You may be thinking “why is this 46 year old woman reading about periods?” I am wondering that too, but you’re never too old to learn, are you? I love a good book. I have literally tonnes of them that I get all excited about buying, but somehow I never manage to finish. This one I hope will be different!
My reproductive life has not always been a happy one for sure. So much so that I cannot remember half of it! I think that I started my periods at around 14. If I am honest, that is a guess based on where we lived at the time. I remember it being a bit traumatic, because although I’d had ‘the talk’ at both school and home; it’s just not really what you’d expect at 14 is it? I really feel for the girls who were going through this at 9. It must be a shock to their systems.
For years and years, my monthly cycle was anything but monthly. I remember having a diary (I think it was from Smash Hits) where I circled the days where I bled. Literally, months could go buy with no circles. It was terrifying. What was wrong with me? Probably nothing, but you don’t want to ask the question when you’re that age. It only got worse when I got boyfriends (don’t worry I’ll spare you the details). One of the things that I always remember is my mum telling me not to come home pregnant. Prior to the worry of HIV and AIDS that was the worst that could happen!
The years (OK, decades!) rolled on, I had no idea what was going off and eventually, I ended up on the pill. That wasn’t that good either. OK, I got my periods under control, but I also became a pyscho! Because I was overweight at this point, and there was a high risk of heart disease in my family, I had to go on the Progesterone only pill. It was bloody awful. Except there was no blood. I had no periods – but I was literally on the verge of being locked up for murder on a daily basis. OK, that’s a slight over exaggeration (which I am prone too), but I really was a nasty piece of work to be around.
Putting this into a time context, this was happening around the late 90s. We really didn’t have half of the conversations that we do today about these things. God, you were lucky if you told your mum, never mind wrote a 500+ word piece about this which will end up in the public realm. This is why I am reading this book.
We’ve been shamed into thinking that periods are dirty, horrible and evil affairs. Yes, for some people who have conditions such as Endometriosis, they can be. But in the grand scheme of things we are doing something pretty amazing. Though tell my poor husband this when I am struggling with PMS, he’d say something different.
The sad thing for me now, is that I am nearing the end of my reproductive life. I don’t have many years of this left. I am peri-menopausal and only now am I taking the time to read a really good book about periods. Oh, the irony! I think it’s still an important read. I want to know how to look after myself and how to work with my remaining cycles, not against them. I’ve only just started reading this, but already I am sat here going “oh my god, I didn’t know that”
I guess all of this feeds into being self-employed (honestly work with me here)… Working for myself means no sick days. No calling the boss telling him that I cannot come to work today because of XYZ. Not that I’ve pulled a sicky for a long time, but you know what I mean. I have to work or I don’t get paid. There are different points in my cycle where I know I have not got a cat in hell’s chance of being intelligent or doing anything that means I need to be able to string a sentence together. Since working with a personal trainer I know that the week I am due my period, I am literally as un-coordinated as a newborn giraffe. I am more likely to be clumsy. But there is more to it than the physical symptoms.
It’s taken me a ridiculous amount of time to realise that I have to take care of myself. This book is part of that. Watch this space for further updates on how I find it. I’ll most likely do a review at some point. In the meantime, if you’re interested in hearing more, then Ella Mills did a recent podcast with Maisie Hill, the author. It scratched the surface of this book but was an absolute eye, or should that be ear opener.
Not Middle Aged 