Tag: paranoia

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Health Care Mental Health Health The Vulvasation Wellness

Don’t forget to advocate for yourself when it comes to your Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder

A woman lays on a bed reading a magazine.
[Image description: A woman lays on a bed reading a magazine.] Via Pexels

Vulvasations is a Tempest Love and Health exclusive series dedicated to spreading awareness about the female reproductive system, debunking myths about periods and dissecting everything vajayjay related. Let’s talk about vaginas!

I only recently found out about Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) despite being a person who’s welcomed a certain monthly visitor into my uterus since I was 11-years-old.

PMDD is a more chronic and severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) that often results in psychological symptoms such as irritability, anger, fatigue, moodiness, insomnia, paranoia, difficulty concentrating, and more.

Other PMDD symptoms include respiratory, eye, skin, and fluid retention problems such as allergies; infections; vision changes; ankle, hand, and feet swelling; and acne as well as gastrointestinal, neurologic, and vascular symptoms like nausea and vomiting, dizziness, fainting, easy bruising, muscle spasms, and painful menstruation.

What’s frustrating about any and all of those symptoms is they can easily fall under a variety of different disorders like bipolar disorder, depression, thyroid condition, and anxiety, making PMDD hard to diagnose for some people with periods.

I’d also like to add that PMDD feels even harder to diagnose because people with periods have been told over and over again that our menstrual cycle will make us overly emotional. Modern Family is but one example of media turning this experience into a joke, and it feels like yet another way for patriarchal societies and men to dismiss women and people with periods.

My own periods usually arrive after an onslaught of cramps, breakouts, and mood swings—typically high highs and low lows with a spattering of extra irritability and sensitivity thrown in just to keep things spicy. When I was 18, I decided to go on birth control. After just one month of being on birth control, I noticed that the specific brand I was using amplified my mood swings and even made me depressed. This can be common for many people, and I quickly asked my doctor if we could try out a different brand.

A few weeks ago, I emailed my doctor because the pharmacy gave me the wrong brand of birth control. I knew it was a brand that exacerbated my period symptoms because of my past experiences. But I have to admit, I felt silly having to say to my doctor, “I need a different birth control brand because I know this one makes me moody.” And I was annoyed at myself for feeling silly about drawing attention to real concerns. Adding fuel to the fire, my doctor never followed up with me; she simply emailed the pharmacy and the problem was resolved.



But is the problem resolved? Should my doctor have looked into whether or not I’m one of the estimated 5.5% of women who develop PMDD symptoms in their twenties?

The MGH Center for Women’s Mental Health notes that PMDD can be distinguished from other mood disorders because of its cyclical nature. Typically, symptoms will occur during the last two weeks of the menstrual cycle and there will be a grace period in which people with PMDD don’t feel any symptoms at all. The Center suggests helping your doctor confirm the diagnosis by charting your symptoms daily.

When diagnosed with PMDD, there are a variety of treatments, including lifestyle changes, therapy, and medication. The International Association for Premenstrual Disorders (IAPMD) also offers resources for those with PMDD.

I’m disappointed that people with periods aren’t always taught about PMDD. Because many of the symptoms are psychological, I feel like there should be more awareness around this disorder; but because many of the symptoms are psychological, I can’t say I’m surprised many people don’t know more about PMDD. Emotional women have long been discredited and overlooked by society—unless they’re being used as the butt of a joke. And these biases have often been reinforced by those in the medical industry.



Thankfully, the IAPMD is helping to raise awareness of this disorder, encouraging people with periods like me to advocate for themselves in their doctor’s office.

If your period is painful, mentally and/or physically, there could very well be a medical reason for it, and you deserve to know that reason.

I encourage everyone to take care of themselves. In your doctor’s office, this could mean being bold and advocating for your needs.

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Health Care Mental Health Health

Here’s how you can use mood tracking to manage PMDD symptoms

An open bag with a makeup brush, some pads, and a tampon spilling out.
[Image Description: An open bag with a makeup brush, some pads, and a tampon spilling out.] Via Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash.

Anyone who has had the lovely luck of menstruating knows that it brings many weird symptoms with it. Like really weird. From boob pain to headaches to constant nausea, the list goes on. And likewise, premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is equally awful to experience. But have you heard of premenstrual dysphoric disorder? I’d bet anything you probably haven’t, but you should. It’s very similar to PMS, but it tends to be more extreme. PMS on steroids might be a way to describe it. 

