112: Why Do I Pick More During PMS?

Yes, hormonal changes are the obvious answer.

But let's not forget the medical gaslighting most women have experienced on this topic, AND the unconscious gaslighting we do to ourselves.

What is it about all this that makes you want to pick, pull, and bite at your body with a whole new vigour every single month?

I think you can feel it. There's something there that isn't being taken seriously that really deserves to be.

It's time to understand what that is for you so that you can better care for yourself at every phase of your cycle.

Honour your mind. Honour your body. This is how you can reduce picking, pulling, and biting.

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My name is Raffaela Marie. I'm a holistic BFRB coach who has healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking myself and dedicated my life to helping driven women do the same. Through my podcast, free resources, and programs, I teach strategies to overcome urges, build emotional safety, and expand into authenticity. My approach goes beyond quick fixes, focusing on root causes and long-term recovery.

Transcript

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Why do I pick more during PMS? The obvious answer is yes, hormonal changes. But what about the hormonal changes means I have to pick my skin more. We're going to be diving into a bit of science, but also facing some truths about you and the way you think about yourself and the way you treat yourself. When it comes to women's health issues, we experience a lot of gaslighting in the medical field. But we also gaslight ourselves a lot. And that is part of the problems. So we're going to be addressing that today as well. So you can support yourself better and not end up in such horrible picking, pulling, or biting sessions every single month. This is actually a topic that has come up so many times over the past three years that I've been helping people to heal from chronic skin picking and hair pulling and nail biting. And I can't believe it's taken me this long to record a podcast episode on it. And what inspired me to record this podcast episode actually was one of my lovely followers on YouTube who asked me this question in a comment on one of my videos. You are listening to episode 112 of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Pulling, the place to be if you want to learn how to address the root cause of why you pick, pull, or bite at your body. My name is Rafaela Marie. I'm your host. I've healed from 15 years of chronic skin picking through addressing the root cause. And I've made it my life mission and purpose to help people like you to heal as I did. By giving you this information, this these five years of personal exploration and research and training that I've done to become a coach. I'm sharing all of that information with you on this podcast so that you can help yourself to heal. And I want to invite you to something really, really special. The past few weeks, I've started inviting people in this community to share their stories with me. This is a space where you get to feel deeply heard, seen, and understood, which is so important because we are so misunderstood in this community. And it's very hard to find someone to talk about this problem with who actually gets it. So that in itself is such a healing experience. But not only that, I will share with you what my insights are into why you pick polar bite at your body and tangible practical steps you can take to help yourself start to move forward in a way that makes sense and that is working on long-term sustainable change, not quick fixes, not magic pills. I don't do that shit. This is getting to the root cause and really helping you to understand yourself better so you can actually truly heal and move forward. If you want to get access to that, click on the link in the show notes that says free BFPA road mapping session. With that being said, let's get into this episode. I want to first start off by saying that I am not a women's hormone health expert. What I've done is that I've done some research for this episode. I've collected that information and put it together in a way that makes sense in the context of chronic skin peaking and hair pulling and nail biting. We're going to start off there with the science part of it. So to start with, what is PMS? PMS is pre-menstrual syndrome. It's where we experience moose wings or pain, physical discomfort, emotional discomfort, around about the week before, the week or two before our cycle starts or our period starts. And PMS primarily happens due to a sharp drop in our hormones right after ovulation. And if you're not very well versed on the menstrual cycle, I highly recommend you start to educate yourself on that. There are so many incredible resources out there. And it's just so important to know how your body functions, what's happening, what's going on inside of you, because we do feel different and we have different levels of energy depending on the time of the month. That is normal for our biology. But the sudden drop we experience after ovulation, going into the luteal phase, which is the phase just before we get our period, we experience a sudden drop in estrogen and progesterone levels. Now, this specifically triggers a decrease in feel-good hormones like serotonin and GABA. Let's have a let's take a brief look at what these two hormones are responsible for. And I have just taken this from the Cleveland Clinic website. Serotonin, known as a feel-good hormone, it stabilizes emotions, first important thing to note, helps control sleep cycles, second thing to note, and aids in digestive function. And this is just a fun fact. Maybe you feel like it's relevant to you, but roughly 90% of the body's serotonin is located in the gut. Very interesting. But think about it. Serotonin drops towards the end of your cycle, which means that we have less of the hormone that helps us to stabilize our emotions, makes sense that we become a bit more sensitive, that we don't have as much of a capacity like we did a week or two ago. Then there's GABA. GABA is known for producing a calming effect. By slowing down certain brain functions, GABA is thought to be able to reduce stress, relieve anxiety, and improve sleep. So not only