I’m not an angry person. Or rather, I’m not a very loud person, and I suppose I’ve always seen these as the same things. With a termly reminder from school reports – and now, it appears, my tutors’ academic reports – I’ve been reminded time and time again that, as much as I’m a “pleasure to have in class,” I really should “contribute more to the class discussion”. I’m really good at being quiet, keeping the peace, but to be quite honest – I’m over it.
It’s quite something to be told at sixteen that your GP won’t offer you any support or referral services, but to make sure to reach out when (not if) I get pregnant, as I’m at a very high risk of postpartum psychosis. Now weirdly enough, accidental biological children were not at the forefront of my very depressed, and very gay teenage brain.
I’m quiet, and I like people to like me. I wanted to scream, to cry, to explain how every day felt like a waking nightmare. I did none of those things, and instead made sure to wait until I was well out of sight before letting any sign of defeat show.
It took an absolute angel of a friend to persuade me that I was indeed not hysterical, or over-dramatic. She sent me the Mind page on PMDD asking if this sounded like what I was experiencing, and I had never felt more seen. PMDD is a diagnosis I am still pushing for, three years later.
Because, dearest reader, ‘just’ PMS should not make you feel like your world is ending for ten days each month, like clockwork, nor give you headaches so debilitating you throw up in your sink (sorry about that Mum). Medical misogyny has ruined my teenage years. I deserved fun, and friends, and maybe a few ill-informed decisions. I got none of those things, and instead spent most of those adolescent years not expecting to make it to eighteen. Coming to Oxford was meant to mark a new chapter: new friends, new doctors, new meds – I would no longer be the ‘mentally ill’ girl.
My body didn’t get that memo. Hormones hell bent on my destruction have continued their monthly schedule of torture, unrelenting. PMDD is often described as having two different people inside you, the follicular-phase you (whom I see as the real version), and the luteal-phase you (some nightmarish, hate-filled monster). It’s terrifying. As next month’s dizzy spells start, I mentally prepare myself for my brain to turn against me once again, knowing this will likely be my fate until I fall into some miserable menopause.
Now, PMDD or not, navigating Oxford with a menstrual cycle is unbelievably tough. Normal? Yes. Easy? No. End of story. Whether it’s resisting every urge in you to not curl into the foetal position part way through your tute, or battling brain fog whilst working through a tripleessay week, or sobbing to your tutor – it’s hard. It’s well understood that people with a menstrual cycle face hormone fluctuations across their cycle: both their energy and pain ebbs and flows. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the gender attainment gaps Oxford has, and quite honestly, it’s terrifying.
As my prelims quickly approach, I think back to previous exam seasons. My first week of A Level exams sat almost perfectly in the week preceding my period, and to say I was unwell would be an understatement. From my tutor trying to persuade me to not sit the exams, to running out of my English exam to be sick, the exam season was not one I look back on fondly. I would be lying if I wasn’t flooded with anger seeing my male classmates thrive, putting their consistent hard work to good use as I watched mine swirl down the drain.
The first thought I had upon seeing my rather sub-par grades on results day was: ‘if only I had a different brain’. For me, this wasn’t a smarter brain, although one that actually understood free radical substitution would’ve been appreciated, but rather I craved one that didn’t demand all my energy be spent on just staying alive. Some tug of fate brought me to Oxford regardless of what happened, but I won’t lie and say I don’t still long for a brain that likes me.
I’m not trying to suggest we upheave an archaic and tradition-steeped institution (I’d have to get in line behind some much more pressing causes). What pushes me to be loud, and the reason I am so quiet in reality, is the masses of stigma surrounding anything reproductive health related. Now admittedly this can be weaponised – ‘it’s women’s issues’ is an almost guaranteed conversation ender.
It’s like some really odd game of pass the parcel, where the prize is being able to talk about your health without being looked at like you’re some abhorrent, disgusting mess. I suppose cisgender men won that game. Speaking up feels messy and improper: everything an Oxford student should not be. Women were only admitted to my college fifty years ago – surely not long enough to stop grovelling over the sheer privilege? I can promise you, being polite about your pain will get you nowhere. There are no rewards for ignoring your body’s pleas for rest (or chocolate). Your body is not shameful.
Speaking up still feels unnatural to me. It feels rude, attention-seeking, wrong. But maybe that’s exactly what needs to happen. Maybe silence was never neutrality; it was compliance. I am tired of pretending that my body isn’t at battle with itself every month. Anger isn’t the opposite of peace, and sometimes it’s the only thing that moves us closer to it.