How Unresolved Trauma Shapes PMDD And Relationships

What if the fights, shutdowns, and spirals aren’t “just hormones,” but trauma resurfacing on a monthly schedule? We take you inside the lived reality of PMDD as a trauma amplifier—how it trains the brain to expect danger, erodes emotional safety at home, and fuels shame loops that make repair feel impossible. Through a raw personal story of a New Year’s trigger and years of clinical work, we map the path from unpredictable reactions to practical regulation.

You’ll learn why triggers aren’t the cause but the clue, and how to trace them back to core wounds like abandonment, neglect, or betrayal. We break down the nervous system mechanics behind PMDD—chronic overwhelm, lost recovery windows, and hypervigilance—and show how these patterns turn jokes into jabs and routine requests into rejection. Then we shift to transformation: acceptance as accurate data, boundaries that protect connection, and action‑based tools that calm your body before your words cause damage. Think paced breathing, movement to discharge stress, repair windows after conflict, and clear scripts that slow things down when emotions surge.

We also draw a firm line between partner support and therapy. Empathy, softness, and small adjustments help, but your partner cannot and should not carry the weight of your processing. Consistent counseling builds resilience across cycles so you’re not rebuilding from scratch every month. If you’ve ever thought, “I should be over this by now,” or felt scared of who you become in luteal days, this conversation offers a grounded, compassionate roadmap. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review telling us the one trigger you’re ready to transform. Your nervous system will thank you.

