Naomi’s PMT Theory In I Hate Suzie Might Actually Be True

If you’ve watched the final episode ofI Hate Suzie, Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper’s new series, staring Piper as the titular Suzie, you’ll be familiar with the PMT theory, Permanent Mega Truth - espoused by Suzie’s agent Naomi who believes that the best time to make any big decision is just before your period is due.

This is because, to quote Suzie in the show ‘she says that PMT is the only time you see everything clearly once a month the world is in focus and the shit you put up with the rest of the time reveals itself. If you have to have a difficult conversation have it just before your period arrives and you lose your bottle.’

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But given that in the week before our period we have also been known to cry at a lonely looking swan in the local park (ok that was me) and tear down the curtains in anger when our boyfriend tore our nice new bedding (not me, but definitely a friend of mine), is this really the time to start making life-changing decisions?

According to period coach Claire Baker, Naomi might be on to something. Baker, whose book 50 Things You Need To Know About Periods is out now, encourages her clients to track and understand their cycles to help them understand why they perform differently at work, respond to situations differently and feel psychically different at different points in their cycle. And although she suggests that it’s worth going easy on yourself in that week before your period - ‘Knowing when you’re having a more vulnerable week and recognising this is really life changing for a lot of women.’ she also agrees that persistent niggles that come up each month might well be your mind trying to tell you something.

‘I often work on self doubt and believing in yourself. In your premenstrual week this feeling of wanting to throw everything in, quit a job, leave a relationship or give up on a fitness or self care regime can emerge. So if someone is experiencing a lot of self doubt in this week we’ll look at different ways they can celebrate themselves in the run up to the week, write a list of things they’ve achieved in the last cycle so they can return to that. Or sometimes we begin to listen to some of those niggles - often a home truth does come out when you’re feeling premenstrual and frustrated, and maybe if those niggles come back month after month, maybe there’s something there.’

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Indeed Baker herself told me that one of the things that spurred her on to ending a relationship was the realisation that her annoyances over the relationship each month during her PMT week were a recurring theme.

Baker isn’t alone in making big decisions in the last few days of her cycle. My friend, let's call her Olivia (for that is not her name) found herself getting wine wine drunk and crying about work every month just before her period was due. One glass of wine on a Friday night on an empty stomach and she'd be in floods of tears over the stress of her role, her workload and her boss -whereas the rest of the month she'd seem to be able to cope with it.

After one particularly messy Thursday evening, she rang me the next day to say she'd quit. In fact, she'd decided she was never going back - she'd been miserable all the time, and the only time she ever said anything was just before her period was due. This was many years and several jobs ago and she never looked back. But without her period giving her a nudge in the right direction, who knows how long she'd have stayed in that role for?