What do periods mean to me?

I would say I've been having periods for ten years now, but that's not quite true. My first arrived, aged 12, much to my initial delight ("Mum! I've started!"). To me it felt like a warm, grown-up secret, an exclusive members-only club of sophistication and sanitary pads - but that soon wore off. Pain for the week leading up to my period, when the floodgates opened and, with the blood, more pain. A full seven days of this before the countdown began, again, until the next one. I would wake in the night in what looked and, more importantly, felt like a crime scene and drag myself down to the kitchen, where I'd rock on the floor while the kettle boiled to make a hot water bottle. I loathed periods. They turned me into a gibbering, sometimes vomiting wreck and they did so swiftly every thirty-three days (I was so regular for a long time, that it took a long time to reach a diagnosis of PCOS: "oh, you have the other symptoms but you're thin and your periods are regular, nevermind, go away,").

And then, they stopped. In the intervening years, things hadn't gone particularly smoothly. At 19, I finally saw a doctor about the pain that over-the-counter drugs barely made a dent in. He was incredulous and asked why I'd not seen someone before, why I didn't want to go on the pill, how I could cope with that pain every month? I was given the label of menorrhagia (very heavy periods) and a prescription that helped a little bit. A few months later, I decided I couldn't cope with periods any longer, and went to see a nurse about hormonal contraception to get rid of the bloody (pun very much intended) things.

I chose the contraceptive injection, Depo-Provera, because it was long-acting and likely to dramatically lessen bleeding and pain, with lots of people stopping their periods altogether whilst using this method (I have since been told that the injection is a terrible choice for someone with PCOS, but I was undiagnosed at the time). My first period on Depo was a bit better, and then the next one came - and stayed. I had the next injection, and the period continued. The pain crept back up and up and I was given the third injection five weeks early to try and stop the bleeding. Things spiralled from there and soon I was on the pill as well as the injection, taking it back-to-back in the hope that things would just stop. I never had another Depo shot but my body took a long time to reset itself. A year of bleeding and endless GPs and pain which was being investigated as potential endometriosis. I think, now, it may be that the hormonal preparations I fed my body were making it ill, but I'll never know.

All of this further warped my relationship with menstruation: it was now a monster that plagued me all the time. I bled on everything. I missed lectures because I was hunched over the toilet bowl vomiting and then wondering if I could take more Tramadol if I'd thrown it up. I saw my body as this hideous, bulky vessel of something malevolent and I would pinch at it in the bath, wishing I wasn't a woman because look what it had brought me. Eventually, with the help of various drugs and then, finally, the logical thing: no drugs at all, the long bleed stopped and, given time, I went back to having periods: there was time in between them. I still felt as though I'd been punched in the face by this heavy dread every time I saw that blood arrive. I still hated them and what they meant to me. By now they were a lot further-spaced than thirty-three days and I assumed it was just taking a long time for them to get back to "normal", but a year later I realised it had been four months since my last one. It was then that I was diagnosed with PCOS.

As I said earlier, it wouldn't be entirely truthful to say I've been having periods for a decade. They stopped eighteen months ago. You'd think I'd be relieved, and part of me was. But not having them, and not knowing when you'll ever have another, stirred up new emotions. The beast inside me that made me resent the body I was born with was something I now missed. I knew my life was a lot easier without them - by now I was working full-time and had fretted about how I'd cope when my period rolled around - but I felt like that special, grown-up membership had been revoked. I was a fraud. I hadn't thought I set great store by femininity and "being a woman", and motherhood didn't appeal to me, but I now felt like a failure of a woman. Every dry month was a reminder that I was different, and taunted me with infertility. I started telling people: "I don't have periods," and I figured that my Mirena coil was probably stopping them coming back, anyway. It wasn't my fault, I was okay.

A few weeks ago, I had a period. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know if it was a period. I felt like I must be wrong. But it stayed for seven days and then it dutifully left. And perhaps this is the start of things getting better.

Sweet Enough Already: sugar-free cookie dough

Years ago, I was doing extensive cookie-related research (trawling Google for the perfect recipe) and found a "women's forum" with the recipe that I would take for my own. I've never gone back to any other recipe and it broke my heart a little bit this last year and a half, avoiding the recipe that'd carried me through deadlines and lazy weekends without ever failing me.

I've made a few adapted versions with spelt and agave - throwing in cocoa powder as spelt has a distinctive flavour of its own in some settings (quite earthy and nutty). And then, a few weeks ago, I discovered white spelt flour* and everything changed. I'm using xylitol for this as it's pretty much freely exchangeable with sugar and doesn't affect the browning of the cookies or the dry:wet ingredient ratio. So my beloved old recipe is almost just as I remember it!

