How I Naturally Healed My Mood Disorder with Ayahuasca
PMDD almost took my life — now I have it back
I once attempted to describe to a friend what my struggle with Pre-Menstrual Dysmorphic Disorder (PMDD) felt like. I went something like this:
Imagine that, in your regular waking and content state, the walls of your inner world are crisp and bright. Then, once a month, you have a visitor. They arrive with a large bucket of black paint and a brush, and over several days, often up to two weeks, they diligently cover your inner walls with thick, black paint. They don’t spare any corners, and when they’re done, it’s pitch black.
When they finally leave because their job is completed, it’s time for you to start chipping away. This, again, takes several days. Patiently, you chip off the black paint, and slowly your shining white walls reveal themselves again.
When you're done, you feel a huge relief.
But you also feel weary.
And you feel fearful.
Because you know that in just a few days — if you’re lucky, perhaps a week — your visitor will come knocking on your doors again.
This was my reality for years. Luckily, it no longer is. Through my work with the psychedelic plants combined in a brew called Ayahuasca, I was able to get to the root cause of my imbalance and heal it.
Many Women Suffer Unknowingly from the Poorly Understood & Underdiagnosed Hormonal Disorder
PMDD can be described as Premenstrual Symptom (PMS) on steroids. But while there are many similarities across symptoms, to use those two in the same sentence does not do justice to the magnitude of PMDD. Women all over the world have accepted that leading up to our periods, we’ll have a few days of feeling funky. It looks different for everyone, but most women will experience some combination of mild symptoms around their cycle: increased appetite, some physical discomfort, maybe some acne or oilier skin, a bit more fatigued than usual. That’s PMS.
PMDD, on the other hand, is much less common. It was only added to the DSM-5 (the bible of mental health disorders) in 2013. To no surprise, the disorder is also severely under-researched, as most of women’s health is. The large majority, namely around 75% of women, experience PMS — but “only” an estimated 3–8% of women suffer from PMDD.
There’s a wide range of symptoms associated with PMDD, and some may also occur in PMS, yet they are much more debilitating in PMDD patients. Here are a few of the most common ones:
- Fatigue and low energy
- Mood swings
- Lasting irritability or anger
- Feelings of sadness, despair, and suicidal ideation
- Panic attacks
- Food cravings or binge eating
- Lack of interest in daily activities
- Oversensitivity to external stimuli
- Trouble sleeping
- Physical symptoms, such as cramps, bloating, breast tenderness, headaches, and joint or muscle pain
As you can see, it’s a nice little collection of things that will make you feel miserable. What makes PMDD so unmanageable is also the fact that it typically doesn’t just occur a few days before your period (as PMS typically does), but is more likely to last anywhere from one to two weeks. I probably averaged 10 days a month. That’s a third of your month. A third of your year. A third of your life spent in misery.
As a result of all of the above, a whopping 15% of those suffering from PMDD attempt suicide.
This is a serious mental illness that many women don’t even know about — some of them suffering from it themselves.
The biggest problem with PMDD is that it can often take years to be diagnosed — if it’s diagnosed at all.
It can easily be mistaken for PMS (especially if the doctor doesn’t take the magnitude of the patient’s symptoms seriously), or other mental health disorders, such as major depression or bipolar disorder.
On a whim of desperation, shortly after I got my diagnosis, I went on Facebook trying to find support groups at the suggestion of my therapist. Within minutes, I found multiple groups with thousands of women sharing experiences and advice in the hopes of navigating this incredibly isolating condition. What I found in those groups was an outpouring of stories from women who suffered deeply: stories of anger outbursts ruining relationships, stories of out-of-control binge eating sprees, stories of mental despair, and many, many, many stories of losing the will to live.
And in the comments sections, these stories were always met with compassion by hundreds of fellow sufferers who understood.
I certainly understood.
The PMDD Diagnosis Was My Peak Mental Health Misery Gift—But It Was a Relief Nevertheless
Navigating my hormonal health has been a challenging ride. For several years I had hypothalamic amenorrhoea as a result of my eating disorder, meaning I didn’t get my period, which luckily came back as I recovered.
But oh did it come back with full force.
It took me almost two years to link my depressive episodes to my hormonal health. One week my parents came to visit me and we stayed at a beautiful house on Cape Cod. I spent the majority of the time in bed. I couldn’t move, I didn’t want to speak to anyone. If there’d been a button next to my bed that would have allowed me to go to sleep and not wake up again, I would have pushed it. Five days in a row, I would have pushed it. We got back from the trip and shortly after I got home I was back to my normal, happy self. The guilt surrounding ruining the family vacation was insurmountable. So was the shame around my unpredictable but recurring depression.
