Yes, you read it correctly. There are no typos.

I am extremely glad I have PCOS.

First, a little background on PCOS. It is known as Polycystic Ovary Syndrome or PCOS for short. It is a hormonal disorder that can occur in women of reproductive age. It can be due to excess of male hormone in females, excess insulin or genetic carryover from parents.

It causes irregular periods, obesity, facial hair, acne, male patterned baldness and enlarged ovaries that contains small, immature follicles that surround it.

To put it in simpler words, It makes your ovaries big, with tiny structures stuck to the outside of it that can become cysts and if untreated, it leads to infertility in women, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other metabolic syndromes. The trickiest part of this illness is that it has no definite diagnosis and no cure. It is a chronic illness one has to learn to live by making lifestyle changes and medication for it just trial an error as PCOS is different for everyone.

So how did I end up with it?

Well, for the better part, hell, for my entire life, I'd always struggled with my weight. To this day I don't have a constant weight as it always constantly increased no matter what I did. Diets cleanse, gym, aerobics, swimming, badminton, I have done it all. It's not because I wanted to fit in the mold that society created for women and how they are supposed to look but because I have an enormous amount of genetic disorders in my family which started with obesity.

So, as a result, my parents were always very critical about my weight, as they lived in fear that I might also get plagued with all the disease that my family has in its history. I would get yearly blood tests to check if I showed any early symptom of any diseases but it came back normal year after year.

I was thrilled but very frustrated as I could feel there was something wrong with me but I didn't know what.

The more normal my blood report was, the madder I was. Honestly, if I had low hemoglobin, I would have been happier but nothing. My blood reported I was healthy as a horse but I felt sicker as each day passed, Sick of my weight, sick of being blamed for eating a lot, sick of the society deeming me as unfit and unhealthy.

I WAS SICK OF EVERYTHING!

One day, after getting my yet another blood report, I went to my family physician. He was like 'Everything seems fine, what's the problem?' I sighed and said my weight gain in a small voice as I was embarrassed by it. He suggested me to go for an ultrasound as PCOS was getting extremely common in women and weight gain is a symptom and cause of this disease.

I agreed halfheartedly as I hate shooting arrows in the dark but it was the best option I had.

I went home and spent the entire night before my ultrasound on the internet, trying to educate myself on PCOS. Everything that was consistent among multiple articles was its symptoms, like acne, facial hair, masculine features, irregular periods and obesity. The only one that I could correlate to myself was obesity and no other symptoms.

Hence, I concluded that I can't have PCOS and went to bed frustrated as the mystery of my weight gain yet again became a mystery.

Fast forward to the end of my ultrasound, the technician goes like 'Yeah, you have PCOS'.

My brain was like what? how? where? when? seriously? and then finally it went to feeling doomed as I knew this had no cure. I was ready to bombard her with a question but before I could she told me to see a gynecologist, handed me the report and made me leave before I was ready to.

I went to see a gynecologist and she seemed so calm that it just made me madder. I was screaming inside my head like 'Woman! I have PCOS! STOP SMILING! I AM DOOMED FOR LIFE'. I thought I would have to go through multiple rounds of hormone therapy that would fuck my body up and it would take me a year to recover and get better but she just gave me 2 oral medication to take for 3 months, scheduled a follow-up appointment and bid me adieu.

So, here I am writing this article 3 months later and funnily enough celebrating the fact that I have PCOS :)

It was extremely hard to get to this point where I was comfortable talking about it. I went through 7 stages of grief to accept that this is something I would have to live with for the rest of my life. But finally, I have an answer to my always echoing question 'What is wrong with me' which was the most comforting thing ever as I could stop blaming and demoralizing myself. And I didn't need to be helpless anymore towards my body.

As time passed, my medication worked miracles, I lost weight, my mental health became better, I felt healthier and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Gladly, I caught it early and I wouldn't need medication forever to maintain it.

The best thing this short journey has taught me is to love myself, in sickness or health. Also, I don't have to blame myself for something I couldn't control in the first place and I don't have to be ashamed about PCOS as it is naturally occurring and doesn't make me any less healthy, happy or human. Yes, it does make life a little complicated but going through the motions in life can get so boring.

You can't control everything in life, so you shouldn't blame yourself for everything as well. Love yourself unconditionally!