The Biological Reality

04/04/2022

"Another stranger, another dream. & my unending silent screams" sums up my terrifying ordeal with sleep paralysis during my PMDD week.

When a sleep paralysis episode occurs, the brain is being disrupted and wakes up before the body, which is why you can't move when you're dreaming that there's a faceless man climbing across the floor towards you.

My body catches up to my brain and the eyes that felt like they were glued shut open.

Horrified, I conjure my exhausted body to stay awake; I feel my aching breasts, the swollen feet, and the stiffness of the trapezius muscles. I try to banish them from my consciousness and I let myself be consumed with the thoughts of Sylvia Plath.

She once wrote, "I am terrified by this dark thing that sleeps in me." It resonated with me. Years after she was dead, we learnt that she most likely had PMDD. Was this was I was so instinctively drawn to her work?

Suddenly, my brain performs the most merciful act and dissociates. I feel like a stranger in my own body.


And when I go to sleep, and the stranger wakes up, there just isn't any joy.










-menstrual
-menstrual

30/11/2021

“I used to think I am the only trans man who experiences this. But then two years after my hormone replacement treatment (HRT) began, some other trans men online told me they have cramps too. If this pain gets more severe, I will die…

Since I began my HRT three years ago, I have been having severely painful cramps for 6-7 hours. At the end of every month, there is such intense pain that I can’t breathe. It feels like an electric shock in my abdomen. It comes and goes. When it goes, I have like 30 seconds to get water, a hot-water bag and do anything else!

On every such day, I think to myself I will visit a gynaecologist the next day but when the pain subsides, I immediately dismiss the thought. I say to myself, ‘It’s only 7 hours. So, I can deal with it.’

When we visit gynaecologists, they are highly insensitive and it is retraumatizing. Most of them here in Assam do not even know about HRT and its effects. About 8 months after I had begun HRT, my mother took me to a gynaecologist on the suggestion of a family member. This gynaec asked me to lift my shirt and lie down. I refused. She had no idea about HRT and said I have an ‘illness’! I was furious. I don’t know why gynaecologists are like this!

To visit multiple doctors is traumatising; I have to be mentally prepared before entering a doctor’s clinic, a bank or a government office! Why should we always have to mentally prepare ourselves for the worst?

There is very little research done when it comes to trans health, especially trans men’s health. Earlier this year, for the first time, I read a research work on trans men’s pain. Research on this subject is only just starting.

As for endocrinologists, there is only ONE for the whole population of seven states of northeast India. To make matters worse, endocrinologists in India charge an extremely high amount of money. Most of the trans community cannot afford these charges. Doctors are thus taking advantage of the trans community’s trauma and marginalisation.”

Contributor Lucky is a trans activist and independent filmmaker based in Lakhimpur, Assam. Lucky’s pronouns are he/him.
Transcription by

01/10/2021

This is contributor and self-photographer Naina's pronouns are she/her and she says:

"I started clicking pictures of myself somewhere around April 2020. We had just gone into lockdown. I had always wanted to click pictures of myself. Because I’m an actor, I wanted to know which profile looks good on camera. That was the idea I began with--that I want to see myself.

During the lockdown, I had only four walls to experiment with. It was a challenge! I had to draw inspiration from my clothes, from my body, from my hair, from my chair, from the stuff I saw everyday. But, now I was seeing everything in a different light.
I still continue to practice self-photography after over a year. I try to translate a mood that I am in for several days into pictures.

The theme of my pictures remains the same: I try to pose freely with my body without worrying about my look or my clothes or my skinniness. Since I was little, I have been skinny. I’ve been extremely conscious of my skinny body. Right now, I do not associate it. But, when I was at film school, I was very conscious of my body.

For women, it has always been about our bodies. The way we look at our own bodies, the way we dislike our own bodies. The self-portraits helped me to explore my womanhood. It’s like I hit puberty at 30, really! It took looking at myself through a lens during lockdown to realize this is me and I should have loved myself all those years. I am so glad I went through this. I started showing love and empathy toward my body. It’s fun being both the creator and muse yourself. There was a lot of learning. It’s a whole other world for me. It just starts with the idea of feeling weird or strange and uncomfortable, and now I am in love with myself. I would like others to have this too.

Most of us grow up hiding the fact that we menstruate. It’s high time we start talking about period and everything associated with it FREELY, without thinking twice.”

See our previous posts for Naina's experience of PCOS and menstrual pain.
Thank you, Naina, for sharing your reality with us. ❤️

30/09/2021

“When I woke up in the mornings, my pillow would be covered with so much hair. I was scared to take a shower. I got to a point where I started counting the hair strands I lost every day.

