My periods were hot red pokers when I was 16. Until I went on the pill for acne, as my doctor recommended, and it all went away: the pain, the symptoms and the bleeding. I was twenty-three when I decided to come off the pill. The first period after I did was a grasping-the-toilet, puddle-on-the-floor, call-my-mum …mess. I suppose that was the beginning. The first sign. But it was just period pain. Right?