My period

This year has been a rollercoaster, I have had
my fair share of issues regarding my period. I started the pill to ease the cramps I was having, along with shortness of breath and severe irregular periods.
We all know the pill comes with a big list of side effects, it’s technically a pure shot of hormones. You have to take it each day at the same time, but with a messed up sleeping schedule I had a hard time following this. I gained weight and still had cramps, even when I was not on my period. But I could get used to being regular, because I had some awkward surprises regarding my menstruation cycle. After a few months the pandemic hit, and periods do not stop for pandemics. At first it was alright, in the summer I enjoyed the benefit of being able to skip my period. But because my cramps hadn’t been resolved I got a prescription for another medication (called Naproxen) in the hope this would help. I felt like some kind of guinea pig, given medicine in the hope it would work, and if not we move on to the next. This medicine also had huge lists of side effects and warnings.
Around the end of October I stopped taking the pill because of a blood test I had to take to see if these cramps in my stomach were more than just your average period pains.
But because of online school and deadlines my mental health changed and caused my periods to become very irregular again. As I’m writing this I have been waiting to get my period for over 3 weeks due to stress, I think, because you never know.
Everyone is unique and every one has things that work for them, I’m still trying to find mine. This journey inspired me to seek out conversations about periods, how others were experiencing this. Because you have nothing to compare to when it comes to this, and you have no idea if what you are experiencing is ‘normal’.