After over a year, I finally had an epiphany when I started tracking my cycle and, more specifically, the symptoms I experienced before menstruation. I realized my depression, often accompanied by flare-ups and relapses of my eating disorder, arrived precisely 1–2 weeks before my menstruation, like clockwork. Every single month.
I realized 80% of my mental health issues were hormonal. Eating disorder recovery seemed like an impossible feat given the cards I had been dealt.
The next problems with PMDD are that treatment options are incredibly poor, and, based on what I know now, don’t address the root cause but only help to manage symptoms.
These are three options:
- Antidepressants
- Birth control
- Lifestyle changes
There’s a fourth one, which sadly some women feel forced to go for in the case of more prolonged and severe cases: a hysterectomy, which surgically removes your uterus.
None of the proposed lifestyle changes had made a difference for me: I was already doing yoga and meditation, was eating a balanced plant-rich diet, and had tried some of the recommended supplements. Antidepressants and birth control were out of the question for me, because of the mountain of research challenging the efficacy of SSRIs and the fact that neither would treat the root cause of my hormonal imbalances.
Yes, the birth control would artificially balance my hormones, just like the antidepressants may (or may not) successfully manipulate my serotonin receptors. But more importantly, I asked myself: Why were my hormones and serotonin receptors doing what they were doing in the first place?
“Managing my symptoms” didn’t sound like a solution to me. I wanted to get to the root cause. And I also was (perhaps naively) convinced that everything happened for a reason, that every symptom was my body talking to me.
I drank the spiritual Kool-Aid and didn’t want Western Medicine, I wanted root cause medicine.
Well, turns out that perhaps I wasn’t so naive after all. To this day, I’m grateful for my relentless curiosity and drive to get to the bottom of my mental ailments. If I’d said yes to SSRIs or birth control, I’d be in a very different place now. If I had muted the voice that was trying to speak to me, I would have lost my opportunity to understand what it was trying to say.
Psychedelics to the Rescue: A Microdosing Experiment With Psilocybin
This is what you get when you google the root causes of PMDD:
Researchers do not know for sure what causes PMDD or PMS. Hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle may play a role. A brain chemical called serotonin may also play a role in PMDD. Serotonin levels change throughout the menstrual cycle. Some women may be more sensitive to these changes.
Duh. Alas, we don’t know.
Yes, hormones and serotonin clearly “play a role”, but they are a symptom of PMDD and not the cause. I’m really sick of modern medicine trying to replace the answer to the “why” with details about the “what”. If we don’t know why things happen the way they do, we can’t possibly treat them effectively.
About a year after my PMDD discovery, I suddenly remembered that one of the very first books I ever read on psychedelics was in fact dealing with this specific disorder. In “A Really Good Day”, writer and mother Ayelet goes on a 30-day microdosing experiment with LSD to treat her PMDD, a diagnosis she received after years of cycling through mental health professionals, diagnoses such as bipolar, and treatments with a variety of antidepressants. Which helped temporarily but never permanently. However, the acid, in Ayalet’s words, “made a mega difference in her mood, her marriage, and her life”.
For a while already I’d been convincing myself that psychedelics were the magic pill that could heal everything, and so I went on the same 30-day protocol developed by James Fadiman. I used mushrooms instead of LSD because I liked the idea of going with the all-natural option better.
I was extremely hopeful and confident this would help me, too.
And to no surprise, it did. It worked so well that I had one of the most magical months, and while I was still aware of the ebbs and flows of my hormones around my cycle, the wave didn’t take me out completely as it usually did.
I went on to experiment with selective microdoses on the days my symptoms arose, e.g. every two days during the 10 days leading up to my menstruation, or a more flexible “as needed” approach. When I wake up during the PMDD phase I pretty much immediately know if it will be a terrible day or not. It’s pretty black or white. When the black painters arrived, I immediately know.
And, like Ayelet, it continued to make a mega difference in my life.
But I also realized that this was not too different from taking SSRIs or birth control. Microdosing mushrooms wasn’t root cause medicine any more than other mood stabilizers, whether naturally-derived or not.
It became clear to me that I’d have to dig deeper.
My PMDD Miraculously Faded When I Healed Repressed Sexual Trauma Through Ayahuasca
I was on a mission to get to the bottom of this. I went to a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, I flew to Costa Rica to drink Ayahuasca, and I spent hours exploring alternative therapies. PMDD was the one big puzzle piece that was holding me back from full recovery from my eating disorder and overall mental well-being, and I was determined to heal it.
