I thought I was done with menopause. I hadn’t had my period in over 12 months, which, according to the National Institute of Aging (NIA) definition, meant I was post-menopausal. I’d made it through a year of mood swings and depression. I adapted to thinning hair and dry skin, sleep problems, chills, joint pain, a decreased sex drive, headaches, and fatigue. An entire shelf on my bookshelf at home was dedicated to menopause related books like The Hormone Cure and Estrogen Matters. I joined an online menopause support group. I had a prescription for estrogen pills and invested more than $1k on hormone patches, so why was there blood in the toilet?

I pulled up my underwear and washed my hands, wishing there was someone to tell. A stranger standing at the sink next to me would have been ideal, preferably a woman my age, someone who would understand the shock of this moment. Someone who would tell me this was probably just a freak thing. Weird spotting. It was probably just another example of the peculiarities of the female body. I’d nod enthusiastically and breathe with relief because of course that’s what this was. No need to get all worked up. But I was alone in the bathroom. And, as cramping in my lower back reminded me, I needed to find a tampon or a pad, something to absorb the bleeding.

Back in my office I pawed through my desk for a long-forgotten tampon. There were unopened packs of blue and orange Post-it notes, purple ink pens and mechanical pencils with worn down erasers, several business cards (why?), paper clips and a handful of my favorite mints, but nothing related to menstruation. I sunk into my desk chair, unsure what to do next. As if I was fourteen years old again.

I was the very last girl in my eighth grade class to get my period. I’d been the tallest in my class since first grade and always had to stand in the back row with the boys for the class photo. I didn’t need to wear a bra even though I wanted to, my butt was as flat as a boy’s, and I didn’t go barefoot in public because of my gigantic, canoe-like feet. I was hopeful that my period would change all that. I would become more feminine as soon as my disappointing body caught up with my peers.

When I finally got my period, it was at the worst possible time. It was February and I was alone with my dad for the weekend in Maine. We were four hours from home and the closest town was thirty minutes away. Instead of the joy I’d been expecting with the arrival of my period, my first thought when I pulled my underwear down was no. Please no. Not now, in this isolated, non-winterized, family cottage on the edge of a frozen lake with Dad.

The rest of the details of this pivotal moment are blurry. Did I call mom at home and ask her what to do? That sounds plausible. Or did I suddenly have a burst of confidence and ask Dad for help? That seems like a stretch. However it happened, Dad and I got in the car to get some “supplies.” His words, not mine. I figured we’d drive to Bridgton, a trip that would take a half hour, and go to the CVS, so when he slowed the car and parked in front of “Reny’s,” I was confused. Reny’s was a general store close to camp that sold milk and bread and canned soup and randomly had a shelf full of VHS tapes for rent in the back corner. My cousins and I rode bikes there in the summer to get worms for fishing. There was no way Reny’s was going to have a box of Tampax.

With a heavy sigh, I followed Dad inside the store. It didn’t take me long to find the “toiletries” section toward the back, near the VHS tapes. The shelf contained a couple bottles of Benadryl, hand cream, a travel toothpaste kit, and a couple boxes of Q-tips. There were packs of toilet paper and paper towels and I was just about to give up when I spotted a solitary, dusty pink box of “sanitary napkins.” My face flushed, and I glanced around, but Dad was wandering down a different aisle, and we were the only customers there. I carried the dusty pink box with its unsubtle logo under my arm slowly toward the cashier and prayed that dad would dump a giant bag of chips on the counter and a bottle of juice or something to disguise the pink box, but his hands were empty. He stood silently beside me, his body tall and flat like mine, and waited. I stared down at my feet while dad paid for the pads. We walked out the door and I swore I’d never return to Reny’s.

Thirty-seven years later, sitting in my comfortable desk chair at work, I felt sad for my younger, awkward self, a girl who was scared of her own rebellious body. A body that was bleeding and cramping and growing in the wrong places. Why was I here again? Still confused by the workings of my body as if I were divided in two, a head and a heart, a body and a mind. Why couldn’t I bridge that gap? I was asking myself the question, but I knew why.

Eight months after I started menstruating, my body rebelled again.

It was October 1985, and I was a freshman at a boarding school in New Hampshire, about an hour and a half from home. I hadn’t been at school very long when I started falling asleep in class. I figured I was tired because I wasn’t sleeping well. I’d been waking up in the middle of the night because I was thirsty and my bladder was full. It was a painful thirst that forced me out of my warm bed, down the cold hallway into the bathroom to stick my face under the faucet and drink and drink and drink. Water splashed over the side of the sink and onto my pajamas, and I was still thirsty. Back in bed under my covers I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt about water.

“All you do anymore is sleep!” Tricia, my roommate, sighed in exacerbation the next afternoon.