Like PMS, premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) occurs before your period. It can be anywhere from one to two weeks before, and the symptoms should usually die out around two days into the period. The disorder brings bouts of depression and anxiety, which are more extreme than those found in PMS, and it affects around six million people worldwide. But here’s the real kicker, it tends to show up more commonly in people who already have depression and anxiety, usually making their symptoms worse. It’s the gift that keeps giving.

I have PMDD myself, and I can attest to the fact that it makes life miserable. My symptoms tend to show up around a week and a half before my period, and it’s usually more depression-related than anxiety. I feel a sudden loss of interest in everything happening around me, extreme fatigue that leaves me unable even to attempt the chores or activities I plan, and a deep, dark state of sadness and hopelessness that looms over everything I do. 

I will say that I’ve gotten pretty good at hiding most of my symptoms, but for a long time, that was what kept me from discovering that I had PMDD. In fact, I had to research and figure it out on my own. My doctors knew about my symptoms, I talked to a counselor regularly about my troubles, but no one cared to help me look much deeper. Figuring it all out was an accident and then a google search.

It all started when my counselor asked me to start tracking my moods to help us figure out what might trigger my depressive episodes. At first, it seemed ridiculous. How would knowing my moods help me with depression? My moods were low during depressive episodes, and I knew that already. But her approach was different from what I imagined. She had me install an app that would allow me to log my moods multiple times a day and the activities completed during that time. She thought there might be a pattern related to my daily activities that could solve the depression.

She was right, and there was a pattern. It’s just not what she expected, and for a long time, she and I were confused because neither of us could see it. Then one day, while I was lying in bed, my sister asked if my period was coming up. She pointed out that I get tired and moody right before my period. And I decided to double-check that, opening the app I use to track my cycles and comparing it to the data on my mood tracking app. 

It clicked for me then, but my counselor still didn’t buy into it, and my doctor was in denial about it as well. So I was left to solve things on my own. The most common ways to deal with PMDD involve specific birth control pills or depression medication. But due to some other circumstances, neither of those were options I wished to pursue, and instead, I decided to use this mood tracking idea to help me manage my symptoms. 

One of the critical factors in my symptoms is the loss of appetite, which quickly leads down a slippery slope of losing energy for everything else in life. And tracking that, alongside my mood, usually helps me see if I’m coming up at that time of the month, allowing me to put plans in place to ensure I eat consistently and keep up my energy. Seeing my mood lowering and noticing that I’m finding less joy in activities also allows me to prepare ahead to get most of the crucial tasks out of the way and put systems in place to ensure I can have help on any other tasks as they come. 

It’s been a lifesaver to know that I can now sort of predict when my mental health will slip and be able to handle things. Of course, it’s not perfect. There are days where I get slammed with depression out of nowhere, and my schedule falls apart then. But when things clear up just a little bit, I still have plans and routines that can help me get on track again.

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Categories
History It Happened Once

I Googled the Salem Witch Trials so you don’t have to – and they are hella confusing

This is a drawing of a court scene from the Salem Witch Trials. A woman wearing a black and white dress is standing on a stand in the middle of the court in handcuffs and is surrounded by spectators.
[Image description: A drawing of a court scene from the Salem Witch Trials. A woman wearing a black and white dress is standing on a stand in the middle of the court in handcuffs and is surrounded by spectators.] Via Washington Post

As a part of our Halloween series this year, since we’ll be mentioning witches a lot, let’s talk about the Salem Witch Trials and how the events that took place do not make any sense.

Honestly, after reading a bunch about the “trials,” I still do not really understand what happened or why it happened. Suggestions about fungus causing illnesses and other analyses on political issues within Salem at the time are speculations that are often used to try to explain the trials. But, you have to admit that there are a bunch of missing pieces in the story. The whole thing sounds like complete chaos to me!

I have so many questions. Like, why did they randomly believe the claims of young girls without any true evidence? Who really thought that allowing spectral evidence was a good idea? How were the accused supposed to prove to a court that they were not actually witches? And lastly, what were the true reasons and motivations behind this tragedy?

So let me explain what all went down in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 and 1693.  It all began when the daughter and niece of Reverend Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village, began having violent fits, intense contortions, and uncontrollable outbursts such as screaming. After a local doctor in Salem could not find anything physically wrong with 9-year-old Elizabeth Parris an 11-year-old Abigail Williams, he diagnosed them and other young girls within the community that showed similar behaviors and symptoms with bewitchment. This first diagnosis of witchcraft led to the imprisonment of over 200 people and 20 hangings throughout Massachusetts.

