Dixie D’Amelio, 21, is the older sister of TikTok star Charlie D’Amelio and she’s a very popular influencer too. I’ve heard of her through her family’s reality series, The D’Amelio Show, which I admittedly haven’t watched. Dixie recently revealed that she’s been diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, a more severe form of PMS which can severely affect mood. She’d been dealing with this for years before she got a diagnosis. It sounds like it was a relief to her to realize what was wrong. I appreciate that Dixie is opening up about her mental health struggles though and wanted to talk about it. Trigger warning on this content as she talks about feeling suicidal.
“I wasn’t feeling great and not really sure why,” she began. “I recently got diagnosed with this thing called PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoric disorder.”
PMDD, a more severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), is a chronic medical condition that can cause extreme mood shifts and symptoms like depression, anxiety, irritability, insomnia and more.
“It really affects your moods and your behavior and many different parts of your life,” D’Amelio continued. “I feel like I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until I got to this point I was in last week.”
She said that for two weeks each month the condition “really disrupts” her life, impacting her attitude, personality, relationships and anxiety.
“I have never been so low … and having no idea what was wrong with me was very alarming,” she explained. “I just felt like I had no control over my body or mind and I had no idea what was wrong but it would turn on and off like a light switch.”
“That was very confusing to me because how can I go one day feeling fine and then the next day not wanting to be here anymore?” D’Amelio continued, admitting that she was struggling with suicidal thoughts.
The social media influencer said the condition is something she’s dealt with for the past seven years but was only recently diagnosed. “I’m very happy that I know what’s wrong because now I can find better ways to handle my emotions.
“I’m feeling better now and I will probably be going through the same thing next month and the month after that,” she added, sharing that she’s still learning about PMDD.
That just sounds awful. Hormones can seriously disrupt our lives. I wasn’t familiar with it before this and I really appreciate it when famous people open up about what they’re going through. It definitely helps raise awareness. While I’m on the other side of this now and dealing with perimenopause I remember how hard it was when I was younger too. Health.Harvard.Edu has more on PMDD including how it is diagnosed and treated. It sounds like a multifaceted approach with lifestyle changes and medication is most effective. If you suspect that you or a loved one has PMDD please reach out to a doctor for treatment.
Also her hair is so cute!
photos credit: Robin Platzer/Twin Images/Avalon and Instagram
Lived through this, or rather survived it. It was horrible. Derailed relationships, work, friendships for years and only got worse with perimenopause when it was finally diagnosed and treated. One of the hardest aspects of it was how few people believed me, including my doctor with whom I had to argue for two years before she’d refer me to a specialist. I remember the empathy of that doctor and weeping when she told me what it was and that I needed and received help. It changed my entire life and relationships and had I known and received treatment earlier I think my life would be very different. I wouldn’t have survived it otherwise. I’m so glad women are starting to talk about this.
PMDD is a beast. I wasn’t diagnosed until my 40s and it was such a relief to know I wasn’t crazy. It’s terrible how many young women aren’t diagnosed until they are suicidal. I’m not at all familiar with this family but glad to hear someone is calling attention to this disorder.
I have it, and am 39. It took years to finally figure out what was going on. In hindsight, I had all of the symptoms including strong suicidal ideation the two or three days leading up to my menstrual cycle starting – Then as soon as I started bleeding, my body, mood and mind were all “back to normal” seemingly within hours/overnight.
Solutions that have helped me to navigate this more successfully:
1. Open & regular communication with my husband leading up to that phase in my cycle has been a huge help – like keeping him updated on my symptoms so we know what’s coming and can adjust our strategies & plans accordingly.
2. Therapy has given me tools to process my moods and dark feelings as they arise
3. Cannabis also helps me *significantly* during this time – it takes the intensity away, and my brain, moods, marriage, work, etc. isn’t getting hijacked as severely on a monthly basis. This shit is horrible though, it’s so much bigger, scarier, and life consuming than the pms I learned about in junior high.
I personally have never heard of Dixie but i applaud her for using her platform to talk about something that affects 3% of women worldwide but is not talked about or taken seriously, by neither the medical field or society. Its very hard to deal with. After years of pleading my doctor prescribed me the antidepressants i need to keep my life somewhat manageable. Being on birthcontrol pills is often seen as a safe option but they made the symptoms worse. Research is difficult because we actually dont know too much about hormones in general and how they work in context of different bodies.
It really is an on and off switch. All of a sudden your mood switches to a dark cloud, which lasts for a couple of days. I work in IT, which is a challenge for any woman but try and explain something like this to a bunch of guys :’) . I used to be scared of saying anything about it because i didnt want people to label me as ‘unstable’ but ive learned to do it to protect me, my job and create some awareness. Odds are someone knows a woman with the same symptoms who is just as frustrated as i was for years
I recall being very affected by those very dark moods for a couple days prior to a period. I think it was worst during my teens and 20’s. The suddenness of it coming on…and then going away was really intriguing to me. Like, I would be in the darkest and most hopeless mood and suddenly feel it lift, often even before I was aware that my period had started.
The one “gift” was that I realized how temporary moods can be and when the dark mood came on I kind of indulged it as I knew it would soon pass. It kind of set me up for a more Zen understanding of the superficial nature of moods.
I think I used the wrong word (superficial) about moods…… they are REAL, but not necessarily the result of one’s actual outside world. In this case they are caused by one’s own chemicals (hormones).
I’ve thankfully never had more than normal period blues issues, but I did have a have an experience with whacked out hormones that makes me empathize.
I always had issues with extremely irregular periods. I have a naturally high progesterone level (runs in the family), so I’d get period symptoms every month but not actually bleed for 4 or 5 months, then get bleeding that would last for weeks up to 3 months. Anyway, I’d been on the Pill through much of my later teens. Tried going off for a while in college, and gave up when I was in finals and in the 6th week of a period. Went to the school nurse to get back on the Pill, and for some reason, she gave me one of the older high-dose versions.
And for a week out of every month I was an emotional train wreck. I would call up my boyfriend screaming at him that it was his fault that I was so miserable. Poor guy tried to calm me down by reminding me that I was back on the Pill for medical reasons — and he’d be happy to use any other form of birth control that I wanted. After about 3 months I figured that it was the pills — so I called my GYN to prescribe my previous low-dosage pills — and was back to normal within a month.
I found out the pill the nurse put me on was like 10x higher in dosage than the ones that I had been using previously. This was the mid-80s, so she gave me a prescription for a version from the early 70s.
I remember seeing PMDD written on the paper the doctor gives you when leaving the office. And I thought to myself, well, at least there is a name for it! Ugh…had it SOOOOOOO bad during peri-menopause. It hit me during the pre-menstrual time. I never would have believed how bad it could be, nor how quickly it would disappear when my period started each month unless I had lived it. Now I am “old” and I feel great!
Wow, I’d never heard of that. I hope she gets help and starts to feel better.
I have it too. Luckily, oral contraceptives (specifically) low dose, monophasic drosperinone/ethinyl estradiol completely cleared up my symptoms 100%. I had to lose a lot before that happened, like my business, and the loss of income over a few years was several hundred thousand dollars. I’m pissed off about that. Women deserve far better healthcare than we have. What he have is abysmal. My experience convinced me I can never have kids. I don’t know how I managed to survive it.
Poor baby girl. I am glad the younger gen is able to get help with these nightmare horrible hormone issues. I have PMDD too. It does make Perimenopause worse. I just read a study about it.