Happy Girls, Happy Hormones

(about watching your TEENAGE daughter get thrown around by life)

All I ever saw was my teenage daughter being battered around like a ball in the wrong game. Not even a tennis ball — that would’ve been gentle. More like squash: fast, hard, unpredictable, slammed from every direction.

She got pinged from friendship group to friendship group. Pinged from boyfriend to boyfriend. Pinged through workplaces she chose with a hopeful heart and a tired brain. Pinged by parents who were trying to make sense of a teenager who didn’t make sense to herself.

And now I realise: that was PMDD. (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) That was her brain trying to make a good decision only to have it crushed by the bad one that followed. That was her hormones hitting her like rackets from every angle — friends, boys, work, even us — and she was just the ball, trying to survive the match.

Context

I wrote this at a red light, sitting in my car, watching a group of fifteen, maybe twenty girls walking together — arms linked, hair blowing in the sunshine, full of that easy teenage confidence. And all I could think was: one of them will have PMDD. One of them will be my daughter. And the system will repeat, because nothing has changed. Nothing is being done to protect or support young women with this hormone imbalance. Lots of words and noise but we need action.

Fact

A slight truth bend (but we really don't know) but in class of 24 girls averagely one would have PMDD

in any group of 20 girls, statistically one might have PMDD — but the evidence‑based number is closer to 1 in 60. And because PMDD is so underdiagnosed, the real number could be higher — but we cannot claim 1 in 20 as fact.

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