Ben and Jerry have a lot to answer for, and one of the things I'm holding them accountable for is my love of raw cookie dough - something that seems pointless when you're used to more traditional English biscuits but feels so right with a gooey, American style mixture. So I'm writing this as a dough recipe and giving you free rein to eat it however you like!

Ingredients:

• 130g xylitol
• 100g butter/margarine (I use soya spread)
• 150g flour
• 100g chocolate chips
• 1tbsp milk (dairy/soya/oat etc - avoid rice milk as most rice has a high GI)
• splash of vanilla essence

Method:

• If you're planning on baking them, preheat the oven to 200°C.
• Set the butter in a pan to melt slowly, as you don't want it to bubble or burn.
• With one eye on the pan, mix the xylitol and flour in a large bowl. Don't add the chocolate chips yet or the butter will melt them!
• Make a well and stir in the butter, milk and vanilla essence. The mixture cools fairly quickly so you can now add the chocolate chips.
• This dough is delicious raw! I usually bake a batch but help myself to lashings of mixture as I'm going along.
• Spoon tablespoonfuls of mixture onto a greased baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes. They will brown slightly at the edges but remain soft until you've left them to cool, so have faith!
• Another great way to have them is frozen! For this, roll your spoonfuls into little balls on a tray or in a lunchbox, cover and pop in the freezer for a couple of hours (or longer). I use this technique to get the best bit of Ben & Jerry's... well, without the Ben & Jerry's.

*Unfortunately, I can't find much information on the GI value of white spelt. I worry it might not actually be much better than white wheat flour. I'll keep digging and if this turns out to be the case, I'll update this post to use half-and-half wholegrain spelt and white spelt to lower the GI. The xylitol as a sugar substitute helps a lot too!

Sweet Enough Already: a bedtime treat

On wet, blustery nights, when my window rattles and all I want to do is curl up with a good book and a mountain of blankets, a hot chocolate is just the thing to warm me through and lift my spirits. Ready-made drinking chocolate powders are full of sugar or sweeteners (not all of these are good substitutes) and never feel like the real thing, anyway. Knock up this winter-warmer in under a minute and then put your feet up.

Add a splash of milk (works well with dairy/soya/almond/whatever milk you dream of) to 1 heaped tsp of cocoa powder and make a paste. A touch of boiling water will help this along, then top up with more milk, add a squirt of dark agave nectar (about 1tsp worth) and microwave. Sweeten to taste with more agave. Settle yourself somewhere comfy and feel your cockles warming.

Personal: New Years Resolutions

It's in my nature to put things off, and here we are: a week into the new year. I haven't bothered much with resolutions since I was in school (be nicer to my sister, do my homework the day I get it, stop saying "like" so much), but I'm beginning to feel like I let things slide a little towards the end of 2013. In many ways, I learned how to handle my PCOS and ended the year stronger, healthier and happier than I started it, but I've also let a few bad habits sneak back in. So here are my resolutions for the year:

• Quit the gym. Exercise is a brilliant way of tackling insulin resistance but after a couple of months I fell right off that wagon and it's time to stop kidding myself I'll clamber back on. I've been in and cancelled - I'm probably the first person to write "new years resolution" as their reason for leaving on the cancellation form! Find new ways to work out. Tomorrow I begin adult tap dancing classes! Something I'm excited about, and apparently fun can count as exercise? 
• Take Metformin properly. When I started a new job at the end of the summer, my whole routine, including mealtimes, changed and since then I've dropped down to often only remembering one dose a day (and sometimes skipping my Met altogether). I feel lousy for it and can tell it's not helped me at all. I'm setting a twice daily reminder on my phone so I can get back into the swing of things.
• Be my own biggest fan. Over the last couple of years, as I've changed shaped, regained the acne I fought to banish from primary age right until sixth form and - the biggest struggle for me - become steadily hairier, my self-esteem has ebbed away. Armpits4August helped me claw back some of that confidence and I've rung in the new year with a months growth of leg hair to see if I can love that too (I'm still not sure, but I want to find out either way). This year I want to love the body I have and stop yearning for the one I used to live in. But it's okay to have blips.
• Blog more. I still struggle to find PCOS blogs that give me what I'm looking for, so I'll just have to build my own! I'm also looking for all sorts of resources (find me a PCOS zine* and I'll kiss you). Here's to knowledge!

Here's to a wonderful year!

*The latest Armpits4August zine includes more on PCOS than the first one did. Keep an eye on their Twitter to see when and where they're selling it.