More specifically, the two weeks before my period. I'm a 23 year old female, 160cm tall, average weight I think (don't weigh myself due to eating disorder) and I smoked for a year but haven't touched one since January of this year. I don't take any medications, don't have any underlying conditions other than IBS and disordered eating.

I've always been a bit hormonal when I'm periodic, but for the past year I've spent two weeks every month experiencing the following symptoms:

• Severe brain fog. I can't remember anything or follow simple instructions. Half of the month, I'm great at my job at a cafe! The other half of the month, I drop knives, forget orders, waste stock, make orders wrong, get told an instruction and immediately have no recollection of what the instruction was, etc. It's embarrassing and scary. I fuck up even the simplest instructions, e.g., "Latte with skinny milk." I start making the coffee, then immediately forget what type of drink I'm supposed to be making. I start tasks and forget to finish them. I went shopping for extra stock and spent £100 of the company's money on the wrong product. I only went out to get that one thing. I even wrote it down! My manager can't understand what's wrong with me and is losing her patience. We've argued at work before because she's frustrated and I can't explain why I'm so crap at my job, and then I just cry and look pathetic. I'm great for half of the month, but she's said I can't continue to be so unreliable/inconsistent.

• Loss of motor function. I'm so clumsy. I drop things, I cut myself chopping vegetables, I can't coordinate myself to put a lid on a takeaway cup, burning myself on cooking equipment, etc.

• Fatigue. I can do the bare minimum and even that exhausts me. After a mere four hour shift I spend the rest of the day asleep, unable to do anything or fulfill any other responsibilities. Again, for the other two weeks of every month I'm energised and proactive.

• I lose my sense of self entirely. I love my job and my partner immensely, I know I do. But I'm so apathetic in the two weeks towards my period, I don't know what feelings are real and what isn't. I argue unnecessarily with my partner, I convince myself we have no future, I distance myself from him and find him irritating and can't remember how I ended up living with him...then my period comes, I feel how much I love him again, and feel like such an awful person. I have big dreams and plans to achieve them, but only have the mental strength or inclination to work towards my future for two weeks of the month.

My life feels divided: two weeks of misery, delusion, being incapacitated, followed by the release from that brought on by my period starting, and then the one blissful week where I'm not bleeding and am fully myself again. But even during that one good week I'm petrified of the weeks to come and the misery and confusion and disconnectedness from my life that they bring. Is this normal? Am I just weak? What can I do or tell people so I don't get fired/ruin my future/sabotage my relationship? I don't trust myself in those two bad weeks. It's like something else pushes me out of the driver's seat, if that makes any sense.