Nobody Taught Me About My Body

For most of my life, I thought something was wrong with me.

Looking back, I realize the problem wasn’t me. The problem was that nobody ever taught me about my body.

When I was a young girl, I experienced things like yeast infections, but I didn’t know how to talk about them. My mother and I didn’t have that kind of relationship, and society often treats women’s health as something embarrassing, private, or taboo. So I stayed quiet.

Then I got my first period.

I was staying at my grandmother’s house and wasn’t prepared for what was happening. I didn’t have pads. I didn’t have information. I didn’t have anyone to explain what came next.

I still remember my grandmother telling me I needed to go back to live with my mother because she wasn’t able to handle what came after a girl starts menstruating. Whether she meant it that way or not, it hurt. Deeply.

Instead of feeling supported, I felt like I had become a problem.

No one sat down and explained what my cycle was. No one explained hormones, ovulation, fertility, emotions, or the incredible changes happening inside my body.

I was simply expected to figure it out.

At fifteen years old, I became pregnant.

People often ask how that happens, but the truth is simple: I didn’t understand my body. I didn’t understand birth control. I didn’t understand fertility. I didn’t understand sex beyond what little information had been shared with me.

More than anything, I was a teenager desperately wanting to feel loved, wanted, and seen.

The result was a pregnancy that changed my life forever.

Even during pregnancy, I was mostly just surviving the experience rather than understanding it. My body was transforming, creating life, preparing for birth, and I had very little knowledge of what was actually happening.

Then came labor and delivery.

Again, I felt unprepared.

I wish I had more support. I wish I had more education. I wish my medical team had taken more time to explain what was happening and what I could expect.

After my daughter was born, I was immediately placed on birth control.

At the time, all I knew was that I didn’t want another unexpected pregnancy. Nobody explained what hormonal birth control actually did inside the body. Nobody explained synthetic hormones. Nobody explained how it worked or how it might affect me physically, emotionally, or mentally.

I simply trusted the recommendation because I thought that was what women were supposed to do.

Years later, after having my son, I decided not to return to birth control. Part of me wanted more children, but another part of me simply wanted a break. I wanted to understand what my body felt like without outside intervention.

Then came another chapter that many women know all too well: postpartum.

Except I didn’t know it.

I didn’t know what postpartum depression was. I didn’t know what postpartum anxiety was. I didn’t know what warning signs to look for. I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

This was during COVID, when many women were already feeling isolated and unsupported.

When I finally told my doctor I was struggling emotionally, the response was immediate: antidepressants and therapy.

While those options help many women, I left feeling like nobody was asking why I felt the way I did.

Soon after, I became pregnant with my daughter.

That pregnancy was easier, but after she was born, a new challenge emerged.

Every month, during the same week, I felt like a completely different person.

I became overwhelmed, depressed, angry, exhausted, reactive, and emotionally dysregulated. It affected my marriage, my parenting, my work, my friendships, and my relationship with myself.

I genuinely thought I was losing my mind.

The hardest part was that it wasn’t constant.

Most of the month, I felt fine.

Then suddenly, everything would crash.

It wasn’t until a woman outside of traditional Western medicine asked me a simple question:

“Have you ever looked into PMDD?”

That question changed my life.

For the first time, I found women describing exactly what I was experiencing.

I wasn’t broken.

I wasn’t crazy.

My body was communicating with me.

That discovery eventually led me to a Women’s Cyclical Living certification program, and honestly, it has been some of the most life-changing education I have ever received.

I learned that women are not designed to function exactly the same way every day of the month.

We are cyclical beings.

We move through seasons.

We have hormonal shifts, energy shifts, emotional shifts, and creative shifts.

Instead of fighting those rhythms, we can learn to work with them.

For the first time, I began understanding my menstrual cycle as more than just a period.

I learned about my inner spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

I learned how nutrition, stress, rest, movement, and self-awareness all affect my cycle.

I learned how to support my body instead of constantly pushing against it.

Most importantly, I learned that nothing was wrong with me.

Today, my PMDD symptoms are dramatically reduced.

My cycles are healthier.

My painful cramps have significantly improved.

My relationship with myself has improved.

And because my relationship with myself improved, my relationships with everyone around me improved too.

When a woman understands herself, the ripple effects touch everything.

Her marriage.

Her parenting.

Her friendships.

Her work.

Her community.

What breaks my heart is realizing how many years I spent suffering simply because I lacked information.

Knowledge that should have been available from the beginning.

Knowledge that women have shared with one another for generations.

In many indigenous and ancestral cultures, women weren’t expected to navigate these experiences alone. There was community. There was wisdom. There were elders. There was support.

Women understood the rhythms of life because they lived closer to those rhythms.

Much of that knowledge has been lost, dismissed, or forgotten.

I believe it is time to remember.

Not because we need to reject modern medicine, but because women deserve more than symptom management.

We deserve education.

We deserve understanding.

We deserve support.

We deserve to know how our bodies work.

For me, this journey has become part of my purpose.

Not only to continue learning for myself, but to help other women and young girls understand something I wish someone had taught me long ago:

Your body is not your enemy.

Your cycle is not a burden.

And there was never anything wrong with you.