just to illustrate what we go through when people say "just eat less to control your PCOS" (tw: ED, fertility)

i got diagnosed in my early teens and i only got the following advice: eat less and move more, then your symptoms will go away. no advice on how to start, nothing.

for years i tried to do so with no results. went to the gym, tried to make healthy choices, reduce the amount of junk i ate, yet it did absolutely nothing. at 20 i weighed 103kg/227lbs with only 165cm/5'5 in height.

i had constant back and joint pain, i was fatigued no matter how much i rested, my sleep schedule was total ass, i had bad hirsutism, went months without periods and when i had them they were crippling, and i was hungry 24/7. my own family treated me like an inconvenience and thought i was lazy and gluttonous, literal strangers were rude to me.

all of that led me to develop an ED at 23 and that was the only time i was skinny in my entire life. i was starving myself with only 0-1000 calories daily, 20k steps a day, strength training, OMAD, and water fasting days. i weighed everything in grams, even the freaking spices i put in my food and obviously cooking oil and liquid calories, yes, even the 5 calories from diet coke.

i ate whole foods and low carb, cut out sugar and sweets completely, and yet i plateaued at 57kg/125lbs, so with a bmi of 20,9 which was still normal. i did this for an entire year until it broke me because i was so hungry and nauseous ALL THE TIME and when i consumed 1400 calories a day, which was my calculated BASAL METABOLIC RATE, i immediately went up to a bmi of ~24 (67kg/147lbs), so at the cusp of being overweight. this shouldn't have happened and the only reason it did is because of my shitty fucking PCOS. for anyone who doesn't know, the BMR is the amount of calories your body uses just to stay alive if you lie down in bed and don't move a single muscle.

the only things that improved were the frequency of my periods and my sleep but the latter resulted from me going to sleep early because it helped me starve myself better. while you sleep you don't feel hunger. i was still fatigued during the day but my ED pushed me to still do my steps and workouts. my hirsutism didn't change at all.

i went through all of that just to still look normal and i was thinking "this is so unfair. why do i have to do such unsustainable things just to look like a naturally skinny person?". like you can't tell me what i did was in any way healthy. i know for a fact that normal people don't have to starve themselves to that degree just to have a normal weight.

yet stupid, useless doctors who should know better just tell you to "eat less and move more". where i live, prescribing metformin or GLP-1s is still not the standard. doctors refuse to prescribe anything but fucking birth control which can kill you if you develop a blood clot. i took BC for a while (without estrogen) and it only made me gain more through water weight and did nothing for my other symptoms.

not to mention my hirsutism. despite getting over 30 laser sessions at different salons it still grew back and i had to pay out of pocket. then i've heard that electrolysis is a lot more effective but now i can't afford it anymore and i wax my face now. the rest of the hair on my body i just leave as it is and just cover it up all the time. i feel like i will never be able to wear nice clothes or bikinis without looking like an ogre. why can't we get permanent hair removal covered by insurance, it's literally gender affirming care? gender affirmation is so important for one's mental health, yet nobody gives a shit. no, i don't want fucking psychotherapy to accept that i'm hairier than others, i WANT THE HAIR GONE. I DON'T WANT A FUCKING BEARD AND THICK HAIR ALL OVER MY BODY LIKE A MAN.

and here is the most infuriating part about all this, at least for me personally. i gave birth 6 months ago and i struggled so much with my milk supply. i nursed on demand and pumped while my son was sleeping, drank 3l of water a day, took vitamins, nursing tea etc. after weeks and weeks i finally established a supply that was almost enough so my son didn't need to drink formula so frequently.

then around the 4 month mark i experienced a rapid drop in my supply and no matter what i tried, it just got less and less. i got my testosterone checked and would you look at that, it's at 4,01 nanograms/ml. a normal range for a woman is 0,06-1,03. i have 4 times the maximum amount of testosterone in my body than a woman without PCOS, in fact i have the average amount for a guy. the prolactin from nursing suppressed the estrogen in my body which then created another hormonal imbalance. the testosterone is now suppressing the prolactin and the estrogen and my milk supply is almost dried up. if it weren't for formula, my baby would have starved because my stupid body is too useless to provide the food.

I HATE THIS SHITTY DISORDER AND I HATE THAT NO ONE IS HELPING ME WITH THIS. IT'S MAKING MY LIFE 10 TIMES HARDER THAN IT NEEDS TO BE. I DON'T WANNA STARVE JUST TO LOOK NORMAL. I DON'T WANT TO HIDE MY BODY ALL THE TIME. I DON'T WANT TO DEPRIVE MY SON OF BREASTMILK. I DON'T WANNA BE TREATED LIKE SHIT BY STRANGERS. I DON'T WANNA BE TIRED AND HUNGRY ALL THE TIME.

WHY CAN'T I JUST BE NORMAL??????