By the third week of September, most of us are already deep in the collision of back-to-school routines, shorter days, and a calendar that somehow got fuller the moment summer ended. For the women who join Impart Therapy’s monthly PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder) Zoom group, that seasonal shift lands on top of something else entirely: a cycle that was already unpredictable enough on its own.
I sat in on this month’s session through my volunteer work with Impart Therapy, and it didn’t take long to feel the weight of what was shared in that room, and the care with which everyone held it for each other.
A Group That Meets Every Month
The group is led by Nadine Evans, MACP, RP, Practice Owner and Psychotherapist at Impart Therapy. It isn’t a one-time workshop, it meets once a month, for about an hour and a half each time. Some participants have been coming back for a while. Others were logging in for the first time, still working out whether what they’d been living with even had a name. Having both in the room meant newer members could hear from people further along, and longtime members got to see, again, how far they’d come
This month’s session was framed around what Nadine called “tracking the storm,” the way fall’s transition can collide with symptoms many participants already manage, and what it takes to prepare for that collision before it arrives.
The Room, Not the Curriculum
What struck me most wasn’t the clinical material. It was the space itself. For an hour and a half, a group of strangers logged on and were honest, really honest, without having to explain or defend what they were feeling first. Nobody was there for advice they could have found on their own. They were there to be believed, and to hear that whatever they’d been carrying alone had a name, a pattern, and other people who recognized it.
That’s the part I can’t put in a bullet point. But it’s not the whole story either, because the group did spend real time on skills, and watching them get used in real time was its own education.
What the Group Actually Practiced
Nadine spent the rest of the session on four DBT-based tools: one for noticing the weather, one for when it turns, and two for riding it out.
- Wise Mind: the idea that a feeling can be completely real without being the full truth of a moment, and that there’s a difference between noticing an emotion and being run by it. Someone described it as giving yourself half a second before reacting, just enough room to ask whether what you’re about to do will actually help.
- TIP: for moments when things spike fast, changing your body temperature, moving hard, breathing on a slow count, releasing muscle tension one group at a time. Nadine was clear these aren’t about calming down for its own sake, they’re about interrupting a nervous system that’s already in overdrive, fast enough that you can think again.
- STOP: stop, take a breath, observe what’s actually happening instead of what you’re afraid is happening, and only then decide how to proceed. A few participants said out loud that just remembering the acronym, in the middle of an argument or a hard moment at work, had already changed how those moments ended.
- PLEASE: less a crisis tool and more a foundation, treating physical illness, eating enough and regularly, staying off substances that mess with mood, protecting sleep, moving your body most days. Nadine was upfront that none of this is glamorous, but skipping it is often what turns a hard week into an unbearable one.
Alongside those four, a simpler thread ran through the whole session: paying attention to your cycle, and to what you’re actually feeding your body, makes everything else easier. Proper nutrition, the right supplements, and consistent tracking came up again and again, not as an extra chore, but as groundwork that makes the harder skills easier to reach for when you actually need them.
What I Took With Me
I left the call without a diagnosis, a cycle, or a storm of my own to track. But I left with a clearer sense of what it takes to build a personal early-warning system for anything hard and recurring, not just PMDD. A few questions worth sitting with:
- What are your early warning signs, the small shifts like irritability, changes in sleep, food cravings, or feeling more sensitive to rejection than usual?
- Of the basics, sleep, regular meals, movement, staying off things that mess with your mood, which one have you let go of without realizing this month, and which one are you still keeping up?
- What’s your go-to way to reset when a feeling hits hard and fast?
- Do you know how your own body responds to weeks like this, whether or not you have a diagnosis for it? Knowing that matters either way.
Join the Next Session
Want to join a future session? Mark your calendar, the group meets again on:
- October 22, 2026
- November 19, 2026
- December 10, 2026
If any of this sounds familiar, or you just want to be in a room where none of it needs explaining, reach out to Impart Therapy to sign up.
About Karishma Singh
Karishma Singh is pursuing a career in psychotherapy and plans to begin a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology at Yorkville University. She spent more than a decade in public relations and communications, and while her work centred on brands, it was the people and relationships behind them that stayed with her. Over time, she realized she wanted people to be the focus of her work, not a part of it. She currently volunteers with Impart Therapy, where she writes honestly about the uncertainty and anxiety of starting over, hoping it helps others feel less alone in their own life transitions.
Connect with Karishma on LinkedIn.