Is this you?

We all know google isn’t a doctor.

But at 2am, that tragic place where time slips into the never-ending, and every worry you’ve ever had gathers at the end of the bed, rubbing their hands together. Feeding off your awakeness you open it anyway.

The phone you told your nutritionist you don’t keep by the bed, glows up your face and the room like an eerie blue portal.

“Why are my period cramps waking me at 2am?”

Instantly, a thousand answers rush in.
HORMONE IMBALANCE, they scream.
NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP, they cry.
BUY THIS SUPPLEMENT NOW!!!

You drop your phone on your face. Swear. Now your nose hurts too.

Your periods wake you just enough to keep you from rest, but not enough to make you get up for the pain relief in the bathroom. It’s warm. You don’t want to wake the dog or walk past the worries.

But the pain gnaws at your insides scraping, twisting. You curl up tighter, searching for that sweet spot of relief that never really comes.

It builds again, slow and deliberate, until it’s too loud to ignore. You roll onto your belly — nope, not helping. You toss and turn, trying to will it away, until eventually you fling the covers back and stumble towards the bathroom, stubbing your toe on the chest of drawers.

Blinding yourself with the bathroom light, the rising and moving, it’s screaming at you now. Oh God, I think I might throw up. A cold sweat creeps up your chest, into your hairline, and a drop runs down between your boobs.

You grab the sink to steady yourself and sit on the edge of the bath.

You sit on the edge of the bath at 3am, one arm wrapped around your middle. A tear escapes your eyeball and races down your cheek, lands on your skin, and you think surely to fuck this can’t be forever?

The unfairness, the relentlessness, the bitter anger at every appointment where you were told it’s “normal.”

You can’t keep doing this.
You can’t.

The panic calls the worries back in.
What’s wrong with me? Why does this hurt so much? Why won’t anyone listen? I hate it, I hate it, I HATE IT!

You swallow the painkillers, tears gathering pace until they turn into a cascade and full, gut-wrenching sobs.

More tears that gather pace and cascade into full gut wrenching sobs and the door nudges open, a four legged friend pads in and looks as you, nudges their head into your hand and catches tears on their nose.

You’ve got work in the morning. That big presentation. You need to be sharp, confident, unshakable.

Instead, it’s 3.45am, and you’re on the bathroom floor, crying with your dog, exhausted and hopeless.

The pain still hums. You know you won’t sleep, but you haul yourself back to bed anyway. Crawl under the covers, curl up with the pillow pressed into your belly.

You reach for your phone again. Determined. This time, you won’t forget.
You won’t brush it off when morning comes and it feels like it was all a fever dream.

Something needs to change.
Something has to give.
You can’t live like this anymore.

The glow hits your face once more.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Into Google.

Dear Gemma,

I am reaching out in desperation of some help…

I wake up in the morning and find you have booked a Fanny Admin appointment at 4.30am.

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being awake at 2am, hunched over your phone, searching for answers your GP couldn’t give you.
I wrote this for the woman in that moment tired, hurting, and ready to believe herself again.

If this feels familiar, please know it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Pain isn’t something you have to push through it’s something you can understand and change.

That’s what my Fanny Admin consultations are for: turning those 2am Google spirals into daylight clarity. Book here