, your brain becomes a threat detector. It is looking for all of the things that your partner is not doing. It is magnifying all of the things that your partner is not doing. You notice every little mistake and tell yourself a story in your mind about how you deserve better, how you've been in relationships in the past where this hasn't worked because they're doing this or all of these things. And you're overlooking the small gestures that your partner is doing to show you that they really want to be with you and that they deserve to be with you. I remember there was a time where my ex and I were going through so many fights, so many arguments, and I started to only look at the things that they weren't doing for me. Only look at the ways that they weren't being supportive. And what happened is I was overshadowing a lot of things that they were doing. I was taking for granted those routine things that they were doing. Communication is very important to me in an intimate relationship. And when I was focusing on the things that they weren't doing in other areas and not being supportive in other areas, I was taking for granted that this person really communicates with me in a way that makes me feel emotionally safe. And I hadn't always had that in the past. So what I had to do was rewire my brain and not look at every mistake that they were making, not looking at ways that they were working on being more supportive, but they weren't quite there. I started to have gratitude for the ways that they were showing up. Like I began to focus on, I'm so grateful that they're a really good communicator. I'm so grateful that I wake up in the morning and we get to have a conversation in the morning and we get to have a conversation at night because that's something that makes me feel emotionally safe. So, what I want you to do right now is think about an action that your partner does that makes you feel emotionally safe, that makes you feel calm, that makes you feel grounded, that makes you feel close. The big thing for me was communication. And so I had to write those things down and say, my partner communicates with me every single day in these specific ways, and that makes me feel emotionally safe. That was my mantra. It shifted my brain from what my partner was not doing to what my partner was doing. Again, what you focused on, you will find when your brain starts focusing on the things that your partner is doing to make you feel emotionally safe. You're gonna stop feeling like you're in that state of hypervigilance where you need to get out of the relationship, where you need to break up, where you need to start addressing all of these negative things. And you can go to your partner and say, you know what? Thank you for communicating with me the way that you do. Or maybe it's how they take care of the kids, or maybe it's how they take care of the finances. Think about the things that your partner does that you don't have to worry about because they're there to take care of them. When you choose that moment of gratitude, it refocuses your brain to focus on what they are doing instead of being in that state of hypervigilance of focusing on what they're not doing. And the next thing that happens when you're in that state of hypervigilance is emotional distance. A lot of times when you're in a state of hypervigilance, you feel like a way to protect yourself is to pull back before your partner can hurt you. It's very subconscious. You're thinking to yourself, if I detach first, it won't hurt as bad. If I pull back from them, then if they don't text me, if they don't respond to me, if they don't communicate to me in a way that I want, then if they don't physically connect with me the way that I want, if they're not physically intimate, then it's not going to hurt me as bad because I'm gonna be the one creating the space. If you know that your intimacy is a big problem in your PMDD relationship and you're not getting your needs met physically, you may begin to shut down physically with your partner because you're saying it may feel better for me to be the one that's shutting down. Versus them. You don't get in the bed, and instead of reaching out to them and getting rejected, you feel like I'm going to shut down. I'm going to turn over. I'm going to get in my little hole. I'm going to get in my little cocoon because that's going to feel better to protect myself in that way than for me to reach out and try to cuddle. And then all of a sudden I'm getting rejected because my physical needs aren't getting met and I'm feeling I'm not going to feel desirable. I'm going to be feeling rejected. You're choosing to protect yourself, but what you're really doing is you need to understand that you're preventing connection, you're preventing intimacy, you're preventing yourself to get your needs met by shutting it down before it even starts. But you're creating that emotional distance as a way to protect yourself. So really ask yourself in this moment, what are the things that I'm doing to protect myself? What are the things that I'm doing right now as a protective mechanism that's causing distance, emotional distance with me and my partner? I noticed for me, one of the things that I used to do is put my phone on do not disturb during my morning routine. And I was a big proponent of this. I would keep my phone on do not disturb because I didn't want to be in a situation where my morning routine, where my emotions are most sensitive, where everything in me is most sensitive in the morning. So I felt like as a protective mechanism, my phone needs to stay on do not disturb. But what I was doing is I was preventing myself from opening up with my partner at the times where I am most emotionally sensitive. I was doing it to protect myself because I really thought if they say or do something that causes an argument, it's going to hurt me even more during my morning routine because that's when I'm most sensitive. But what happens is I'm most sensitive and I'm most open in the morning. Why would I shut a partner out at a time where I could connect with them the most? So what I had to develop, and this took time for me. And it really took the right individual that caused me to feel emotionally safe to say, you know what? I don't have to disconnect from my person during my morning routine where I'm most sensitive. I can connect with them in a way where I'm trusting them. There's a level of emotional safety that you have to have where you trust that the person is not going to hurt you. It's not going to damage you. It's not going to make you feel like you have some level of regret for letting them in in your most vulnerable moments. My morning routine is my most vulnerable moment. And I used to protect that. I had this wall up where no one was going to talk to me during my morning routine. And I thought it was a way to not only protect myself, but to protect the person that I was connecting with until I began to open myself up during my morning routine. And there's been so much connection during that time. And there's been so much emotional intimacy that's been built because that is my time. Yours may be in the evening where you're saying, I'm going to shut down and I'm not going to communicate and I'm going