I’ve had extremely painful periods ever since I started having them at 13, so did my sister, mother, aunt and grandmother. My pain debilitates me, I can’t leave my bed the entire 10 days it lasts and the amount of blood I lose has caused me to faint on multiple occasions, forcing me to take iron supplements for two years straight to increase my levels to the lower-end average of a healthy person. It took me until I was 16 to get diagnosed with endometriosis and menorrhagia despite going to the gynaecologist frequently and constantly complaining about my pain. Of course, I got the usual advice: lose weight, exercise, take birth control.
Everything got worse when I moved to France. It was my first time living alone and it was the worst pain I’d ever felt. I had no idea it was my period, it had come 10 days early and it was angry. I didn’t know what was happening to my body, the pain was white hot and came in waves. I went to the bathroom and got completely naked to sit on the toilet, puking at the same time in hopes to alleviate my pain, praying it was just food poisoning.
It wasn’t. I puked and bled all over my apartment, I wasn’t even sure the blood was from my period because there was so much of it. I called my mother 50 times and of course, given the fact that we were countries apart and it was 2AM, she was sound asleep. I sent her multiple “URGENT” and “I think I’m dying” texts before giving up. I took a handful of pain killers and went back to the bathroom to battle whatever was going on in my body, I puked up the pills I had taken and just cried, accepting defeat and fainting over my bloodied toilet seat.
I spent the night alone, scared and screaming in pain until one of my neighbours knocked on my door asking me if everything was alright. I couldn’t even get properly dressed to open the door and begged her to take me to the hospital, stranger-danger be damned. She unfortunately didn’t have a car but she DID have pain killers so she gave me those and told me to come back if I didn’t feel better.
Obviously, I didn’t feel better but I had already taken her paid meds and I didn’t even know this woman. I popped a pill (which thankfully had morphine in it) and managed to fall asleep at around 6AM. In the 3 hours I was sleeping, my mother as well as other members of my family exploded my phone and had left hundreds of panicked messages asking me what was going on. I didn’t respond until 9AM though by that time, my mother was already looking for plane tickets to Paris. She told me never to scare her like that again and asked me to describe exactly what had happened. I sent her a picture of my apartment, which looked like a crime scene and told her all of this was period blood. We booked a gynaecologist appointment for when I’d come back to Türkiye that same day.
I had two more periods like this until I went back home. The only gynaecologist available in town was a man. I was feeling very apprehensive as this was the year I had gotten raped and I didn’t really feel like a man, who was so interested in vaginas he became a vagina doctor, should be examining me. I assumed all male gynaecologists were perverts that couldn’t wait to finger-bang me, a fresh-as-a-daisy 18 year old who wouldn’t be able to tell they’re just feeling me up instead of doing their job.*1
I sat on the examination table and the first thing he asked me was if I was sexually active while my mother was in the room (in Türkiye, the doctor is supposed to ask the parent to leave the room, not the patient). I care more about my sexual well-being than the wrath of my mother so I was truthful and told him that yes, I was active. The entire interaction was very awkward, my mother’s head whipped around and she just said “You are?” in that shaky, controlled angry voice parents have. Like yes, I’m an 18 year old who lives alone and has the same level of horniness as rabbits in spring— I’ve had sex before.
In order to alleviate the tension, my doctor asked the reason I came in. I told him about how painful my periods had been ever since I started having them, how that one period I had made me think I was dying, how I become so depressed the few days before my period I genuinely become suicidal. He just sat back, listened to me and by the end of my monologue. “Period pain isn’t an illness and you only lose about three tablespoons of blood every month.”
I tried explaining to him how bad it was, I even showed him the picture of my room when whatever atomic bomb dropped in my uterus exploded, that I faint from my blood loss. He refuted my previously diagnosed menorrhagia, told me I must be exaggerating and to just wear a bigger pad. I bleed so heavily I need to wear night pads during the day and change them every hour in order to avoid spilling so much you’d confuse my period with the Red Sea. This shit is so heavy you’d confuse it for the Great Flood or whatever, I didn’t read the Bible recently.
He told me my only option now was getting on birth control pills. When I told him I didn’t want to go on them because a lot of them aren’t compatible with the blood loss medication I’m taking and if there were any alternative like stronger pain medication or an IUD, he yelled at me that the pain killers I was taking were more dangerous than the birth control themselves and that I must be stupid to not want to take them. He then said he wouldn’t recommend me for an IUD because I was just “being difficult” for the sake of it and he only recommended IUDs to patients who already had children.
I started crying almost immediately, I was already on my period when we had come to his office and was terrified of having a male doctor because every man besides my father had the face of my rapist at that point. While I understand that birth control is amazing and genuinely one of the best inventions we’ve had, I have such a busy schedule I wouldn’t be able to remember to take it, I wasn’t in a relationship at the time AND I’m predisposed to psychosis and depression, which are common side effects. Also by that time, I hated this doctor and didn’t want to take any of his advice so yes maybe I was being difficult but who the FUCK are you to yell at me? My mother stood silent, she too was shocked by how loudly I’d been yelled at.
