
The last time I had my period I ended up in the emergency room. For hours before my boyfriend bundled me into the car and drove me to hospital, I was bent into a ball on my bed, the blinds were down, and I had my forehead pressed into a pillow. The pain was so intense that it felt like my skull would split open and, with every passing hour, I became more convinced that I was probably going to die like this, groaning in my novelty pyjamas.
Eventually, it simply didn't feel humane to have to endure that much pain and I ended up in ER, where I explained, bleary-eyed and barely conscious, to a doctor, that I was experiencing an all-time migraine and they either need to give me some hardcore painkillers or simply put me out of my misery. They opted for the former and sent me home.
I started having fairly regular migraines at about nine years old. I remember some days being shut in my dark bedroom, curtains drawn, with a pillow wrapped around my head until, eventually, I vomited violently into a pre-organised bucket and could emerge from my little cave. Once I started on the Pill at around 16, the migraines weren't so much of a problem anymore – except, that is, whenever I stop taking the Pill to have my period. Then, everything goes to shit.
My brain slows down, I fatigue easily, and then, after two days or so, a migraine will hit me like a wall. Agreeing to have my allotted period on the Pill, and taking the sugar pills, basically means that I lose three days of my life to the worst pain I've ever experienced.