is serotonin reduced, but so is GABA. And so essentially the two hormones that help us to manage stress and anxiety, to sleep well, to stabilize our emotions, we have less of it, which explains why we experience heightened irritability, more anxiety, emotional vulnerability. We have a lower tolerance for stress. And so just purely based on your natural hormonal fluctuations that you experience, there is a certain time in your cycle where you are just a bit more raw, a bit more sensitive. There's less of a barrier between you and the outside world. You have less capacity, you have a less emotional and energetic capacity than you did a week or two ago. That is normal. And there is nothing wrong with you when you experience that. Now, in saying that, we can of course experience quite severe mood fluctuations or severe anxiety to the level that it really disrupts our life. It's hard to function properly. And that's when we want to take a closer look, because that could be an indication of hormonal imbalance. Again, I'm not an expert, do not take my word on this. Please do do your own research and find someone who is an expert in this field to support you. But this is really important to note that if you have a feeling you have hormone imbalance, that is something to address because that's not normal and you don't have to live that way the rest of your life. So if you have the feeling like this is a problem for you, then take it seriously. Take the time to do some research and understand well, what is going on here? Listen to some podcasts on women's hormone health. Follow some people on social media that talk about this topic. There's a lady that I follow who's awesome. Her name is Arc Woman. That's A-R-C.woman. She's awesome. And there are so many other people you can find as well. It's truly worth the investment in finding someone who can help you with this, help you understand it, find a professional, find a holistic health coach, a doctor, someone who takes you seriously. And I think this is so important because this is where the medical, this is where the gaslighting comes in. And I've experienced this myself as well, is that if you are looking to get support from someone, a professional, and if at any stage you feel like you're not being taken seriously, you're not being hurt, if you feel like you're being talked down to, if you feel small after being in that person's space, if you don't feel like you can fully trust that person, then find someone else. It is not okay and it is not normal to feel that way when you are seeking support from someone. If you feel that way, it's a pretty good indication that person cannot help you because they're not willing to listen and take you seriously. You must be able to trust that person. And trust is built through feeling seen and heard and understood, through being taken seriously about what you're going through. I had an experience of gaslighting. It sucked. I was from a gynecologist when I had my Ayudin. I was starting to experience some really bad hormonal imbalance. I was feeling really horrible. I had really terrible PMS, which was getting more towards PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoria disorder. I believe that's what the acronym is acronym stands for. But that's where you have extreme mood swings, extreme emotional imbalance, and really bad brain fog. And it would almost, as soon as I got my period, like flicking a switch, the fog would lift. I would feel so much better. If you relate to that, Google PMDD and see what comes up and see if you can relate to that as well. Because maybe that's your experience too. But I was experiencing this and I thought it must be because of the IUD. I'm really not feeling good about this. This feels wrong. And so I went to a gynecologist and I shared this with her. And it was pretty crushing to hear her response. Basically, she dismissed what I said and said that it couldn't possibly be the IUD. Because if I had had a negative reaction to the IUD, I would have noticed it within the first year, not three or four years later. It was very condescending, very dismissive. It felt like shit. I didn't go back to that lady again. I went to another gynecologist, though, and I told her the same thing. And she had a much more reasonable response. She said, Yeah, that makes sense. That can happen. Because in the end, if I don't feel comfortable having the IUD in, that is my choice. If you don't feel comfortable with a certain approach to your health and your body, that is your choice. And if someone wants to dismiss you for that, oh man, it's even just pissing you off talking about it, like, fuck them, honestly. Oh man. I could go off on a whole tangent on this, but I do have a client in about half an hour. So I gotta like, let's we gotta we gotta stay focused, ladies and gentlemen. We gotta stay focused. But that's what I mean. It's so important to find someone who takes you seriously. And in all honesty, I got the IUD in when I was about 19. And at that stage, I felt so much shame around being a woman. I felt so so much shame around getting my period that I when I heard the IUD would could make the period, could make my period stop, there was nothing that could have stopped me from getting that IUD placed in. And honestly, looking back, I did start to get more acne in different places that I never used to get acne pretty soon after I got the IUD in. But I was so relieved that I didn't have to face the shame that I felt when I got my period, that I dismissed it. I never would have made that connection because it would have meant, oh, maybe I should get rid of the IUD, which I couldn't accept. I couldn't accept at that time. And also I was so disconnected from myself. I was so unaware of my body that I couldn't have that even if there were other changes that were there, I didn't notice them and I wouldn't have had the capacity to notice them. And this is what a lot of medical professionals who gaslight miss is the lived personal experience and how a person changes over time. Anyway, I digress. Let's that is basically to say if you notice that you have our abnormal hormonal shifts during PMS, get support, do some research, learn about it. Go on Reddit, there are some great threads there, and find people that are recommended, that are