Transcript

New Year Return And Focus

Naming PMDD As Traumatic

Why Rage Starts With Triggers

A Night That Reopened Old Wounds

How Family Trauma Spills Into Love

Growth, Relapse, And Self‑Blame

Boundaries And Owning The Past

PTSD, Acceptance, And Tools

Partners Triggering Isn’t Proof They’re Wrong

Trauma Transformations Not Quick Fixes

PMDD As Chronic Overwhelm

A Brain Trained For Danger

Emotional Safety Erodes At Home

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Happy New Year. I am so excited to be back. I have been gone for the last couple of weeks during the holidays and really working intensely with a lot of my private clients. And so I'm so glad to be back because so much has come up for me in this time and how I'm operating with my clients, how I'm operating with the podcast. And one of the things that I really noticed and I wanted to come on and talk about today was how traumatic PMDD is. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is traumatic. And I've noticed when I've always been working with my trauma transformational tools that I've been talking to you about for years now, it's really a level of getting underneath the hood, getting to the core of what it is that's really going on with you. A lot of times there's a lot of, you know, you call things like PMDD rage and you say all these things, but it's coming from somewhere. I know for me personally, it comes from somewhere. It's a trigger that turns into rage. It's a trigger that turns into, you know, a fight or flight and all of the things, but it really has to do with the trauma that I have. Ironically, you know, it is the first of January in 2026. And I had a very traumatic moment just yesterday. And so that's why I was like, I need to come on and I need to really um share what's been going on because a lot of times I think that we're calling it premenstrual dysfort disorder, we're calling it PMDD and saying PMDD is a problem. But really, it's the unresolved trauma that's really causing a lot of issues in your relationship. Um, because I know whenever you get into a relationship, and I've seen this time and time again, whatever it is that you haven't dealt with, and I'm not saying that you've never addressed it, but whatever it is that's inside of you that's unresolved, it's gonna come out when you're in a relationship. So if you have traumatic things that have happened in past relationships, or you have traumatic things that have happened with PMDD, or you've had traumatic things that happen in your childhood, like me, then when you get in a relationship and you connect yourself with someone, that trauma is going to come out. And I know the basis of this is for those of you who have done counseling and you've done therapy and you've done the tools and you've done all these things, and you're like, I don't feel like it should still be coming up. I don't feel like I should still be dealing with this. But the thing about it is who you're dealing with is different. So in your relationship over time, you all grow. And so as you go through different life situations, um, different things are gonna come up. So I don't want you to beat yourself up about that, first and foremost, because I got stuck in that too. I'm like, I've been, you know, dealing with this for years and years and years. I just have my 40th birthday. I'm gonna have to tell you all about that. But I could look back at my childhood and say, I can't believe that I'm still dealing with trauma and I'm 40 years old. The traumatic event that happened for me was actually last night, where my father, my biological father, who I'm estranged from, like we haven't talked in years, but we don't talk on a regular basis. He struggles with substance abuse and and just guilt from not really raising me. Because as I told you before, I'm I'm adopted. And so my biological parents tend to have a level of guilt around, well, at least my biological father, guilt around, you know, not have raised. And so when they feel that guilt, they go to substance abuse, or at least my my biological father does. So I was going out to um a New Year's Eve party. And when I was going out to the New Year's Eve party, I saw that, you know, he was calling me, and I had to be so careful as to whether I was gonna answer the phone or not, because the old me would have been like, oh no, I can't deal with this, I'm not gonna answer it because, you know, it takes so much out of me. But um, I was with friends and they're like, hey, just answer the phone. And so I decided to answer the phone, and they were there with me and they held space for me, which is something that I appreciate so much that I was able to not feel like I was doing it alone. And so I answered the phone and I was listening to everything that he was saying, and it was literally trauma dumping. It was everything that was going on with him, it was being, you know, put on me and how he feels guilty and he's in this place in his life where he wants a relationship. But, you know, the reason why I say it's traumatic is because there have been so many times in my life where I have believed the things that my family members have said about wanting to have a relationship and wanting to do all these things, and it's not been true. And it's just in that moment they feel so guilty that they feel the need to connect with me so that they feel better. And then after the fact, um, you know, they go on and they just kind of like go back to their regularly scheduled program, I call it. And when you're in a relationship, that tends to become a problem when you have parents or you know, family members that that trauma comes up because now my whole mood has shifted. I was, you know, happy and excited to go out. And I was just like in this really good place. And then all of a sudden I had that moment and I could feel myself being pulled into the depths of depression that I've I've suffered with so often from trying to just wrap my head around my childhood trauma. Like it's in and I got past the point of like, oh, I need to change it, I need to get over it, and or you know, thinking that I shouldn't still be dealing with it. It's it's part of my core, it's part of what I experience, but I do have to do the work when that comes up because it can take me to a dark place. And so that's why when I was thinking about PMDD, I'm like, well, if this specific instance didn't happen in my childhood and I'm in my alludeal phase and I'm going through PMDD, would this really be affecting me? Would this be something that triggered me? No. So the triggers is not necessarily PMDD all the time. Sometimes it's the trauma because when I am dealing with my private clients, we're not specifically talking about if we're talking about the trauma that PMDD is uncovering. And so that's why this new year, I really wanted to get into the mindset of let's just deal with the trauma. My trauma transformational tools are going to help you with the specific trauma that you have. So this is a lot of times why I don't have a lot of courses that are very broad because everybody has a different level of trauma