I was, when I first started my period I was about twelve or thirteen and I can’t remember when, exactly how old I was and they started being really painful but they got, I mean they’ve always been kind of you know had period pains but for a few months they were so painful I actually threw up a few times.

And like at college I had to, I mean at school I had to go and just lie in the Matron’s office for the whole day and wasn’t able to move or I was sick, it was just really horrible. And I tried taking Mefenamic acid I think it’s called but it didn’t really help and then I went on the pill and that kind of helped.

I mean I still always get painful periods but they’re not, you know they’re copeable with, I just take loads of pain killers now and they’re okay. But recently again I’ve started having, over the last couple of years I’ve kind of almost passed out to when I’ve been on my period in the first couple of days which I think is something to do with my low blood pressure, I don’t really know.

No doctors seem to be quite sure but they think it’s something to do with the fact that I’ve got a very low pressure and an irregular heart beat as well. So it’s all a bit, it’s just such a pain!

‘when I was doing my A levels I actually just took the pill continuously for, you know didn’t have a period break because they’re just so annoying when I have them and they just kind of disrupt my life so much. But I mean at the moment apart from last month when I had my passing out phase again, usually they’re okay now and I’m not on the pill and they’re alright. So I think they’re probably getting a bit better, hopefully.

I never had too much trouble with period pains, it was the mood swings I had problems with. I got ‘ used to get very very depressed, and almost suicidal at one stage, with them, they were really bad, and again, that was another reason I went on the Pill, because I just couldn’t cope with it.

When did you first start noticing the changes in moods?

I think if you talked to my mum, shed probably say shed always noticed them, but I didn’t start noticing it myself till I was about 15, 16, when I was going through my GCSEs.

I was under a lot of stress, anyway, with doing my GCSEs, because I’ve got very bright brothers that I was trying to live up to, and I was expected to do well, and I think I was just under a lot of pressure all round, and they just got really bad, and it got to the point where I just thought, you know, ‘I shouldn’t have to be like this.

I was on the pill originally to sort out these irregular periods so I was on that anyway. I wasn’t on it for precautions. My GP always used to say to me, ‘ The minute you start being sexually active, you need to come back to me and I need to explain to you about the pill to work as, as a contraceptive not as a hormone, like balance thing because it’s a totally different thing.

So of course at 15 you just think, ‘Yeah, yeah, well I’m taking it how it tells me to take it in the packet, what do you need to tell me that doesn’t already tell me on the leaflet?’ So, I thought, ”Oh well, I’ll be fine. But then on the actual, when it actually happened I thought, ‘Oh maybe I haven’t been taking it right and I might not be protected.

I might be taking it differently to, you know, as a hormone tablet to a contraceptive. So I did make him use a condom that night just, until I was sure that I, you know, it was fine and then I did, I had to go back to the GP anyway for a pill check and obviously she explained to me everything then.

They were more regular when I was on the Pill ‘cos obviously they’re 28 day cycles and then you have the period. Now, they vary really, so either the middle or the end of the month, I come on. It’s usually between them, either the second or third week of the month.

But sometimes it varies really but I have quite good periods. I don’t get pain, I don’t get bellyaches, nothing like that. My friends suffer terribly. So I’ve been quite lucky and I don’t really stand, and the longest I started is three and half, four days, so that’s pretty good. I’m quite happy with that.

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How did you feel about starting your periods?

Well for me I was a bit scared right, but then from hearing from my friends experiences their periods used to last up to seven days and my period only lasted for three. So I thought that was a bit weird at first so I didn’t talk to my mum about it.

I asked the doctors, you know ‘getting periods for three days, is that really bad?’ and she said ‘No, its normal, at the end of the day better for you, you’re not bleeding for seven days are you, so they’re complaining and you’re not. So I went ‘all right then.

I feel better without periods. But I was never moody, you know, you get like mood swings and some go a bit chocoholic, they have to have chocolate. I was never like that, I was normal do you get me, I never had mood swings, I never had cravings like chocolate or anything.

I was just like normal so they used to be jealous you know ‘oh you are such a bitch, you don’t get cramps,’ you don’t get this, you don’t get that. I did at times, I used to get just little cramps.