trustworthy. That's a really great place to start. Now, getting into where we gaslight ourselves. This is when we get to the stage in our cycle where we are more sensitive and raw and we don't have as much energy, and we get frustrated at ourselves and we try to push ourselves harder and we feel and we feel like there's something wrong with us because we can't function how we did a week ago, because we can't seem to keep up that level of output that we are demanding from ourselves, that those high expectations. We become rigid and inflexible. And what I see as part of the reason why is that we never learnt how to honor our body, how to be connected to it and listen to it and listen to the wisdom of our body. A lot of us have become disconnected from it, which is why you're here listening to this podcast and I am here creating this podcast, because you and I have both experienced disconnection from our body through painful experiences that taught us not to listen to our body, not to feel our emotions, not to take ourselves seriously. We were taught to ignore our body, judge it, criticize it. We never learned how to take ourselves seriously, because there's so many times in your life you probably haven't been taken seriously when you were feeling a certain way. So, what I love to do now is I take that week before my period and the week of my period, the start of the end and the start of the mentor cycle, as an opportunity to really listen to your body. Because if you have been neglecting your body, if you haven't been eating properly, if you haven't been resting properly, if you have been on go constantly and not allowing yourself to slow down, if you have been prioritizing everything and everyone else before yourself, you're going to feel that when that estrogen and progesterone drop. When serotonin and GABA drop, you're going to feel the repercussions of that. You're going to feel anger, irritability, frustration, exhaustion. Because now you have less of a barrier. You become more sensitive to the things that actually are not okay in your life, both externally and also how you treat yourself. And so if you get to the end of your cycle and you are feeling exhausted and wrung out and frustrated and used, then maybe it's because you've been allowing yourself to be used by other people. Maybe it's because you haven't been giving yourself a break and allowing yourself to rest. And now you're really feeling it. This is what happens when we don't honor our body. Our body tries to let us know that it's not okay. And it's calling you to slow down and listen and honor it. Take yourself seriously. Give yourself a break. Say no a little more. Let other people do those things that maybe you don't actually have to do or be responsible for. Block out a little more space for yourself in your calendar and commit to it. Stop putting yourself last on the priorities list. Do something for yourself that is fun, that you enjoy. Indulge in yourself because you deserve to be indulged in. I had this experience recently where, much like you, I enjoy pushing myself. I enjoy reaching goals. I enjoy achieving. I am quite efficient and good at what I do. And it feels good. And I also know that I cannot sustain that for a very long time. Now, it has taken me some time to break down this cycle and this habit that I have of pushing really hard and then burning out. But I would say this was maybe a month ago. As you may know by now, if you've been listening to me long enough, I have serious time blindness. So maybe it was two weeks ago, maybe it was a month ago or two months ago. It was definitely this year. But I was on a roll for a couple of weeks. And if you can imagine, it's because it was towards the start of my cycle. And then towards the end of my cycle, as most of us experience, my energy started to drop. But I actually didn't recognize at the time what part of my cycle I was in. The only way I track my cycle is I have a giant wall calendar for the entire year up on my wall in my office here. I'm pointing at it. If you watch on YouTube, I'm pointing at it right now. And I track my cycle on that calendar so I can look at it and see, oh, that's the phase that I'm in. Otherwise, I've got no idea. But basically, I had a really great two weeks where I was just smashing things out. I was on a roller and I knew logically, in the back of my mind, there was a voice saying, You can't keep this up. You know that, right? Like you need to slow down at some point. But I was loving life. I was on a high. It was great. And then I arrived in a new week and I felt frazzled. I felt a bit worn thin. Found it harder to focus. I felt more irritable, more frustrated. And then I felt my heart sinking. And I started to think, well, what's wrong with me? That I can't keep going. What have I done wrong? What's wrong with me? What do I need to fix to get myself back on the ball, to get myself back on the horse? I was having so much fun the past two weeks. I was having such a ball. What's wrong with me now? And we have this sinking feeling of there's something wrong with me. There's something not right that needs to be fixed. And then I looked at my war calendar and I saw, oh, I'm going to get my period in a week. Right. Okay. And I had this sudden just release and realization of, oh, no wonder I feel like I have less capacity because I literally do have less capacity. No wonder I feel frustrated and irritable because I've been going hard for the past two weeks, and now my body is saying, sit the fuck down. And rather than blaming myself and thinking, what's wrong with me? What do I need to fix? I decided to listen instead and hear what my body was trying to communicate, take it seriously, and realize, oh, I need to do less this week. And so what I did was, is I did less. I wanted to do more. There was still the part of me that was a bit frustrated and wanted to keep going on that role that I had been on the past two weeks, but it just wasn't possible. And forcing myself to do that as I would have tried to do in the past. And so instead I listened, took myself seriously. I let go of a bunch of things that didn't actually have to be done that week. It wasn't that urgent. I was just searching for that dopamine hit that, you know, we get through completing things because it