that they've gone through in their past, that they've gone through even in their present relationship. And so all of my tools need to be customized to what you're specifically going through because what I dealt with in my childhood is not going to be the same that you dealt with. What I dealt with in past relationships, it's not going to be the same that what you dealt with. So we have to really go and address those things because you cannot heal what you don't reveal. And a lot of times we're wanting to skip past it, we're wanting to skip past, you know, really unraveling where this is coming from. If you have these patterns of behavior, if your partner has these patterns of behavior that keep coming up that causes them to react in a way that's negatively affecting your relationship, at some point you have to ask, is this really about me or is this about the trauma that's coming up? And I had to be really honest. You know, going into relationships, my childhood trauma always comes up. And I had to get to a place where I let go of the ego and I let go of the pride and thinking that, oh, I've worked through that, I've been through that. And I literally just I have to admit it. I'm like, you know what? I'm having to set these boundaries. I'm having to be checking with myself more, not because of anything that my partner is doing, but because of the trauma that I've experienced in the past. And right now, I have vicarious trauma, trauma from relationships, trauma from childhood, you know, trauma from all of these different things. And the trauma doesn't really go away. You know, PTSD, when it's diagnosed, it doesn't go away. You know, there's certain times that it's not triggered and it can kind of lie dormant. But PTNSD is something, post-traumatic stress disorder is something that it stays with you. And you just have to learn tools to navigate it when it comes up. And it's almost like this thing where you can't try to push it away. I remember so many times I was like, I don't want to have trauma. I don't want to deal with this. So I'm going to pretend like, you know, whatever happened in my past, you know, wasn't that bad. And I and I went deep into the realm of toxic posity, which is basically when you're minimizing the trauma that you experience and kind of just saying, oh, it wasn't that bad. It was this and this and this. I was creating these alternate realities of what I really had experienced. But the problem is that what I experienced, I was not processing. And so now what I have to do and what I, you know, do with my clients is we go through what has come up and let's circle back to where it's coming from. The situation that came up is because of a trigger because of the trauma. And then we have to go back and say, okay, how is this connected to something that has happened to you in the past? And it doesn't have to necessarily be about that person, but they're pressing on something. And when you're in relationships, just because your partner triggers you doesn't mean that they're the wrong person for you. Doesn't mean that you need to avoid mission and break up with them and they're not the right person for you. What this means is you need to uncover it. Because you know, what I've noticed is a lot of times the partners that you have can actually cause you to address a lot of the trauma that you need to address, that you wouldn't have normally thought to address, but now that it's becoming an issue in your relationship and you're so stressed out about it and you're arguing and you're fighting, it's forcing you to deal with the trauma. So what we're gonna be talking about today and moving forward is going to be trauma transformations. What that means is transforming your trauma and how it shows up in your relationship. I'm not trying to dismiss it. I'm not saying I'm gonna cure your trauma. You know, I never come on here and lie about what it is that I do and what I can provide, the tools that I can provide. So I'm not gonna promise you that, you know, even if you listen to the podcast or will do private sessions, that your trauma is gonna automatically go away because I know for me, it hasn't gone away for me. And I've done the work, and I think a lot of times the misconception is oh, as soon as I have a session or, you know, I listen to the podcast or anything like that, that it's just gonna go away and it's not. And and you know, I think the acceptance of that is really, really helpful because then you don't have to feel so disappointed when it's still showing up, when you're in a relationship and things are going good, and then your partner makes a comment, or you know, they say or do something, and then all of a sudden it triggers a trauma that you've had in the past, and now your reaction is a reaction to that trauma. You don't have to beat yourself up about it and think that, oh my gosh, I thought I was so over it. I thought the trauma was gone. The trauma's not gone, and that's okay. And that's a mantra that I had to really accept because it helps me not beat myself up about being 40 years old. And you could be 50 or 60 or 70. And you know, what happens in your childhood or what happens in certain relationships or what happened in certain experiences, you know, your body keeps the score. So your body is just one of those things that remembers what you went through in the past. And we'll talk more about the nervous system and your stress response and all of that. I really want to dive deep into giving you the trauma transformational tools that I do with my private clients to help you understand that PMDD is not just about PMDD, it's about the trauma that has occurred in your life. And I know for a lot of you, you may say, oh, Dr. Rose, I haven't had any trauma. But then if we were to really talk about it, a lot of the moments that you've had, even it could be in your present relationship or in the past, they're traumatic. And you may not even realize it. And my hope is that by having awareness that you do have some form of trauma, that you can recognize how PMDD is magnifying those trauma symptoms and trauma responses that you're having. Because even if you don't have childhood trauma, you don't have past relationship trauma, going through premenstrual dysphoric disorder every single month is traumatic. Your body is going from a state where it's calm and it's regulated, and then all of a sudden you go into the luteal phase for seven, 10, 14 days. If you're on pairing menopause, it could be, you know, more than that. Um, and you're going through all of that time where everything inside of you is shifting and your responsibilities are still the same. You're still taking care of the kids, you're still working, you're still a student, you're still doing all of these things in your life, but you're having to really navigate what PMDD is doing and how you can work around it. And that's traumatic because it's almost like your body can never really relax. So this is when the stress response really comes up because there's never a moment, even when you're in your follicular days and you're in your good days, because you