Dealing with the past

I joined TFC recently, finished reading Period Power and am now reading Perimenopause Power.
I have known for a while I was perimenopausal and have since reading these come to realise I may have had ADHD and possibly Autism all my life, and PMDD since I was 11 – I am now 51.

I have made so many changes and am willing to change, learn and adapt my life to improve my symptoms and begin living for the first time, however, I think I have ignored myself for 40 years, ignored my cycles as they were so horrendous I found it easier to just get on with it.
I am not feeling a lot of anger, towards the medical establishment who have dismissed everything as ‘womens problems’ ‘just depression’ ‘your weight’ or ‘it won’t be that, there are no symptoms’ etc.
I am also dealing with a lot of sadness and grief – that I basically lost my teenage years to pain, heavy periods, shame, body shaming etc. Sadness that I put my parents, sibling and children then later my husband through the hell of my temper and outbursts
Sadness at how I let men treat me because all my friends had boyfriends growing up and I felt totally undesirable as the fat kid so allowed men to use me for one night stands when I desperately wanted to be loved.

I am working on the here and now, and the future, but feel stuck in the past not knowing where or how to address it – I want to be able to process it all (so much must have been suppressed as I keep remembering small incidents I brushed aside growing up) I want to be able to forgive myself, my ‘friends’ for how they treated me, and I keep apologising to my family who just give me so much love and understanding.

How do I begin to process this please?

Answer:

You have a great start to process. You are aware of your feelings that are coming up, and why they are there. 

Let’s take a look at the model to see what is going on

C: Awareness of PMDD
T: I ignored my symptoms for 40 years
F: Grief
A: Judge my teenage years for the time spent to on symptoms, judge myself for how I treated my family, judge my decisions I made with partners, judge how I was treated
R: I ignore my humanity over the last 40 years

You are judging your younger self with the knowledge that you have now. In what ways did you not ignore yourself? How did what you did then help you be the person you are now?

As you think of these answers, think about how you would talk to your younger self. If you had a chance to talk to your 16 year old self, what would you say? What would you be feeling?

As you process your experience, notice the thoughts that come up and create feelings. When you understand that connection between those thoughts and your feelings, then you may begin to process with compassion. This is an important step to do, before you can try to believe or feel something different about your experience.

Showing yourself compassion may sound like this: “Of course I feel sad. I think I lost many years to PMDD.”

As you allow yourself to feel sad, breathe into that feeling. As it begins to decrease, you can add something like “and I know that it made me the person that I am today.” 

Another example may be, “Of course I feel grief. I think that I put my family through hell and I know that I did the best that I could with what I knew at the time.”

How does that feel?