Scarleteen

hi, I don’t really have a support system to go to at the moment, so I thought that going here might benefit. I really need to let some steam out because I’ve been dealing with overwhelming amounts of stress lately - both familial and hormonal that I can’t get out of bed and function daily in life. The family issues I decide to keep personal because I am on a public forum, the hormonal stuff is something that happens every once a month where i get intense mood swings, specifically anger that I just want to scream or break stuff because of having to suppress all these feelings but not knowing where to release them off. The ending of this month feels more stronger compared to the other months since there’s other personal factors that are overlapping with this factor, such as dealing with a friendship breakup. I do see a therapist but only a couple of times in a month. I’m just looking for ways on how to manage overcoming stress and how do I not let these factors affect me.

Hi there, Arilishart

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been having such a tough time! Having to deal with issues with your family, a friendship breakup, and mood swings all at once is just too much — you are welcome to vent here! I do want to say: you can keep the familial difficulties you’ve had to yourself if that is what feels right, but you can also talk about them here. (If privacy is a concern, you might consider removing any identifying information.)

In general, when it comes to managing stress on your own, I think a good deal of it can come down to being aware of the causes of your stress, finding approaches that minimise these causes as much as possible, and being proactive about self-care during stressful periods. Finding an outlet for feelings like anger is an important part of self-care. It does often take a bit of trial and error to find the right outlet, but as you know, just suppressing anger doesn’t really work all that well.

We have an article on self care that lists some ideas that you could try: Self-Care: A La Carte! Would you look over it and tell us if any sound good to you?

In some of your previous posts, I saw that you discussed trying birth control to treat your PMDD, though it didn’t go too well. I wonder, have you considered trying any other medications? Our page on PMDD discusses two other treatments: antidepressants and antihistamines.

I have one last resource to offer you for now, a new one by Lisa Laman on navigating friendship break-ups. I’m not surprised this has made it harder to manage your mood this month — the ending of a friendship can be awful.