Okay so this is my first ever blog post, so bear with me. I want to start from the very beginning, because I have a feeling a lot of you are going to relate to this more than you'd think.
Growing up, I didn't talk about periods, sex, or any of that "becoming a woman" stuff with my mom. We just didn't have that kind of relationship. I was adopted, I didn't really fit in, and there's a lot from those years I'm not going to get into here, but the short version is I figured most things out on my own. Whatever I couldn't learn from school, friends, or TV, I just didn't know.
I was genuinely scared to ask my mom basic questions. I could ask her something as simple as "can I get a bra" and she'd spiral, convinced I was doing it for some boy. So when my period showed up and just... didn't leave, I didn't tell her. I dealt with it alone.
And I mean that literally. I had my period almost every single day for close to a year. It wasn't heavy, just constant. Annoying. I was borrowing pads and tampons from my sisters, sometimes just taking them without asking, because I was too scared to say anything to my mom.
My timeline gets blurry when I try to place exact dates, honestly a lot of that time in my life just runs together, but I know I was in high school. I remember calling a friend, asking if she had any pads, and her telling me she'd bring some to school for me.
Eventually I just walked into a family practice down the street from my house by myself and told them I wanted to be seen. I have no idea how that worked out logistically, since I was a minor, but they saw me. I told them my period wouldn't stop.
That's the day I found out I had PCOS. My doctor explained it to me, and I remember the conversation happening, but none of it landed. All I really understood was: my ovaries were forming like a little pearl ball instead of breaking down the way they're supposed to, and unless I saw a doctor down the line, I might not be able to have kids.
He put me on birth control. In my head, birth control was for not getting pregnant, and I remember thinking, "I don't think I need this, but okay." I took it for about a week. Maybe two, honestly, the timeline's fuzzy. And I felt so sick. So nauseous I couldn't keep taking it. I don't even remember what it was called. I just remember stopping after that week.
And that was it. My period regulated right after, from barely a week of medication. That conversation about PCOS was basically closed for years after that.
It wasn't until... I don't even know exactly. I think I was eighteen or nineteen. No wait, actually, somewhere in my twenties, when my face just started breaking out. Really bad. I thought it was chicken. I thought it was milk. I started cutting things out of my diet one by one, doing the whole process of elimination thing, trying to figure out what was doing this to my skin. Some things helped a little, but the acne never fully went away.
I was somewhere in my twenties when I started to realize something was actually going on. I was hard on myself about it too, I was in school and working three different jobs at the same time, so at first I just told myself it was stress. I couldn't exactly quit the jobs or drop out of school, I needed both. So I just started covering my face in layers of makeup, hoping it would disappear on its own. Hoping it was a phase.
Eventually I just started googling everything I was dealing with. And I had a lot going on: gaining weight, the acne, insomnia, being under a ton of stress. And Google told me it was PCOS. That was the first time something I read actually made sense to me. I was like, yes. This is it. I basically wore it like a badge after that. Like yep, this is what I have, I don't need anyone to tell me otherwise, I already know.
So I went to the doctor to get checked, and he kind of laughed at me. Told me he didn't think it was PCOS. I was skinny, I was young, that's usually something that shows up later, and usually in people who are overweight. But he ran blood work anyway. And when the results came back, he had to tell me I actually did have it. I just looked at him and said, "Wow, I'm basically a doctor," and we both laughed.
And that was it. A whole new chapter of who I was about to become unfolded, starting right there.
That's where I'm leaving part one for now, but before I go, I want to know: does any of this sound familiar to you? Did you find out later than you feel like you should have? Did a doctor ever brush you off before you got answers? Let me know in the comments, I would genuinely love to hear your story too.
This is part one of my PCOS/PMOS story. More parts are coming soon, follow along on socials so you don't miss the next one.