Emma Hardy

Um, and I just didn't know what was wrong.

And then I went to.

one GP to get another mental health care plan and another kind of luteal phase.

This is this old man at a bulk billing clinic who just kind of wants me out in like 15 minutes.

And he's like looking through the list of things that he can diagnose me with because it's not quite depression, it's not quite anxiety.

And he's like, oh, maybe it's this thing, PMDD.

And I just think this is the most sexist thing ever that he's diagnosed me with this.

He hasn't asked me any questions.

He hasn't really diagnosed me.

He just said it's probably related.

If it's like cyclical coming back, it's probably related to this.

So I kind of got that diagnosis.

It felt kind of true, but I didn't really believe it just because it seemed so unlikely that he could be right by diagnosing me so flippantly.

And so it wasn't until 2020 when things got really bad and obviously the kind of pressure cooker of COVID made my symptoms completely unbearable that I started going through a proper diagnostic process, which the book kind of traces.

So that was probably five years later that I realized, yeah, this is actually definitely it.

Bizarrely, he was right, like ridiculous to think that, but he was right.

Well, I think obviously COVID impacted everyone's mental health.

Like I didn't have a friend who was doing their best or thriving during that time.

But for me, it made that cycle even clearer.

And also because you're so pressure cooked in with other people, you're surrounded by other people, your housemates are always home, your partner's always home.