Hello, dear constant reader/bleeder:
My name is Emma and I hereby allow The Wrath Mother to share my story with you to enlighten you and satisfy your curiosity.
I had my first period the summer of my 12th year.
The morning it happened I thought I was dying. It felt to me like a scene straight out of Carrie (which I was not even old enough to be familiar with, but as an older adolescent I felt seen in her humiliation and rage).
I sobbed for what felt like hours, and cried more when I overheard my mother laugh and tell her best friend on the phone that I had “become a woman” and was upset.
This intersection of humiliation, fear, anger, and shame is where our story starts.
I spend the next tumultuous few years gritting my teeth through heinous cramps or crying on the floor suffering in PMS pain.
My story arc progresses to a new peak in early adulthood.
Picture this scene: Girl, 17, at a walk in clinic trying to responsibly procure free birth control mentions she hasn’t had a period since she was 14. The young, decent looking male doctor offers a look of concern and a possible diagnosis: I think you likely have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). Let’s get you tested.
I get diagnosed with PCOS by ultrasound shortly thereafter (unfortunately, it’s not the same kind of ultrasound as finding out the sex of a fetus – meaning it’s much less comfortable and significantly more invasive).
At 18, I’m referred to an Aussie ex-pat endocrinologist whose expertise is generally summed up by this: argumentatively implore me every 6 months to lose weight while simultaneously telling me the insulin resistance caused by the PCOS will make weight loss extra difficult, but that weight loss will cure the insulin resistance. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour.
Unsurprisingly, his motivational pep talk doesn’t work. My chubby hips and thighs and belly remain. And my period remains absent or highly irregular on the once a year basis it might show up.
Until the year I stop eating gluten. That year changed everything.
One month after eliminating gluten to see if I reacted like a celiac, my period arrived. 28 days later… it arrived again. And again. And again.
It’s been almost 5 years since eliminating gluten from my diet and I’ve never missed a period. I’ve had one irregular cycle at the beginning and then it’s been clockwork.
This brings us to the Denouement: My endocrinologist doesn’t care. He doesn’t celebrate the return of Aunt Flo and doesn’t seem to take my reasoning, that I was celiac, seriously. But medical science suggests I’m right to think that, even without an MD behind my name.
So I wave goodbye to that endocrinologist and strike out on my own, armed only with the Flo app to track my periods, and a loaf of gluten free bread.
And I’ve never looked back since.
The end. But it’s not a happily ever after story because I still have major cramps that disrupt my life. So it’s almost happily ever after, then.