I’ve written extensively about the details, but for the sake of this story here, let me share the short version of what those inner journeys revealed:
Turns out I had repressed sexual trauma from just five years earlier when a colleague at work abused me on my very first project as a consultant. I was 23 and it was my first job. I went to work the next day, never told anyone about it, and (to my astonishment) completely repressed the entire experience pretty much the day after. When I first drank plant medicine I got a hint that something had happened to me, but ayahuasca realized I wasn’t ready to face this and brought up something else. (Can we pause and appreciate plant intelligence here for a moment?).
It didn’t materialize until the meditation retreat, during which parts of the repressed memory started coming back. Then, through Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy, I was able to further explore, realizing that it was, in fact, real and not something I’d made up.
Finally, during another Ayahuasca ceremony, I was able to piece together the memory and heal the trauma itself in the most gentle and loving way. I revisited the memory and saw myself in the precise situation, but the emotions of shame and fear were replaced with unconditional love and acceptance. It was one of my most healing ceremonies to this date.
It would only be weeks after I got back that I’d realize the gifts I had received that weekend.
The first period I got weeks after the Ayahuasca retreat took me by complete surprise. Because it arrived on time (i.e., on a ~28-day cycle) which it never does (I averaged out on 38–45 cycle). But more significantly, because it arrived without any visitors. No black paint. No misery.
I couldn’t keep the tears of joy from pouring down my face once I realized how lucky I was to skip just one month of misery. To finally get a break from it.
At that point, I didn’t make the connection between my plant medicine experience and my cycle yet.
But then the same thing happened the month after. And the month after. And the month after.
It’s now been over 6 months.
Now, I’ll get some physical symptoms like cramps and tender breasts, I’m more tired than usual and still experience some cravings a few days before — but I am free.
My inner walls are luminous and bright, and the select few splashes of light grey paint that pop up the week before I menstruate are more than manageable.
I no longer spent a third of my time being miserable.
True Root Cause Medicine Requires Courage, Curiosity, and Persistence
Before seeking out psychedelics, I went to several doctors about my condition. I even visited a “holistic” women’s health care clinic in the hopes that they’d be more supportive and helpful in treating the root cause rather than the symptoms of my PMDD. But unfortunately, they didn’t have any suggestions beyond what I’d already been told. Doctor after doctor looked at me with compassion as I shared my struggles, but none of them were able to help.
I’m not a medical doctor and I by no means intend to state that sexual trauma causes PMDD or that complex hormonal health issues like PMDD can be cured through psychedelic plants. I’m also not saying that psychedelics are magic pills. As you see in my story, there was lots of work going on before, in between, and after my journeys.
But, after realizing the connection between my trauma and my hormonal health, I discovered some (well hidden) theories around trauma contributing to PMDD. Turns out, there are also some studies confirming the like between PTSD, sexual trauma, and PMDD, like this one from 2003 and this one from 2012. But other sources show that results are still mixed.
I’m deeply saddened that this research is out there, but so under the radar that most doctors treating these illnesses don’t even consider it.
I’m equally disappointed that the impact of trauma is not explored deeper in the context of this specific disorder, given that there is at least some research pointing to its significance.
In fact, I had submitted this article to a mental health publication on Medium that I frequently publish with, and they decided not to publish because of the “controversial nature of repressed trauma”. This is the first time in years that I self-published an article on here. It’s upsetting because it confirms and perpetuates the whole thesis of this article, which is that these issues are not explored properly and that they’re not taken seriously enough.
After immersing myself in the works of Gabor Mate, who recently premiered his documentary “The Wisdom Of Trauma”, I have to say I’m not surprised that my trauma had such a big impact on my hormonal health.
Because, as Bessel Van Der Kolk says, the body keeps the score.
Mine certainly did.
And thankfully so, because without the consistent pointers, I would have never arrived where I’m now: A place of freedom and joy.
A place I was only able to find by uncovering and healing my most shameful and deepest, darkest wounds.
I’ve since also discovered that there are coaching programs to heal PMDD based on the premise that it’s caused by a combination of trauma and high sensitivity, both of which I can attest to.
I’m not objectifying my path. This is my very subjective experience, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I believe that healing my sexual trauma cured my PMDD. And without a doubt, I could not have cured — or even detected — my trauma if it weren’t for plants like Ayahuasca.
It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not the specific plants that “cure” us, it’s the nature that created the plants that show us how we can heal ourselves.
We still need to do the work.
It’s hard work, but it’s always worth it.
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Correction: The original title “How I Naturally Healed My Hormonal Imbalances with Ayahuasca” was changed to “How I Naturally Healed My Mood Disorder with Ayahuasca” after a reader rightfully pointed out that PMDD is not a hormonal imbalance.