Amanda Westphal Counselling

I remember sitting in that chair with everything I’d been carrying and somehow saying almost none of it. I minimised. I said “it’s probably just bad PMS.” I let the appointment end without the thing I actually needed to say.

If I could go back, I’d walk in with it written down. The days it hits. What it does to my relationships, my work, my head. Not a vague “I don’t feel great,” but the real, specific pattern, so it couldn’t be waved away.

You deserve to be taken seriously the first time, not the fifth.

Comment GUIDE and I’ll send you the Monthly PMDD Support Guide. It has a symptom tracker and a cycle map, so you can walk into that room with proof instead of apologising for taking up space.

There is a specific kind of grief in watching yourself blow up your own life and knowing, even as it happens, that this isn’t you. You send the message. You hand in the resignation. You tell someone you’re done. And a week later the fog lifts and you’re standing in the wreckage of decisions a different version of you made.

For a long time I thought that meant I couldn’t trust myself. What I understand now is that the luteal phase isn’t the real you going rogue. It’s a nervous system that’s stopped feeling safe, making choices from inside that panic.

You are not too much. You are not unstable. You are dealing with something that has a pattern, and patterns can be worked with.

Comment GUIDE and I’ll send you the Monthly PMDD Support Guide, so you can start seeing your pattern before it gets to the wreckage stage.

Sometimes the clue is not rage.

It is suddenly not wanting your partner near you. It is avoiding friends you normally love. It is losing confidence in work you have done successfully for years.

The useful thing to track is not one isolated symptom.

Track the cluster.

For example, maybe the same week brings irritability, wanting more space, questioning your relationship and feeling overwhelmed by noise.

When those things repeatedly arrive together, the pattern becomes much easier to recognise.

That is why I prefer asking, “What tends to happen to you during this part of the month?” rather than only, “What symptoms do you have?”

If you are starting to recognise your own cluster, my free Monthly PMDD Support Guide includes a tracker to help you put it on paper. Comment GUIDE and I’ll send it over.

1. “Just calm down.”
2. “You need to stop overreacting.”
3. “Try to think more positively.”
4. “You just need better self-control.”
5. “Maybe you need more self-care.”

If any of those worked, I suspect you would have figured it out by now.

Most women I work with do not have an effort problem. They have usually spent years trying incredibly hard not to react.

What I am more interested in is what happened before the rage.

Were you already exhausted? Had everyone needed something from you all day? Was noise suddenly unbearable? Were you hungry, overstimulated or already running on empty?

Instead of only analysing the moment you snapped, try asking:

“What did I need 30 minutes earlier that I only realised I needed afterwards?”

That question can tell you far more about your pattern than another lecture about staying calm.

And for the moments when you are already in it, that is exactly why I created Rage Rescue. It is something you can press play on when remembering another strategy feels impossible.

PMDD is not always the obvious explosion.

Sometimes it looks like:

1. Suddenly not wanting your partner anywhere near you.
2. Cancelling plans because the thought of conversation feels exhausting.
3. Becoming convinced you are failing at work or motherhood.
4. Feeling overwhelmed by noise, clutter or everyone needing something from you.
5. Questioning decisions you felt completely comfortable with a week ago.
6. Wanting to disappear from everyone for a few days.

Then wondering what on earth happened once the intensity starts to lift.

These experiences can occur alongside PMDD, but one difficult day or one symptom does not tell us the whole story. What becomes useful is noticing whether the same cluster keeps showing up during a similar part of your cycle.

So instead of only tracking, “I had a bad day”, try writing down what actually changed.

Did you want more space? Did your confidence disappear? Did touch or noise suddenly feel unbearable? Did you start questioning things you normally feel secure about?

That is how you start seeing your pattern rather than being blindsided by it every month.

If you are reading this thinking, “Hang on, I do several of these”, my free Monthly PMDD Support Guide gives you a simple place to start mapping what happens across your month. Comment GUIDE and I’ll send it to you.

Most women I work with are already trying incredibly hard.

I am far less interested in whether you managed to “push through” and much more interested in what happened before things became hard.

Try looking for three things:

When does your tolerance start dropping?

What becomes harder first?

What could you reduce or prepare for before you hit capacity?

If you know days 22 to 25 are often difficult, that information can help you make different choices before you get there.

Maybe the difficult family conversation can happen another day. Maybe that week does not need three social commitments. Maybe your partner gets a heads-up before you are already overwhelmed.

You do not have to build your life around PMDD. You can simply stop making yourself discover the same pattern from scratch every month.

📝 That is exactly what my Monthly PMDD Support Guide helps you start mapping. If you want it, comment GUIDE and I’ll send it over.

“Maybe this is just who I am.”

By the time a woman says this to me, she has usually spent years blaming herself for being too angry, too sensitive or simply not coping well enough.

One of the first things I want to know is when those thoughts become loudest.

Here is something you can start doing yourself: when a harsh thought about who you are shows up, write down the thought and the day of your cycle.

Then look for repetition.

If “I’m a terrible mum” or “I cannot do this anymore” keeps appearing at a similar point each month and softens again later, that pattern gives you context.

You do not have to dismiss the thought. You just do not have to treat it as a character assessment either.

Have you noticed one particular thought that seems to come back every month?

"That was the best luteal ever."

When I first start working with a client, the luteals are real bad. Real dark.

My first job is to minimise the destruction and settle those luteals down.

That sentence is the goal. I want to hear it within the first two sessions.

Free Monthly PMDD Support Guide, link in bio.