Puritan pioneers first settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. During this time, the Puritan communities established their own theocratic government systems. Theocracy is a form of government largely led and structured by those who believed to be divinely guided. The government and legal system are structured based on religious law.

You still with me?

The Puritans believed that the Devil could give individuals on Earth powers in return for their loyalty. (and that isn’t even the most ridiculous claim) Those who received powers from the Devil were called witches. The principle of witchcraft became prevalent in 14th century Europe, where between the 1300s and 1600s, thousands of people, the majority being women, were executed for accusations of witchcraft. Under the legal structure in Salem, an individual who consorted with the Devil was considered a criminal. The punishment for committing such a crime was hanging, yikes!

During the time of the Salem Witch Trials, the community was stressed and struggling. The King William’s War put a strain on the community’s resources. Additionally, there was a rivalry between wealthy families and the working class that depended on forms of agriculture. There was also an on-going smallpox epidemic and fear of attack from neighboring Native Americans. The stressful and anxiety-fueled climate of the community led to ongoing tensions and suspicions among the Puritan villagers.


After the diagnosis of bewitchment, a few of the “bewitched” young girls blamed three women for bewitching them. The first is Tituba, an enslaved woman from the Caribbean bought by the Reverend Parris. The second woman was Sarah Good, a homeless beggar.  And lastly, an impoverished elderly woman named Sarah Osborne. Of course, all three of the accused women were considered “outsiders” based on race and/or class. (Is anyone shocked?)

It remains unclear if the girls were persuaded or forced to accuse these three women. However, I think that the social statuses and positions of the women in society should be considered when trying to interpret the potential reasons that these three women in particular were actually accused of the crime of witchcraft.

This is where the whole thing launched full speed into a downward spiral to me. The imprisonment of the three women led to further paranoia in a society that already suffered from numerous stresses. Good and Osborne claimed that they were not guilty; while Tituba confessed and named other witches who were working along with her against the Puritans to receive repentance. In response to Tituba claiming other individuals were also practicing witchcraft, the governor of Massachusetts ordered the establishment of the Court of Oyer and Terminer to pass judgment on witchcraft cases.

The accusations of witchcraft continued to spread across the Massachusetts colonies against mostly women and a few men (which I did not know). Similarly to Tituba, those accused confessed and named others who practiced witchcraft. The court allowed testimony based on spectral evidence. This refers to evidence that is based on visions, dreams, and a person’s spirit. The testimony was based on witnesses claiming that they interacted with or saw a person’s spirit, in place of basing testimony on a person’s physical actions. The trails lacked focus on truth and investigation. Under religious practices, the courts preferred that the accused confessed, asked for forgiveness, and vowed to not engage with the Devil again.

After years and the (unlawful) deaths and imprisonment of so many people, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was finally replaced with the Superior Court of Judicature, the testimony of spectral evidence was no longer allowed, and the trials were deemed unlawful. In 1697, the General Court ordered a day of fasting and soul-searching due to the events that had occurred during the trials. Additionally, in 1711, the families affected received reinstitution and the restoration of the names. However, it was not until the 1950s that Massachusetts formally apologized for the event.

The whole story is definitely a lot to digest, but it did give me a lot to think about.

While many aspects of the Salem Witch Trails are perplexing, within this tragedy remains lessons that should be reflected on and questioned today. It remains crucial to have objectivity, to think about the consequences of unjustly punishing individuals, to be cautious of the use of fear within the justice system, and to foresee the damages of groupthink going unquestioned.

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Categories
Family Coronavirus Gender & Identity Life

This pandemic has robbed me of a sense of home

[Image Description: A girl is sitting on a black chair, with her back to the camera. She is looking out of a window] Via Unsplash
[Image Description: A girl is sitting on a black chair, with her back to the camera. She is looking out of a window] Via Unsplash

Four months ago, I left home with a promise to come back.

I left with masked tears, excitement for a new year marred by a prick of unease that never went away no matter how many times I had done the same thing. It is the same dance over and over again at the beginning of every semester, I would long to stay behind, have a little more time with my family, only to finally board the plane to the promise of new classes, better chances and busier days.

Two months ago, I left another place I called home, saying a forever goodbye.

My roommates had hastily moved out of our dorm, and I sat in an empty room with packed suitcases waiting for my ride. I stared at our bare walls. They were closing in on me, suffocating me until I forced my eyes away and glanced out of the window, feeling a bit like Rapunzel stuck in some tower waiting for an escape.