My doctor looked at me as if I was crazy the second he saw my tears while the nurse gave me some tissues, apologised for his behaviour and told me I wasn’t the first patient he made cry (she was very sweet but I doubt it). My gynaecologist kicked me out of his office and told me not to come back until I was calm with a full bladder for my ultrasound. I left his office with a bruised ego and new blood stain on my shorts. My mother asked me if I was alright and why I was crying. I told her I simply didn’t like the way he’d been talking to me and how he had said my pain wasn’t an illness after I told him how debilitating it was. She told me I was right and we joked about how I probably validated some stereotypes about women on their period to him.
After chugging several bottles of water, I went back to his office a woman about to piss herself. He put the cold gel on my stomach and pressed so hard I had to clench to avoid letting some slip. For some reason, despite only having had sex a few times (with protection each time) and getting my period regularly, I was terrified of seeing a baby in there, especially since it had been over 8 months since I had sex so there’s be several calls to religious leaders that would need to be made. Obviously (and thankfully), my uterus was empty.
As he was messing around in there, he told me some of my veins (?) were too big which is why I had such heavy periods. He said there were no cysts in my uterus which meant we could rule out the possibility for PCOS/PMOS and that the symptoms I had given him were otherwise related to miscarriage. I told him it was impossible as I was a virgin when I had that specific period. He told me it wasn’t a good idea of me to lie to him because my sexual health is at risk. By this time, I was genuinely angry and I told him I had no reason to lie to him given the fact that he had already asked wether I was sexually active or not in front of my mother, which were against my rights to privacy as a legal adult.
Nobody in the room liked that I said that from my mother, to the nurse, to the gynaecologist. He ordered some blood tests to see if my hormones were regulated and dismissed me. The car ride back home was awkward. My mother didn’t know I was sexually active until that day and interrogated on me about the experience, which I obviously lied about for her own well-being. Of course I was safe, of course it was with someone I cared about, of course the guy was someone I was in a relationship with and not a fuck-buddy, of course we parted ways not because he raped me but because I wanted to focus on my studies.
“You could’ve said you didn’t want me in the room” my mother told me, “you didn’t have to bring up your right to privacy, especially since I asked you if you wanted me to leave.” I guess I could see her point but even then, if I was the one to say “Yes mom, please leave now that the doctor has asked if I’m sexually active”, it would basically validate whatever idea of my sex life she had. That’s why the hospital rules are that the doctor is supposed to ask, so as not to “incriminate” the patient and put them in a compromising position which my mother agreed with. Either way, I would’ve insisted she stayed in the room because once again, I did not trust this man.
My experience was plain shit and I’ve been staunchly against going back to a male gynaecologist ever since. I’ve been re-diagnosed with menorrhagia and got prescribed special medication to deal with my pain and blood loss that GASP didn’t require me to go on birth control2 so I’ve been quite satisfied. I was also really worried about the metal duck thing they put in you for a deeper look but apparently that’s for pap smears (which I’ll be getting this year so please pray for me) so only female doctors for me from here on out.
I don’t want to base my opinion on male gynos just from this one, there are shitty people across the gender spectrum and professions but this coupled with past trauma obviously didn’t leave a good impression on me. There were definitely moments where I could’ve been more open to his suggestions given the fact that I’m not a doctor but I let my fear get the better of me. I’m scared of having a pap smear and the duck looks way too big to go in there, like I genuinely don’t know if my vagina is deep enough for that shit but we’ll see, just a lot of mental preparation needed.
In conclusion, research your doctor before booking an appointment with them and don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself because no one else will in this fucked up world. Anyways I’m out, go to the gynaecologist and get tested regularly folks!
- My opinion on male gynaecologists has changed now. While I don’t fully understand why a man would want to be gynaecologists and wouldn’t feel comfortable with one because of my rape history, I don’t have to understand it to respect it. I think they’re necessary for women who may have been assaulted by other women or because of the fact that some believe that since they don’t have a uterus, male doctors can’t be as dismissive of the issues you bring up since they might be having them too (which was the case of my mother and I’m told her gynaecologist was wonderful, but dead so we couldn’t go to him).
↩︎ - Again, birth control pills are amazing inventions and I love that they exist but at the time, I didn’t want to take them because 1) I wasn’t having sex with a penis-haver, 2) I’m irresponsible about doing shit every day, 3) I’m predisposed to basically all of the side effects 4) It clashed with other medication I have to take for my #health. Lately, I’ve been considering going on the pill because the medication I take hasn’t been cutting it lately and I’d rather deal with depression and psychosis than these fuckass cramps. ↩︎
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Cece: Unfiltered 
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