Ablepreneurs Stories 

Entrepreneurship Has No Limits: Building a Business Around PMDD

Probably a fitting time to write this story this week, because last week I didn't want to leave the house.

I just wanted to hide in the hole of isolation I had created for myself.

Interestingly, I had left the house to deliver a workshop around coping mechanisms and how isolating yourself can be both good and bad.

Good, because if you're used to having time on your own, it can become an important ritual.

Bad, because sometimes the line between a little isolation and full isolation is very blurred, and it's easy to turn it into a more permanent way of living.

I am familiar with both.

But what about when that isolation stems from the belief that I am better off alone and being alone is safer?

You see, in 2023 I was diagnosed with PMDD.

A diagnosis I had to fight for and collect evidence for.

A diagnosis I'm not sure I would have had if it wasn't for the private healthcare available through my corporate job.

The same corporate job that drove my mental health into the ground.

But that was, in fact, the very positive turning point.

I'll get back to that.

First of all, what is PMDD?

PMDD, or Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, is a severe, hormone related condition that can affect mood, cognition, behaviour and physical wellbeing during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.

PMDD is not simply "bad PMS."

It is thought to involve an increased sensitivity in the brain to the normal hormonal fluctuations that occur during the menstrual cycle.

And the effects can be extreme.

Some months I have felt irritable, exhausted and completely overwhelmed.

Other months I have felt suicidal and convinced that people would be better off without me.

There are also associations between PMDD and ADHD, and research has identified increased rates of PMDD among people with ADHD. There are also complex relationships between PMDD, trauma and mental health.

For me, all of these things can make navigating the world feel particularly complicated at times.

So when I eventually left the corporate space after a very negative experience, I decided to become self employed and try to create my own way of living, on my own terms.

Working in a corporate job, in my experience, kept me in a box where I had to do an extreme amount of masking.

I had to be okay on the days when I was absolutely falling apart.

I had to perform consistently, even when my ability to function could change dramatically depending on where I was in my cycle.

And that bad experience? I think itself-employed was a blessing in disguise.

It gave me the momentum to jump.

Three years of working differently

I have now been working for myself for three years, running my CIC, Mindset Maintenance, alongside my freelance business development work.

Some days and weeks are hard.

I'm not going to pretend that becoming self employed magically fixed everything.

It didn't.

PMDD still affects me. I still have difficult days. I still sometimes want to retreat from the world completely.

But I now have something I didn't have before:

agency.

I can flex my diary.

I can structure my workload around how I function.

I can take a slower day when I need one.

I can recognise that sometimes pushing through isn't resilience. Sometimes it is simply ignoring what your body and brain are telling you.

And I can build a business around the person I actually am, rather than constantly trying to become the version of myself that I thought a workplace expected me to be.

I haven't dreaded a Monday morning in three years.

And that tells me, and my nervous system, everything I need to know.

I earn a lot less than I did in my corporate job.

But there are other markers I use to measure success.

Happiness is probably the main one.

And freedom.

And being able to build a life that works with me, rather than constantly feeling like I am fighting against myself.

Entrepreneurship has no limits

I don't think being an entrepreneur means having unlimited energy, unlimited capacity or being productive every day.

For me, it means having the freedom to define what success looks like.

PMDD and mental illness doesn't disappear because I run my own business.

But it doesn't have to define what I am capable of either.

Sometimes entrepreneurship has meant working through difficult symptoms.

Sometimes it has meant cancelling something.

Sometimes it has meant changing my diary, asking for help, taking time away, or simply accepting that today isn't going to be a high-productivity day.

And that's okay.

Things run better when we stop assuming everyone has to work the same way.

My business might look different because I have PMDD.

But different doesn't mean less.

If anything, building a life and businesses around my own needs has shown me just how much is possible when you stop trying to fit yourself into a box that was never designed for you.

And perhaps that's what "Entrepreneurship Has No Limits" means to me.

Not that there are no barriers.

But that those barriers don't have to decide where you can go. 

Bianca Brathwaite