know PMDD is coming back. You know it's gonna rear its ugly head, and then you're gonna have to figure out what to do in that specific cycle. You know, for a lot of my private clients, it's it's not the same thing every single month. So they really have to figure out what to do, which is why I always say if you have premenstrual dysphoric disorder and it's traumatic for you, you need to be having consistent counseling sessions. Um, I think earlier I used to do just one section here, one section there. And I really realized that it doesn't, it doesn't help for the big picture because it's not sustainable. Because if I get you in a place where you're regulated and then all of a sudden something else happens and you don't have those same tools, then it's almost like it reverses, you know, and and then you end up back at square one and then you feel like a failure, and you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm doing this again. So having those consistent private sessions really helps you gain confidence that, hey, whatever is going up, like my private clients always say, whatever is going on with me this week, number one, you don't have to put that on your partner. And I will do a complete different episode on your partner's not your counselor. Your partner's not your therapist, it's not their job to regulate your nervous system, it's not their job to give you tools. It's yes, you want them to be empathetic. Yes, you want them to listen. Yes, you want them to adjust some of the things that makes your suffering less, but they are not qualified to be your counselor. And if you're putting the pressure on them to do that and getting disappointed and saying, oh, I wish my partner would be more supportive. But when you're really asking for is your partner to be your counselor. Because you have all of these things that keep coming up for you and you have nowhere to process it. And a lot of the things that you may need to process has to do with the other person. So it's really hard for your partner to be that counselor, that therapist for you if they're also involved in the same situation and they have their own emotions about what's going on. So you have to separate the two. It's kind of like, you know, I outsource a lot of the things that I need to do for my morning routine, for my daily routine, for, you know, even cleaning things with my daughter. Like I have to hire people to help me because I know my blind spots. I know, hey, if I try, even as a counselor, I have a figure. I have someone that I go to when things get not even when things get really hard, but on a consistent basis. Because a lot of times I'll go into those sessions and I'll think that everything's fine and I don't have anything to talk about and everything. And then all of a sudden, all of this stuff comes out. And I'm so grateful because that means I didn't lash out on anybody. I didn't take it out on anybody. And and PMDD, like I always say, PMDD is not your fault, but it is your responsibility to manage. So I'm gonna talk to you today about how PMDD is traumatic. And this is really gonna help you understand where this podcast is going, where my business is going in a way that's gonna be able to help me deal with the trauma. Because when I got to the core of what was actually really helping a lot of my private clients get past these places where they were stuck, this cyclical, they're fighting, they're arguing, they're doing it. When I got them to get to the point where it's like, wait, we're addressing the wrong things. Yes, we can talk about PMDD all day long, and PMDD is a thing, right? It's not, I'm not discrediting it, but I am saying that trauma and PMDD are really that combination is really, really impactful to you can't, I feel like you can't address one without the other because there have been times where I could go strictly focused on PMDD and not really ask about, you know, the trauma and the things like that because they weren't bringing it up. And it is a situation where you have to dig sometimes and explore and say, okay, let's stop talking about the incident that happened. How did that make you feel? When is the last time that you felt like that? What is the core wound that's attached to how you felt like that? What does someone do to you? What does someone say to you that caused you to get into that state? And so the the first way that PMDD is traumatic is PMDD creates chronic emotional overwhelm. So what this means is trauma isn't just about one big event. It's like, oh, this big event happened and that's that's it. It's what happens when your stress response is overwhelmed when you don't have recovery. So when you're in your luteal phase and you're going through PMDD day after day after day, you're not getting a chance to recover from that. Like you can't run away. And trust me, I tried to do this so many times. It was like I just want to run away from my body, run away from my mind because I feel like it's it's just so overwhelming because I can't catch a break. You know, when there's times where PMDD has affected my sleep, this is a big thing for me because then I start to get literally delirious because the days start running into each other and I don't know, I'm forgetting things. And so PMDD does this monthly. And so your nervous system, your stress response never really resets before the next wave hits. Like you don't get a break. How many times have you been in PMDD and you're like, I feel like I just went the whole month of PMDD, like I got I didn't catch a break? Or you catch a couple of breaks, but your days of a break is your menstrual cycle. So then you have all the symptoms that have to do with that. And you have the cramps, you have the bloating, you have the bleeding, you have all of these things that go on. And then you go straight into what is supposed to be your follicular phase. But what if your body's exhausted? I've been there so many times where my body was literally exhausted from what it had been put through for the last two to three weeks, that when I finally did feel better, quote unquote, feel better in my follicular phase, I didn't have any energy to do anything, or I was repairing the damage in, you know, that it caused in my relationships. So that repetition alone and not really catching a break, that's that's traumatic. And so the next way that PMDD is traumatic is PMDD trained your brain to expect danger. It's PMDD really, really, really focuses on the negative. It magnifies the negative, and you have to dig deep to find the positive. It's almost like everything negative that's going on in your environment is magnified and it feels so stressful, so overwhelming, and it makes You be in a negative space to where that can be an issue in your relationship. If you're constantly complaining, you're constantly nagging, you're constantly on high alert, you're constantly hyper-vigilant, all of these things, your brain is going to start to think, oh my gosh, like when the luteal phase is about to come, it's about to happen again. I'm about to be in a negative space again. So again, even when you're feeling