Finding Hope Amidst Healthcare Failures: Elizabeth's Journey with PMDD

Life as a woman with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) can feel like a lonely, uphill battle. For Elizabeth, a policy advisor from London, the journey to find help has been long, exhausting, and filled with moments of despair. Yet, amidst the chaos, she’s found purpose through advocacy and community. 

In this interview, Elizabeth opens up about her struggles, the flaws in the healthcare system, and how she’s fighting to make a difference for other women facing the same challenges.

A lifelong battle for recognition

Elizabeth’s struggle with PMDD began when she was just 14. She sensed that something was off: her mental health deterioration was connected to her menstrual cycle. But how do you explain that to a doctor when you don’t even have the words for it yourself? For years, Elizabeth was dismissed and misunderstood by healthcare professionals.

She speaks openly about being repeatedly ignored and even gaslit by clinicians who didn’t believe her symptoms were real. “I was often told to improve my thinking around it.

I was literally being gaslit to death,” she recalls.

Even though she learned some effective coping strategies, her symptoms weren’t being treated. After years of bouncing from one professional to another, she felt utterly defeated.

“I think sometimes when we go to services, it's like we hand over a piece of ourselves to them to fix. And when they can't fix it, it feels like you lose it. To me, it felt like I was losing a part of myself and my life to them.”

She recalls harrowing experiences: being shouted at, even told to end her life by clinicians. Just being met with empathy, she says, would have made all the difference. 

The cost of speaking up

Elizabeth talks about an often-overlooked reality: the backlash women can face simply for self-advocating within healthcare settings. She describes how asking questions or expressing a need for clarity (behaviours that should be seen as signs of engagement) are often mistaken for hostility, especially by male clinicians. 

Instead of being listened to, women are labelled as difficult, manipulative, or troublemakers. For Elizabeth, this response has been especially damaging, as her natural tendency to seek understanding has been met with suspicion rather than support. 

Her experience reflects a broader issue in the medical field: a discomfort with assertive women that silences patients and perpetuates harm. 

A glimmer of hope came from an unlikely place: the health retailer Holland & Barrett. One day, Elizabeth stumbled upon a display table in their store, divided into four sections representing different phases of the menstrual cycle. It was the first time she’d seen her experiences acknowledged in such a straightforward, helpful way. “That table did more for my PMDD than the NHS ever has,” she admits.

The table at Holland&Barrett

Yet even as she criticizes the system, Elizabeth holds compassion for the clinicians, too. She understands their failings stem partly from ignorance, from never having been taught about PMDD in their training. 

Why awareness matters

One of Elizabeth’s clearest hopes for change lies in education—mandatory, comprehensive training for GPs, psychiatrists, gynaecologists, nurses, and anyone who may come into contact with someone suffering from PMDD. Right now, she explains, “it’s simply not on their radar”. 

Women with PMDD are often misdiagnosed with serious psychiatric conditions or dismissed entirely, not because their symptoms are invisible, but because clinicians aren’t taught to recognise them. 

Elizabeth believes that with better awareness and understanding, healthcare professionals would be less likely to jump to default psychiatric labels and more likely to explore hormonal sensitivity as a root cause. 

She also calls for formal clinical guidance and diagnostic pathways—structured, evidence-based protocols to help women receive accurate diagnoses without enduring years of confusion and misdiagnosis.

“It took me 13 years,” she says. 

Her face lights up when she starts talking about women’s health advocacy. “It’s my passion project,” she says. Advocacy has given her a sense of purpose, allowing her to transform years of pain into something that might help others. Meeting women who had similar stories made her realize it wasn’t just her…The system was failing so many.

Elizabeth believes that if young women were taught about PMDD early on, they wouldn’t have to endure the same confusion and guilt. “If I had known that the darkness would lift when my period started, I would have made different choices,” she says. Greater awareness could prevent so much unnecessary pain and give women the language to advocate for themselves.

We’re not alone anymore

Connecting with other women through her voluntary advocacy work has been transformative for Elizabeth. Before, she felt completely isolated, like no one understood what she was going through. But hearing others’ stories and sharing her own made her realize that she wasn’t alone. 

“Meeting other women who have walked the same path gave me strength,” she shares.

Looking forward

Elizabeth’s mission is to ensure that no other woman has to endure what she did. Her dream is a healthcare system where clinicians are trained to recognize PMDD, where diagnosis doesn’t take years, and where women are treated with empathy and respect.

It’s a daunting task, but Elizabeth is determined.

“I just hope that one day, little girls won’t have to go through what I did,” she says. 

Through her advocacy and community work, she’s helping to build a future where women with PMDD are seen, heard, and helped.