The Making of a Hot Mess

We hardly ever visited our GP in the 1970s, as most ailments were roundly fixed with a liberal swathe of Vaseline and a damp flannel to our foreheads. You think I’m joking.

But, aged 15 or thereabouts, my mother took me to the GP to see if there was anything he could prescribe for the incredibly painful periods I’d endured for the past six or so years. Up until then I’d coped the only way I’d been taught how, which was by a) appreciating that every woman got them and I was no different, so just stop moaning and get on with it, b) paracetamol, and c) hot water bottles.

My mother had the same opinion over making unnecessary fuss as she did with the passing of wind: she wouldn’t have it anywhere near her and she wouldn’t tolerate it from other people. To her, it indicated a complete lack of social grace, and speaking to a stranger about parts of our bodies fell into this category as well.

She hadn’t wanted to accompany me to this appointment, I knew that. Because for her, having a period was embarrassment enough, so to voluntarily speak of the condition to a person who was also a man, took the subject to a stratospheric level of shame.

My symptoms were:

• Lasting irritability or anger
• Feelings of sadness or despair, even thoughts of suicide
• Feelings of tension or anxiety
• Panic attacks
• Mood swings or crying often
• Lack of interest in daily activities and relationships
• Trouble thinking or focusing
• Tiredness or low energy
• Food cravings or binge eating
• Trouble sleeping
• Feeling out of control
• Physical symptoms, such as cramps, bloating, breast tenderness, headaches, and joint or muscle pain

Which are now known to be symptoms of PMDD, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It’s a comorbidity for neurodiverse folk, but of course we hadn’t been invented back then.

It’s also genetic and I knew that my cousin used to pass out with her period pan and be kept away from school. However, it wasn’t until I was in the sixth form and therefore personally responsible for turning up to my classes, that I gave myself the permission to stay at home when discomfort was intolerable.

Of course, to my parents, my absence from school was seen as skiving, laziness, but a lot of things I did were attributed to my slovenly ways and I’d learnt to expect this. So I’d stay in my room and only appear at mealtimes. Which unfortunately only exacerbated the notion of my idleness because then I was “treating the house like a hotel; expecting to be waited on hand and foot while others slaved away to keep a roof over my head”. Those kinds of things. And I didn’t respond because I’d tried that in the past. Any form of reply to any of these damning statements was called ‘backchat’ and, surprise, surprise, that was also not allowed. For example, picture this scene:

17-year-old me is on the sofa, a hot water bottle at her belly, an A-level set text open in her hands. She is pale and clammy and trying to concentrate on the words over the noise of Jimmy Young’s chatter which filters through from the radio in the kitchen. (Bear in mind that 17-yo-me also has undiagnosed ADHD making reading a difficult enough task without distractions). And in the kitchen, my mother is making one of her points by banging pans and rattling cutlery; opening and shutting doors and drawers; getting angry with the dog who just wants to be let outside (sensible dog), proving that she is gainfully employed… as opposed to her layabout daughter who’s acting like the Queen of bloody Sheba as usual.

Mother, just as any other element about to reach boiling point, finally stalks in and hovers over me, wielding a culinary version of the sword of Damocles.

Mum: “I suppose it would be too much to hope you might tidy your bedroom this afternoon as you’re obviously not doing anything else.”

Me (having carefully selected the least inflammatory response): “I’m reading a course book and I’m in a lot of pain right now. I’ll do it another time.”

Mum (incredulous): “Pain? Ha! You don’t know the meaning of the word… and let me tell you, if you were in the kind of pain I’m in half the time, you wouldn’t be lazing about with your nose in a book. Not when there’s housework to do, washing to hang out and dinner to prepare. You wouldn’t have caught me behaving like this in front of my mother… you know your poor Nan had left school and had already worked for two years bringing up her brother and sisters at your age. I don’t know who you think you are half the time.”

I don’t give a response (remember I’d learnt not to ‘backchat’) and so Mother storms back to the kitchen and turns the radio up.

I suppose she’d released her pressure valve and got some of her ire out of her head. But my goodness those barbed comments stung. No, sting; because they endure, no matter how much mindfulness I give them, or how much distance I know has passed. Comments like these, despite decades of therapy and the one time I scribbled them all onto a roll of toilet paper then wiped my arse with them (yes, really) will never go away. They’re stitched into the fabric of my psyche.

It’s never occurred to me to wonder if things might’ve been different had they kept a chart to see when my perceived episodes of ‘idleness’ materialised. Not once. Because for a parent to take a note of such things would necessitate their concern or interest, which was in short supply growing up. Although I’d have done it; done it like a shot for my own girl if I’d seen her suffering in any way. And if she’d found strength enough to come downstairs and attempt to read a school book then I’d have applauded her and tucked a blanket around her, not stood over her virtually deriding her very existence.

Anyway, back to the GP appointment a year or so before this fictional sofa scene.

Whilst at the surgery, our GP also heard that I was “getting myself into a state” at the thought of catching a bus to either school or my Saturday job at Boots in the next town. In 2022, my ‘state’ would be flagged as social anxiety.

Back then I remember shaking and sweating as I persuaded myself to get ready in the mornings, knowing that once in public (and both Boots and school are VERY public places), I’d start stammering and blushing. Thankfully I’d only dry heave at home and not throw up because I’d learnt to avoid eating breakfast. And these symptoms naturally increased around the time that my period was due. I swear I only ever felt whatever ‘normal’ was meant to feel like, for around 5 days a month; and that was on a good month.

After our doctor had listened and nodded at some of the ‘states’ I was getting myself into (myself; as though I had a choice in the matter), he leant over and patted my mum’s hand, reassuring the wrong person that it was “Just her nerves, Mrs Cooper, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

For my period pain, I was prescribed the mini-pill which, the GP explained (again, to Mother) along with being a contraceptive, had the blessed side-effect of decreasing pain severity and which many young girls were choosing to take to help with their monthlies.

My mother, however, had clearly stopped listening once her ears had picked up the word ‘contraceptive’.

Because when we arrived home via a pharmacy we didn’t normally use, she made me stand up straight in the kitchen and whilst she shook the packet of pills at my—paralysed-with-fear—face, informed me in no uncertain terms that if she decided to let me take these, then they were not “an excuse to start behaving like a slut, however much you want them to be,” and stormed off; probably in search of our poor, gentle dog who shouldered a lot of collateral damage when Mother was on the warpath.

It’s no wonder I’m such a hot mess nearly fifty years later.