positive, you're always going to be expecting danger because you're going to be thinking, I'm about to be negative again. And a lot of times you can sometimes get to the point where you're so self-aware where you can see the state that you're in. You can see how you are and be like, I don't want to be like this. And I know that my mood is going to shift. I know that my mindset is going to shift. And it creates this sense of hyper-vigilance. And hyper-vigilance is a core trauma response. You're constantly scanning for what will go wrong. And I've been stuck in this place so many times, specifically in relationships where you've had traumatic moments and traumatic fights, and you're always assuming the worst. You're assuming that it's going to happen again. You're assuming this, you're assuming that. And you never get a chance to relax in your relationship with your partner because they're saying something to you where before it might be funny. And then, you know, now they're saying something you're like, what do you mean by that? Like jokes are no longer funny. And then your partner feels so stressed and overwhelmed. They're like, oh my gosh, I can't even joke with you without you taking it personal. That's because you're in a state of hypervigilance. That's because you're in a state where you're consistently looking at what the negative is gonna, what negative experience you're gonna bring. And that's very traumatic. And so the next way that PMDD is traumatic is PMDD disrupts emotional safety in your relationship. Trauma really comes in the form of it's damaging to your relationship where your connection feels unpredictable. One day your mood is like this, one day your mood is like that. PMDD is a mood disorder, right? So if you have pre menstrual disorder disorder, and then one day you're irritable, one day you're emotionally withdrawn, you're you're shutting down, you have then one day you have these explosive reactions, and then one day you have this rejection sensitivity. Sometimes you could have all of those different symptoms in one day. And so over time, your relationship doesn't feel safe because your partner never knows what to expect. They never know, oh gosh, is she gonna be happy? Is she gonna be sad? Is she gonna be this? Is she gonna be that? Like it's all these questions because you never really feel like it's it's predictable. And that in itself is traumatic. The next thing is PMDD reinforces shame cycles. So, what I mean by shame cycles is you get into a moment where you have a lot of regrets after you got off on your part, after you've said and done things that are below the belt, and you begin to do this every single month. Every single month you've said and done something that you wish that you didn't say and do, or you wish that you could have handled it better. And so he MDD is reinforcing that. So it's traumatic because you feel guilty. Maybe you feel guilty for being too much, or maybe you internalize the fact that you don't, you're not in the same state. I know for me, that's always been the hardest is that my energy is not the same as it is in, you know, when I'm in my luteal phase and when I'm in my follicular phase. Like it's never really the same. And I think the expectation when I go into relationships is that I want to be in a place where I can, you know, stabilize my mood in a sense where I have the steady thing. And I had to really recognize it doesn't work like that. Like I'm not always going to be in the same mood, and that's okay. But it's traumatic because you you experience shame, and shame is one of the strongest trauma reinforces because it turns pain inward. It turns you to start looking inside of yourself and saying something's wrong with me, something's wrong with me. And if shame can really get a hold of you, you can start to think that you need to be different and you wish that you didn't have PMDD. And maybe my partner would look at me differently, feel differently about me. But it's something that you can't change. You have PMDD, it's not going anywhere. So it feels, it feels like traumatic because you're stuck in it. You're stuck in that cycle. And the next thing is PMDD, you know, causes you to not trust yourself. You start to fear your own emotions, meaning you're starting to fear the reactions that you're going to have with your partner. You start to fear that, oh, if I get angry, if I get upset, this is why a lot of times you may shut down or you may do all these things because you can't even really trust your thoughts. The thoughts that you're thinking when you're in PMDD and you're in your luteal phase, they're not rational a lot of times. And it's so ironic because you can have the same, you know, situations happen and you're in your luteal phase and you're looking at it one way, and then you come out of your luteal phase and you're looking at it completely differently. And so you can have a sense of anxiety about who you become in each cycle. And so, what I really want you to understand is that PMDD is traumatic. And I'm going to be giving tools as to what you can do when you need to address the core. The core is the trauma. The core is not always PMDD. Because, like I said, when I'm working with you, I'm not working on specifically a lot of your physical symptoms, right? Your trauma is kept in the body, but I'm not telling you, I'm not giving you a workout plan, right? There's things that I need to do for my morning routine and move my body that really does impact and help my premenstrual dysphoric disorder. But it it starts with me understanding where it's coming from, where this pain is coming from. And for me, abandonment is so big that I know that that's my core trauma response. And so when I get to a place where a lot of situations happen in relationships, because I recognize that, okay, I have this trauma that keeps coming up, this abandonment with all these things, I can start to work on that versus just working on the fact that, well, I feel abandoned in this moment. Like, no, but why do I feel abandoned in this moment? If I didn't have that childhood trauma, maybe, or maybe neglect in past relationships, maybe I wouldn't feel the same way. And I don't judge it. So whatever trauma response comes up for you, whatever your core trauma wound is, it's not for you to judge it. It's for you to accept it. It's for you to reveal it so that we can heal it and you can move past it. Because once you learn the tool, which, you know, for all of our private clients, once you learn the tool, you can use it again and again and again. Because then you're going to recognize, okay, when this happens, this is what I need to do. That's why I'm always talking about action-based things, not just talking about your problems and talking about how bad it sucks, but just really getting to the place where you are actually addressing what is causing all of these trauma based fears and rejection and anger and fight and rage and all of it. Get to the core. And so that's what we're going to be talking about moving forward. And I am so excited for you to be here. And until next time, we got this.