We were late for field hockey practice. Tricia was already dressed. I didn’t like to be late, but the thought of getting out of bed was impossible. My legs were cement. My eyelids were heavy like rocks. But I had to pee and I was thirsty so I asked Tricia to wait and promised to hurry. The walk from our dorm across campus to the athletic field was endless. I had to keep blinking my eyes to clear my blurry vision, but I didn’t want to say anything. I wanted these sensations to go away. When we finally arrived at practice, I sunk down onto the soft, green grass, just for a minute. Tricia gave up on me and joined our teammates on the field.

I’m not sure what finally forced me to go to the infirmary, maybe it was our coach who spotted me sleeping on the grass and told me if I didn’t practice with the team, I couldn’t play in the game that weekend. I couldn’t bear the look of disappointment in her eyes, so I picked myself up and walked across campus to the infirmary where I stood in line behind coughing and sneezing students. When it was my turn to speak to the nurse, I described my symptoms (fatigue, thirst, blurry vision—I couldn’t bring myself to mention the ceaseless need to pee in front of the other students), and she handed me a travel pack of Tylenol and sent me back to my dorm to rest. You probably have the cold that’s going around, she said, gesturing to the waiting room full of sniffling students. Yes, I thought, relieved. It was just a cold.

I realized the nurse was wrong the next morning. I went back to the infirmary the next morning and this time asked if I could stay in the sick room. Something was wrong. This was not a cold. My vitals were taken and when I stepped on the scale, the nurse made a strange face and asked how much I weighed when I arrived at school. Had I been eating? I nodded. She told me I’d lost fifteen pounds. I shrugged. I hadn’t noticed.

Finally (finally!), I was sent to the sick room and I climbed into bed. I heard the nurse through the wall call Mom and tell her that she needed to come get me. Your daughter is anorexic, she said. That’s the last thing I remember before falling asleep. I woke to mom leaning over me and smelling my breath (a strange request). I watched her face tighten. I was scared. Mom pulled me from the bed and led me out the door of the infirmary to her car. I remember driving fast along the highway that carved through the mountains. Where are we going? I asked weakly and was too sick to be care when she said the hospital.

Everything that happened after is blurry, as if I finally let go once I knew I was safe in Mom’s car. I remember being embarrassed by the painted mural of Sesame Street characters on the hallway of the children’s wing in the hospital. I remember sitting in a hospital bed listening to my pediatrician say the words “juvenile diabetes” and only hearing “die.” I remember he said I would be like this for the rest of my life. At fourteen years old, the rest of my life was an unimaginable length of time. I tuned the doctor out while he talked about syringes and insulin and sugar and went inside myself. My life had changed. I was not the same girl as yesterday. I was sick, someone who needed to be treated carefully. Someone who sat on the sidelines and watched. My diagnosis was confirmation of something I’d always felt but could never name, proof of my failing body. The distance between my head and my heart expanded. I needed to keep one part safe while the other suffered.

But no, my doctor and my parents assured me, diabetes won’t keep you from doing anything your peers are doing! It became Mom’s battle cry. You can go back to boarding school! You can continue to play field hockey! Your life won’t change, I was promised.

So it was confusing when I returned to school and my blood sugar dropped in the middle of Geology class. Confusing when my hands started shaking and I was dizzy and had double vision. When I stared at the teacher in the front of the room and he became liquid like a watercolor painting. When my I tried to stand and my legs buckled, I broke out in a sweat and couldn’t talk.

I blamed my body every time my blood sugar dropped (shaky hands, rapid heartbeat, danger of passing out) and every time my blood sugar was too high (fatigue, frequent trips to the bathroom, and thirst). I’d eaten too much, hadn’t eaten enough. I injected too much or not enough insulin into my thigh. I practiced field hockey drills for too long, or not long enough. I was in charge of the calculations and there was no one to blame but myself.

I sat there in my office, confused by my body once again, and couldn’t stand. I was tired of working so hard and never getting it right. For the past thirty-plus years of living with type one diabetes, I’ve blamed my body for weight gain and weight loss, headaches, memory fog, irritability, car accidents, cellulite, heartbreak, digestion issues, loneliness, depression, anxiety, self-destructive behaviors, disordered eating, unpredictable periods, inconsistent ovulation, difficulties getting pregnant, decreased sex drive, vulnerability to COVID-19, divorce, trying to figure out if I was peri- or postmenopausal—and I was tired of it. Enough already, my head said to my heart.

My life was half over. I needed to build a bridge between my physical and emotional self. I needed to stop being scared of my blood and skin, my internal organs, my sensations of pain, hunger, thirst, and desire. I needed to step back and breathe and learn how to have a conversation with my body.

I looked back at that year of my life, when I was fourteen years old and got my period and was diagnosed with a chronic illness, and sent love to that girl. You got this, I told her. You’re stronger than you know.

I breathed deeply, stood, and walked to CVS.

-Amy Stockwell

Amy Stockwell is a writer living in Charleston, South Carolina. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Queens University and is the author of two books about living well with diabetes. Amy works in communications at the College of Charleston and has three sons.