Cramps So Bad I’m Sick

Dear period and cramps,

I still don't know if you are regular, or heavily painful cramps, or endometriosis or something else. I've had my period for 13 years now, cramps getting worse every year. You make me sick, literally. I want to be happy about my period. I want to be happy that I am a woman who is not unwillingly pregnant and who is healthy enough to get her periods. I want to celebrate that I am healthy, again, that you are back, again. But I can't celebrate that, lying in my bed for two or three days, suffering from cramps that get bad enough to make me sick sometimes. That push the content of my stomach out through my mouth by cramping so hard that my whole tummy clenches. My gynaecologists, five by now, feel up my vagina and into my uterus, put ultrasound probes into me and still don't know what to do about me. They tell me to take the pill without any breaks so I don't get my period and don't get pain. It works. But I feel weird about it. I want to have a regular period. I want to feel healthy. I want to feel natural. I don't want hormones pumped inside of me to suppress a natural process, to alter my hormonal balance, to worsen my chronic depression. I want to feel healthy. I want to feel natural. I want to feel seen. I want to feel believed and taken seriously.
I want you back, period. But I can well be spared you, cramps.

Love,
Amelie
Amelie, Germany