It’s been 5-6 years now and I still struggle with hair loss. After induced menopause, I have severe hormonal imbalance. After a lot of research, I found that the vaccine I received for chemical menopause is now banned. There are a lot of cases against doctors who gave this vaccine to young girls.

During my menopausal phase, I thought I was going crazy at times. I had hot and cold flashes, of course. That was new to me. I would also have sudden bouts of anger. I still remember the amount of frustration I had for one-and-a-half years. Even after my ovarian cyst disappeared, the pain didn’t go away. It’s something I have learned to live with. I have stopped going to doctors. Now, it’s just painkillers. I rely on them.

I have always had excruciating pain, so much pain that my parents had to take me to the hospital and get me an injection that made me pass out for more than 24 hours. When I went to college and saw multiple doctors about the cause of my pain, I was introduced to a bunch of painkillers. The painkillers would give me relief for a couple of hours. It would make me pass out and... numb everything else.

But, till date, I do not know why I have so much pain. I really feel it’s an abnormal amount of pain. The pain drives me crazy. Every month, I think I would rather die than go through this pain. I have no words to describe the pain...”

Photo and words by , a menstruator who lived through PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Naina's pronouns are she/her.

29/09/2021

This is TBR contributor Naina Sareen, a full-time actor and artist based in Mumbai, India. Naina's pronouns are she/her, and she says:

“As a menstruator who lived with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and went through hormonal treatment, my menstrual experience has majorly been one of frustration.

When you take painkillers, the pain stops for a while. When it gets over, you feel like you’ve been reborn. But, there’s the frustration and the anger that it’s going to come back next month. Also, medication has its side effects. When I take medication for something, it affects another part of me.

When I was 22 and had just started working in Bangalore, I went in for an ultrasound. I had a cyst in my right o***y. It was a chocolate cyst (noncancerous, fluid-filled cyst that forms deep within the ovaries) and it was gradually growing with each passing period. The doctors said they would get me on traditional medication and not surgery because I was very young. So, I was induced menopause at the age of 23 for over a year. My parents freaked out. We saw doctors from Kolkata and Bangalore and both were of the opinion that I should be put on medication. I did not get my period for a year and a half. I was very happy!

Once I started menstruating again, the cyst had disappeared. However, post the menopause, I immediately started losing an extreme amount of hair. I was getting a bald patch on my head. The hair loss was another struggle. I went into a brief period of depression…” (1/3)

Thank you for sharing your reality through this self-portait.

28/08/2021

Anuhya Korrapati, says “The idea for this project emerged from our peer support sessions. Each one of us has photographed ourselves at our worst and sometimes even at our best. These photographs served a purpose to us. It reminded us that our experiences are valid and real, it gave us hope for better days, it helped us articulate what we were feeling. It was cathartic.”

Geetanjali Gurlhosur adds, “This project adopts a participation-based photography method called auto-photography. The participants are given cameras to photograph themselves and retain the control of their narrative.”

Read the featured story about the project 'The Biological Reality' from BeyondBlood

The Biological Reality captures the journey of the menstruators suffering with chronic disorders, through auto-photography.

05/08/2021

Our new-media story-telling space for q***r, trans, menopausal menstruators and people with disabilities and menstruation-related illnesses is taking shape and form! You can read more about the upcoming project, incubated by BeyondBlood and its team, in this article published in the MiD DAY , Mumbai.

Stay tuned as we launch the patient-oriented auto-photography project on our social media pages and website. If you are someone who relates with this project, or the stories we wish to tell, come join the team, be a supporter or participate in building a community that so many of us need to talk about our .

The Biological Reality, a patient-advocacy project that captures the journey of menstruators with chronic disorders, has been selected for Good Pitch Local - Deccan 2021, a funding forum

05/08/2021

The Biological Reality project has been featured on the Indian Documentary Foundation website!
Only a week from now, we will be pitching the audio-visual, menstrual health project to a hundred professionals across India and outside at Good Pitch India !

The project aims to
~engage in body literacy through menstrual health education, and not through menstrual hygiene 'management'
~appraoch menstruation as fifth vital sign of health, and not a sign of fertility
~view menstruation as a biological reality in the life cycle
~update clinical practices and supplement healthcare systems with the evidence to improve diagnosis rates and health outcomes for people of all genders

Stay tuned for updates!

Here's a sneak peek:
http://indiandocumentaryfoundation.org/Local_Deccan.html