Two more destinations, a constant fear of ending up homeless, two overweight suitcases that now contain my entire life, and multiple teary sleepless nights later, I often wonder – where and what is my home?

People try to define “home” often. They do so in the form of cringy hallmark movies and romcoms, wall décor that you receive as housewarming gifts, and self-help books targeted at middle-aged white suburban moms. But I never really questioned it until I left my home – it suddenly feels like a label of false security.

Being able to call a place yours – whether that place is a country, building, a group of people, a community – is a privilege, and like every aspect of privilege, you never really know you had it until you lose it, or are confronted with the absence of it.

When I first came to the US as a college freshman and a new international student, I was constantly reminded that this was not my home. Every time I was asked where I am from, questioned about my accent or got my British spelling corrected, I was made aware that my home is elsewhere. But I didn’t mind. I had a home in Sri Lanka, a beautiful family, and supportive friends. It was a home where I did not have to explain myself every time I did something that is remotely “South Asian” or “non-American.” I did not have to mask my opinions with niceness, or constantly be aware of the color of my skin, the way my words sound and whether I call it the pavement or the sidewalk.

But when you live in a place long enough, it grows on you. It is like a vine that creeps up on you slowly and you never notice it until it has surrounded you and becomes a part of yourself. By the second year of college, I was not quite sure if my home was firmly in Sri Lanka anymore. Of course, I still had my life there, and whenever I went back, I had the comfort of walking around in flip flops under the scorching sun, familiarizing myself with the honking of the cars and casually slipping back to Tamil like I was speaking it every day while I was away. But I recognized that I missed Iowa. I missed the way people opened their doors for me, the cornfield jokes, the cheap pasta from downtown, and the rustic smell of fall. I had realized that while I had my home back in Sri Lanka, I had also made a home in Iowa, and while it felt strange – and a little scary – I understood that duality of my life, of what I call home.

Then the pandemic hit. When I got the official email from the university announcing that classes were going online and that the residence halls would be closing, I couldn’t think straight – I cried. Sri Lanka had gone into lockdown, and suddenly Iowa did not feel like a second home anymore. I thought I was going to be homeless. Kind friends in Iowa City, my savings, the stability of my on-campus job, and the sanity that online classes gave me kept me afloat.

I skipped houses, packed my entire life away in two suitcases and a hundred boxes that were all dispersed to four different locations, and stayed awake every night worried about the next day – of what I was going to do, what I was going to eat. For two weeks I lived alone, and one night I wondered if I did not wake up the next day, how long would it take anyone to notice?

Now I live in a room that is not mine, posters of people I do not care for adorn the walls. I’m afraid to mess up the order of things and living out of suitcases because I am scared to unpack, ready to be on the move once again if I need to. I feel like a vagrant, like a kite whose string has been cut adrift, lost in this liminal space of longing and waiting. I wonder if Iowa was ever my home – if that sense of comfort was so false that I had been betrayed into believing that I could make a home away from home in this country.

In late April, President Donald Trump announced the plan for an immigration suspension. There was a sense of panic among friends who had gone back home, of the uncertainty of not being able to come back. I stood in that threshold of being able to make a decision, when it was really a false sense of choice because my decisions were being made by governments and policies, while I sat like a puppet going back and forth between my desires, torn between two homes, questioning the security and longevity of both, the weight of the answer chasing me as the semester drew to a close.

Each day I feel like a clock is ticking, each morning I wake up to monotony. Groundhog Day suddenly feels like a horror movie. I pass my days and find solace in memes and Tik Tok videos that my friends send my way. I listen to the same songs over and over again and feel disgusted by the greasiness in my hair. I dream of Sri Lanka – of sunny beaches, sounds of traffic, and the heat of the sun. I wake up in a bed that is not mine, hurry up to check my phone to see if anything has changed and let a sense of disappointment and displacement wash over me, all over again.

Categories
Tech Now + Beyond

Has technology ever betrayed you at the worst time and caused nightmares?

flickr.com
[Image description: a woman screams while holding clenched fists under her chin]

What’s the worst thing technology has ever done to you? Last year in the middle of my advanced public speaking class, my computer decided to update, which is annoying but not completely unusual. Computers always seem to have an update at the most inconvenient times.

This time, however, it took five hours to update, and then I received a “disk error” message.

war games explosion GIF by MANGOTEETH
[Image description: a series of computers explode]
Long story short, my computer never turned on again and my hard drive was completely erased. I was poor and couldn’t afford a new computer or to get my files extracted. So my roommate and I spent hours on the internet trying to build a new hard drive on her computer and download it onto my broken one.

