Why Thinking About Getting Help Is Not the Same as Getting It

On PMDD, the stuck brain, and why your brain keeps convincing you that you are already doing something

May 24, 2026

Does it ever get exhausting anticipating the hard days before they even arrive?

Right now we are welcoming in summer and with it I think we all feel that shift in energy as well. Just like the seasons shift our internal feelings, moods, and energy shift too with our cycle. We know somewhere in the back of our minds that when our period comes around our energy drops and our mood changes. But I think that fluctuation has become so normalised that we do not even think about it anymore. It just happens. It is expected.

And what that does is completely erase the mental awareness we should have around our cyclical health.

It needs to be talked about so much more than it is.

What I only just learned…

I recently came across a term on Substack that I genuinely had not encountered in any depth before. PMDD. Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

Here is what the data actually says. PMDD is not just severe PMS. It is a serious neuroendocrine condition affecting roughly 3% to 8% of women. It causes debilitating emotional and physical symptoms including intense anxiety, clinical depression, and extreme fatigue that hit hard during the luteal phase and then disappear almost immediately once bleeding begins. Because medical research has historically treated female hormonal shifts as a baseline inconvenience it takes years to get an accurate diagnosis. Millions of women are routinely misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder or told their symptoms are just normal period moodiness leaving them completely isolated in something that has a name, has research behind it, and deserves actual treatment.

I am running a health conscious platform and I only learned about the actual depth of PMDD because I started this platform. That says everything about how far under the radar this condition still sits.

We are conditioned to think it is okay to just suffer through these massive emotional waves every single month. We do not acknowledge it as a real problem because the medical system rarely cares to mention it. And so it becomes another thing you write off as your own personal failure.

I do not want you to write it off anymore.

The part I think some of you already know

Here is what I think is actually happening for a lot of women reading this. You already know something is not right. You feel it every month. But you have become so accustomed to sitting inside that emotional state that it has started to feel like just the way you are. And somewhere in that loop your brain has convinced you that you are already doing something about it. That thinking about it counts. That the appointment you mentally scheduled three weeks ago is basically the same as making it.

It is not. And I think that distinction is one of the most important things I can say in this article.

Because the trap is not just hormonal. It is cognitive. And understanding that changes everything about how you approach getting help.

The stuck loop

I saw a TikTok by Letters to No One (@lindsiann) recently that had nothing to do with women’s health at all. The creator was talking about ambition and the mental loop of feeling stuck when trying to move forward on your goals. But it hit me that the way we talk about our health and specifically the way we talk ourselves out of seeking help behaves exactly the same way.

She introduced a neurological concept called the Default Mode Network. It is the brain circuit that activates when you are not focused on a specific task. Where your brain goes to wander, replay memories, and process emotions. In a healthy state it cycles in and out smoothly. But in a stuck brain it gets trapped on and just runs on its own steam.

Here is where the trap happens. You sit there spinning and your brain tricks you into thinking that planning the action is the same thing as taking it. You tell yourself next week I am absolutely going to reach out to a doctor about this. And the week passes and nothing happens. Not because you do not care. Because the thinking felt like work. And so your brain filed it as done.

Some of you may have had that exact thought about getting support for PMDD or for symptoms that feel more severe than what you are being told is normal. You have thought about the appointment. You have rehearsed the conversation. You have googled the right questions. And you are still in the same place you were six months ago.

That is not a character flaw. That is a cognitive loop. And the hormonal cycle can make it worse because just like your emotions get trapped in a cyclical pattern your lack of action can get trapped in one too.

What to do when you cannot bring yourself to make the call

I am not going to tell you to just go make an appointment. Because I know how the stuck loop works and that advice alone has never helped anyone move.

Instead just focus on breaking the immediate loop.

Talk to someone you trust about what you are experiencing. Not to fix it. Just to say it out loud. Saying something out loud interrupts the circuit in a way that thinking about it never will.

If you are spinning in a dark emotional state physically change your environment. A short walk. A different room. Anything that gives your brain a new input to process instead of the same loop.

Find other women who speak openly about their experience with PMDD. Sometimes just reading someone else’s words, seeing that your experience has a name and that someone else has lived it, is enough to finally make the call.

Isolation enhances the loop. Connection breaks it.

I will link some articles below from women who have written about their own journeys with PMDD. You are not alone in this and you never were. 🌸123

Xoxo GS