feels great. I let myself do less. I blocked out more of my calendar. I let myself eat a gluten-free apple cake that my amazing husband had bought from me. It's really hard to find good gluten-free pastry in Switzerland, and this was just amazing. Anyway, I let myself just switch on Avatar and I ate that amazing apple cake, and I just chilled instead of doing work which I would have done at that time, instead of pushing myself to be more productive. Sometimes that's what it looks like to honor your body. I didn't just do that as well. I also did some yin yoga. I did some gentle movement. I just let myself do less, simplified my week. And that's another really important part of how to handle PMS better. Because you're naturally going to feel different at different parts of your cycle. It's normal, it's human. But we make it so much harder on ourselves when we blame ourselves for feeling differently. You're not a machine. Your body is doing something really, really incredible. And it deserves to be listened to and honored. And you know what? After spending a week or two of doing less, it doesn't mean that I didn't do nothing. I have responsibilities. I still had to show up, create podcast episodes, coach my clients, prepare group coaching sessions, post on social media, respond to messages. I still have responsibilities. I also work weekends at a restaurant, but I created more space for myself in between, more downtime. And after about a week or two of that, naturally my energy started to rise, along with my cycle, the hormone shifts in our cycle. And I felt more of a capacity to do more. And because I had let myself rest and not been beating myself up for a week or two and make myself feel like absolute shit. I actually let myself rest. I felt so invigorated and energized. I felt good about myself. My self-esteem was high. I was really able to lean into that capacity without self-judgment and also still be able to stay grounded in myself because I was listening to my body, honoring my body. This is what honoring your body looks like. And so here's what I would love to recommend to you. If this is resonating, beyond seeking out support to balance your hormones from a professional if you feel like that's what you need, track your cycle. Really, this comes around every month and it can catch us so off guard. And so track your cycle. Get a calendar up on the wall. If you are one of my ADHD friends, having a wall calendar is an excellent thing, even if you just use it for tracking your cycle. Having it on our phone, having it on a phone and an app can be good, but those are one of those things that it's it's easy to forget about the app or you miss a few days or a week and then you stop thinking about it. But track your cycle so you can see, oh, I'm getting towards the week before my cycle starts. So I'm gonna be a bit more sensitive. Put a reminder in your phone if you need it. A reminder about a week or 10 days before your cycle starts, your period starts. Put a reminder in your phone. Hey, estrogen and progesterone are dropping. Time to slow down a little. Give yourself some more space. Let go of a few things that aren't that necessary or urgent. And be kind to yourself, be loving to yourself and know that this is a part of your cycle and that it's normal. If you feel like you have less energy, you're feeling more raw and irritable, you need more space. It's okay to feel that way and it's normal. Honor it. And you can literally copy down word for word what I just shared and put that in a note, a reminder in your phone, so it pops up to remind you to just take it easy on yourself. These are some really practical ways that we can support ourselves in preventing picking, pulling, and biting sessions. Because firstly, if you have hormone imbalance, that in itself is a mind fuck. It's hard. I've lived it, I've experienced it, it sucks. It's really hard to navigate that on your own, and you do deserve support. You should absolutely absolutely invest in the invest the time and money into helping yourself move through that. And then there is also helping ourselves to alleviate the mental pressure we put on ourselves, the judgment and criticism that we have for ourselves when we're not functioning at 100%. These are the practical things that you can do that can help you to reduce skin picking and happening and nail biting during PMS. It is why it increases during PMS because we need more soothing, not only because we're feeling more raw, but also because we are being pretty mean to ourselves during that phase. Practice being kinder to yourself, being more gentle, giving yourself space. And you won't need skin picking to soothe you quite as much because you are acting more soothing and loving and caring towards yourself. Listen to the lesson in the changes in your cycle, which is to listen to your body, to take yourself seriously, to honor yourself, honor your body. Stop gaslighting yourself. This journey is definitely not linear, but I really want to acknowledge you for being here and listening to this episode, for showing up for yourself and looking for answers, for following your intuition and learning more about how your mind works, how your body works, wanting to move towards more compassion and understanding and kindness. Because this is what this podcast is basically all about at its core. And there's something inside of you that is calling you towards that, that sees the truth in that for you and wants more of that for you. That is part of the reason why you're here. I believe that deeply in my own heart. And I wonder if you're noticing the truth in that for yourself as well. You're doing great things here. And I'm so proud of you for showing up for yourself and continuing to find a way forward despite all the setbacks. And if you would like to share that story with me, please do go to the show notes, click on the link. Free beef BFPA road mapping session. Share your story with me. I would love to hear from you. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe and leave a five star review if you've appreciated this episode. Also, let me know what came up for you in the comments below. Have an absolutely wonderful rest of your week, and I will see you next Tuesday for the next episode of Beyond Skin Picking and Hair Bowling.