It didn’t go so well.

I lost my school work, some of my articles for The Tempest, and every important file I’d ever saved on my computer, moreover, I was left laptopless for a month. I’m still feeling the effects today. I couldn’t access some of my older tax returns that I needed for financial aid this year. It’s like this nightmare won’t end.

Technology is great – don’t get me wrong, and is helpful in an infinite amount of ways, but sometimes it can hurt us more than help us. Even if it doesn’t hurt us, sometimes it can just be downright creepy, like Siri screaming random messages into the night, or seeing ads for a product you merely thought of that day.

It may be a dystopian ideal, but sometimes I can’t help but feel that our technology is out to get us or at least watching us very closely.

suspicious thats so raven GIF
[image description: woman chews gum and rapidly looks left and right in fear.]
So let us know if technology has every betrayed you or caused you nightmares in this anonymous survey, and you might be featured in a future Tempest fam article!

Categories
Tech The World Now + Beyond

Could virtual reality change how we treat mental illness?

VirtualSpeech Website

When many people think of virtual reality technology, the first thing that comes to mind may be the entertainment applications, or the ways that it will likely be used in advertising. But researchers studying many mental and physical disorders have also been investigating virtual reality treatment as a way to help treat conditions like paranoia, depression, fear of public speaking, and even burns.

In the case of burn victims, researchers have found a clever way of tricking the mind into believing that the body is not experiencing pain. Researchers from the University of Washington Harborview Burn Center say that burn victims experience near-constant pain, which is normally dulled with medications. But during routine treatment like bandage changing, morphine can’t even come close to control pain that’s often “severe to excruciating” — many patients report feeling as though they are reliving their burn experience.

Much of this perception of pain has to do with having the mental energy and conscious attention to devote to it, previous research has found. So they designed a virtual reality game called SnowWorld, filled with snowmen and snowball fights. This chilly VR world distracts patients from the routine care that can often be so excruciating, making it a mere annoyance as their focus shifts to exploring a whole new reality.

The idea of immersive VR for pain control has been around since at least the mid-1990s, according to UW. SnowWorld has been used since 2000 to treat young children, soldiers and other patients suffering burn wounds. The unexpectedly dramatic success rate — according to GQ, the time spent thinking about pain dropped from 76 percent to 22 percent when patients used it — led to the VR game spinning off into versions to treat patients suffering from both arachnophobia and PTSD related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And health care professionals around the country have integrated such games into their treatment as well.

To the uninitiated, that may sound cutting edge. But not for those in the know. “We’re still in the Stone Age of immersive virtual reality. The fact is, we don’t know all of the possibilities,” one of SnowWorld’s creators said back in 2007.

So what’s happened since then? A lot in the realm of treating mental illness, particularly.

Although less than 2% of the population suffers from paranoia, it be debilitating. The disorder can hinder people from leaving the house or interacting with others. A new trial done, published by the British Journal of Psychiatry, put patients through VR simulations — 30 minutes on a train or elevator — that they would normally find stressful. Some of the patients were asked to use their normal coping methods (such as avoiding eye contact), while others were instructed to examine the virtual avatars to see that they were not a threat.

At the end of the testing day, 50% of the patients who had approached others in the virtual world no longer had severe paranoia, and even 20% of those who were defensive in the virtual situation reported improvement. In some cases, this benefit even transferred over to real life interactions. More research needs to be done in this area, but early tests look promising.

At the University College London and ICREA-University of Barcelona, researchers have been treating depression with VR. One of the symptoms of depression is extreme self-criticism. Researchers were able to design a cool VR situation where patients comforted a crying child — only to have the situation flip around on them, so that they’re actually in the position of the child, and they were unknowingly comforting themselves.

Although the study only ran with 15 patients and only consisted of three eight-minute sessions, nine of those 15 patients reported fewer depressive symptoms a month later. And for four of those patients the treatment actually had a measurable impact on the clinical severity of their illness. Again, the study was too small to definitively prove anything, and other factors may have also contributed to the improvement. But the idea offers a glimmer of hope for those of us suffering from mental illness.

All of these VR treatments have been offered only in medical facilities. But there’s also the app VirtualSpeech, which works through Google Cardboard technology. VirtualSpeech aims to reduce another condition, the fear of public speaking, through virtual reality technology.

The app allows users to upload slide shows and choose between four different scenarios with audiences of varying sizes, from a small training room to a large conference room in order to practice speaking on virtual avatars. It also allows users to set various amounts of background noise to mimic real-life distractions.