Premenstrual Disorders

around or something. I hope I’m as good a friend to her if she ever needs me. The doctor is happy with my report of the month, but he still wants me to watch what I eat and see Dr. Jill once a month for a while. I don’t mind because I like learning about myself. I especially like that Dr. Jill has taught me to stop when I get angry and RETHINK . This means I: • R ecognize my anger. • Have E mpathy for the other person (try to walk in his or her shoes sort of). • T hink about what I am angry about in a different way. Maybe I could see something funny or even try to solve the problem rather than just be angry. • H ear the other person; don’t just think about myself, tuning out everybody else. • I ntegrate love and respect. I can tell the person how I feel about the situation instead of blaming or putting her down. • N otice what works for me. How do I control my anger the best? I think maybe I need space for a little while when I’m feeling frustrated. But that doesn’t mean I should go over the whole thing in my mind and work myself up even more; in- stead, I should just let it go for a while. • K eep my focus on the present. This I really need to work on. I’m always reminding myself and everybody else about old problems, as if they will make anything better now. I hope I can continue to do this because I’ve already seen it work when I try it. Emily’s change at school may be a shock to some of her friends and to herself. Sometimes women get so caught up in all that’s going on in their lives they don’t even see the changes that are affecting everyone around them. Emily’s PMDD symptoms are very severe, even though she’s still only a teenager. Other women experience a definite increase in PMS

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Premenstrual Disorders •