You’re not alone if you’ve never heard of premenstrual dysphoric disorder; it’s one of the lesser-known conditions surrounding menstruation, and was only recently given its own entry in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, which defines how psychiatrists understand and treat mental disorders. But the condition is often misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder, if it’s ever diagnosed at all, leading to confusion on how to treat it – the two disorders are very different, though both affect mood, and it’s important to know the difference between them.
According to scientists at the period-tracking app Clue, premenstrual dysphoric disorder “differs from other psychiatric conditions, such as generalized anxiety disorder, in that symptoms are linked directly to the fluctuations of reproductive hormones, and a diagnosis usually requires that people experience these symptoms predominantly during the late luteal phase”. This means that PMDD, as it’s called, is occasionally described as a “severe” form of PMS, but that’s not exactly accurate.
According to Dr. Marsha Tanenberg-Karant, a psychiatrist in New York, there are distinct differences if you know what to look for. “PMDD”, she tells Bustle, “can be thought of as a mood disorder that develops within the week before the onset of monthly menses and disappears within the week following menses. These are sharp time boundaries. The symptoms have to cause clinically significant distress or interfere with your usual activities”. One of the main differences, she says, is the timing. PMDD mood fluctuations and depressive symptoms are “by definition not present outside this time frame during the menstrual cycle, while bipolar affective disorder types I and II are not time-limited the way PMDD is time-limited. Periods of depression and/or what is known as hypomania are not restricted to the weeks surrounding menses”.
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