Periodic Bitch

A memoir of menstruation, madness and monsters.

Every twenty-nine days, Emma Hardy is an absolute mess. She is irritable, depressed, angry, weepy, out of control. She lays in bed, stares at the walls for hours. Then it passes, and she forgets about it. When a doctor diagnoses her with PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, she begins to question when a mood is just a mood, and when a mood becomes an illness.

Searching for truth between the myths and taboos that surround menstruation, Hardy stumbles across crime scenes, feminist horrors and the history of women who have been institutionalised for hysterical illnesses.

Unwaveringly honest, perspicacious, brilliant and endearing, Periodic Bitch offers a new understanding of our beliefs about illness and the stories we tell, and announces Hardy as a profoundly talented new voice.

'A beautiful literary memoir that is part detective story, part love story ... For those with PMDD, Periodic Bitch will be transformative—but all readers will gasp and admire how Emma Hardy captures the moment-by-moment experience of being alive.' Jessica Stanley, author of Consider Yourself Kissed

'Periodic Bitch is much more than a medical memoir, it is an unflinching exploration of what it means to be human. ... I learnt a great deal from this book—as a health professional, as a woman, but most of all as a human being trying to create a pocket of space for myself in the world.' Melanie Cheng, author of The Burrow