to go in my little hole and I'm going to have my routine that's separate from my partner because I don't want them to ruin my vibe. I don't want them to ruin my mood. I don't want them to get me in this place where I'm most emotionally sensitive, but you're blocking that level of intimacy. So you need to get yourself in a place where you can trust your partner enough to be emotionally vulnerable with them in those moments where you're most emotionally sensitive, because that's where the connection is made. Because that's showing trust in them. I trust you to come into my space in my most emotionally vulnerable times. And I trust that you're not going to hurt me. That takes a lot of trust and a lot of belief. But when you start to lean into that level of trust, that emotional connection becomes so strong. It becomes so solid that you're training your mind and your body to say, we can trust this person. We can trust this connection. This connection is safe because I'm letting them in this most vulnerable moment. And I'm coming out on the other side and I'm feeling more connected. You're not feeling drained. You're not feeling like a level of regret. You're not feeling unsafe. You're feeling like this is my special time. And I'm letting my partner in. And it's causing us to feel closer. When I noticed what was happening when I started letting this person in during my morning routine, I started to come out of it, my morning routine, and say, I feel so close to them. I feel so safe with them. I had a level of trust and confidence and belief that I had not experienced before, but I had not experienced it before because I had that wall up. And I had that wall up because at one point I was in that space where it wasn't protected. It didn't feel emotionally safe. And I had to really train my brain to say, who I'm dealing with now is not who I was dealing with before. I had to train my brain to recognize this person feels safe. This person did not feel safe. I need to address and treat this person in a way that they have allowed me to feel safe. So I need to address them as such. I can't say I was hurt before in my morning routine. So I'm never going to let anyone in during my most vulnerable time. I have to say, I want this level of emotional intimacy and connection with this person. So I'm willing to trust that they're not going to hurt me during my most vulnerable state. And when you get to that moment, the level of emotional intimacy and depth that you will experience with that person, it's so profound. It's so solid that whatever it is that you go through during your day, you're solidifying that emotional connection first thing. Or it may be at the end of your day, where you're feeling like you're going to sleep, feeling emotionally safe with your person, and it's going to help every other aspect of your relationship and anything that you have to deal with. So the next thing that can happen when you're in this state of hypervigilance is you're assuming that their tone and their intent is different from what it is. Text messages and tone are the perfect way that hypervigilance can come in and ruin your relationship. You read their sure that they're mad at you. But the truth is, a sure could just be a sure. My biggest thing, oh my goodness, is the thumbs up emoji. I cannot stand the thumbs up emoji because the story that I tell myself when I see a thumbs up emoji, it's like, okay, it's a very sarcastic, egotistical, you know, just negative tone. So when I'm in that state of hypervigilance and I'm over-examining a text message or we're having a conversation and they put the thumbs up, you know, I really can start to misinterpret it and say, oh, so they're having an attitude with me or they're discrediting my feelings or they're in this place. I think that was perfect because I just got a call from the person that I was talking about when I was talking about the thumbs up emoji. So I remember getting into a connection with someone and really saying, like, hey, I don't want you to, I had all of these things. I don't want you to send me a thumbs up. I don't want you to send me this. You have to know how you have a pattern of misinterpreting certain tones and certain, for me, it's text messages. So I had to communicate and let that person know, hey, when you send the thumbs up emoji, this is the story that I tell myself in my mind. I had to humble myself, really humble myself and say, I'm the problem. It's me, I'm the problem, it's me. When I see a thumbs up emoji, this is the story that I tell myself in my mind. So there's two ways that you can handle this. You can handle it in a way where you ask that person, is it okay if you don't do this specific action? Um, because this is the story that I tell myself in my mind, or you can try to retrain your brain to tell yourself a different story. For me, I just said, you know what, for this period of time in my life, I'm just gonna be very open and honest with this is the story that I tell myself in my mind. Is there any way that you can just not do this emoji? And they were completely willing. They said, you know, they had to train their brain to not use that specific thumbs up emoji. And I was so grateful that they were willing to do that. But sometimes maybe your person is not willing to change that specific behavior. Maybe it's a tone. I've had people in the past and clients that have been like, I'm just loud. And so if tone is a problem, I'm just loud. And so I need my partner to be okay with the tone that I have because there's no negative intention behind it. So instead of them changing their behavior, it became that partner needed to retrain their brain to not be offended by a specific tone because there was no malicious intent. You know, I always tell you it's not about what your partner does, it's the intent. Are they trying to be malicious? Is your partner trying to cause you to suffer because of something that they've said or done? If the answer is no, then there's no need for you to be offended, but it's a way that you need to self-soothe and say, this is just who I'm choosing to be with, right? I'm choosing to be with this person and this person does this, but they're not doing it maliciously. So you have to retrain your brain to not be offended by things that your partner is not doing maliciously to you. So again, you need to handle this in two ways, with the text message or with the tone of the way that they're talking to you. Ask your partner, can they adjust that tone or that text message behavior that's triggering you, or you begin to rewire your brain in a way where you can say to yourself, hey, I might be reading into this, or really asking them, were you being sarcastic or were you trying to do this? Like asking for the real data, telling your brain the facts of the situation instead of how you're feeling in that moment. So these are the ways that hypervigilance can really ruin your PMDD relationship, ruin your connection with your person. And I hope these tools have really, really helped you. If this is something that you need to do a deeper dive on, this is something that I always help my private clients with. Please go to the link in my bio, go to inlove with pmd.com. And until next time, we got this. I love you.