{"data":[{"id":10,"attributes":{"title":"\"Cycles, the Sacred and the Doomed\"","slug":"article","body":"![SETMARGINS_Cycles_024.jpg](https://bi.cyclestories.co/uploads/SETMARGINS_Cycles_024_859803b910.jpg)\n\n_Morgane Billuard is a French writer, researcher and author of “Cycles: The Sacred and the Doomed\" – a book on femtech and PMDD, published at Set Margins. In a call with \"Cycle Stories\" Morgane shared her thoughts on female health, productivity and critics of her work. She also agreed to share the autofictional fragment from the book in a stories section of “Cycle Stories”. You can [get her book here](lhttps://www.setmargins.press/books/cycles-the-sacred-and-the-doomed/)._\n\nPremenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a severe, sometimes disabling extension of premenstrual syndrome that can be a combination of multiple symptoms, experienced very strongly. In a “Story Library” you can find [another story on experience with PMDD](https://cyclestories.co/stories/agnes-42)) told by Agnes.\n\n![3 (1).jpg](https://bi.cyclestories.co/uploads/3_1_349d1d115f.jpg)\n\nAlise\n\nTell me about publishing your diaries – the autobiographical part of the “Cycles” book. I loved it and I wish there'd be more, but how does it feel to you?\n\nMorgane\n\nI’m quite an open-book person, at least narrative-speaking. The topic of PMDD is so much embedded in my personal experiences and my past relationships that it would be senseless not to mention these things. As if I was ashamed! And I am not. \n\nFeelings of insecurity, pain and inadequacy were the feelings I had to fight through writing this book. And this is literally the core problem – how little space there is to acknowledge the pain and suppression of these feelings within a woman's body. \n\nAlise\n\nHow is your journey with PMDD now? Did you find better working solutions for yourself?\n\nMorgane\n\nI wrote the book at a time when I had just figured out the condition and was really suffering from it. I think awareness of the condition was already a big step, and then there are ongoing trials and errors with lifestyle or medical choices. \n\nI don’t take medications, but when I can’t sleep at night a few days before my period because of everything that’s going on, I know taking antihistamines might help. I also make sure to have a decent lifestyle and don’t stress too much (easier said than done.)\n\nCurrently I suffer from fewer symptoms of PMDD, but I would not be able to tell if I managed to diminish all the things in my lifestyle that were worsening them, or if I just came to recognize and tolerate them better.\n\nI wish I could tell you there is this medicine, but unfortunately, there are none. It is really plain what I am going to say once again – and it applies to a lot of chronic illnesses – the way you sleep, how you eat, who you surround yourself with, how much you work, how much you rest, are key factors in feeling a little bit better. \n\n![2 (1).jpg](https://bi.cyclestories.co/uploads/2_1_38a00386fe.jpg)\n\nAlise \n\nYes, I never got a better answer than this one.. Get a better working society and it will help a lot of us\n\nMorgane \n\nYeah, and how do we even change that? It is not to say we cannot, but it is true that first we have to acknowledge the systemic problems, otherwise it is just an echo-chamber of people trying to heal, ignoring the ecosystem around them that is not facilitating this.\n\nAlise\n\nWhat can we do if not heal ourselves first? \n\nMorgane\n\nWell, you do have to help yourself first. You cannot be suffering, and on top of that to be responsible for changing the medical system.\n\nWe start by seeing the pain and acknowledging the current medical and patriarchal systems, and then, once it is digested – not accepted, because we cannot accept it – we spread the word, while not exhausting ourselves and doing lots of self-care. \n\nI believe by letting people know about our pain, there is hopefully more empathy and flexibility in our friend groups, partnerships, and workplaces. And then we are stronger to tolerate what is going on and to find solutions. \n\nAgain, one thing that I really really always advocate for – you cannot do intellectual, critical or activist work if you are not already in a safe place. To even be able to have this sort of discourse, on PMDD, female health, or medical misogyny – you need to have resources. \n\n![1 (1).jpg](https://bi.cyclestories.co/uploads/1_1_fd139ef06d.jpg)\n\nAlise\n\nWhat are your relationships with productivity now?\n\nMorgane\n\nNothing against productivity, but we have to ask ourselves who we are doing it for and whether is it sustainable? If you want to sustain something long enough, you'd better have good mental health and take care of how your brain handles things. \n\nI really, really indulge more in resting and leisure now, trying not to see it as laziness and hedonism. I observe that a lot of people of our generation are looking for ways that are between extreme hustle culture or extreme nihilism, and I think there is still room for a lot of us to practice a less productivity-driven career. \n\nAlise\n\nTell me about your rest!\n\nMorgane\n\nI have what people would call a pretty healthy lifestyle. I don't go to bed late and quite normally wake up around 7 or 8. Maybe I still don’t know what’s fully resting – sometimes reading for research in my bed is resting… I wouldn’t say I’m super comfortable in completely indulging in non-productive resting, but I don’t see it as a bad thing. \n\nI am also getting better at seeing the fallacy of career and success. I totally understand people who want to make a lot of money to get themselves out of precarity, but the concept of being successful in this day and age is a foreign concept for me, I think it is old and dying. \n\nAlise\n\nWhy I’m interested in talking about rest and productivity – I had to do a lot of rest healing from the burnout, and by rest I mean doing almost nothing. I keep thinking there are lots of people in a similar situation who don't have a chance for a deep rest like that.\n\nMorgane\n\nThat is such a huge question. I really wonder how people get by struggling with any chronic illness, if on top of that they have to provide for their family, kids.. I want to believe that the more you have to face the stronger you’re built to, and perhaps you just have to pull up with it. But I’m just not sure if you truly can heal then :you keep on building layers of thickness.\n\nAlise\n\nAnd also, ideally we don’t have to strive for functioning – we can hope to feel good, right?\n\nMorgane\n\nTotally, whatever that means. I think we see it change, especially after COVID, but as you said before, still not for all. And I’m not an utopist, but I do believe it’s true that if something is not revolutionary for all, it is not really revolutionary.\n\nIt is also one of the arguments I talk about in the book – I am very interested in alternative, holistic medicine, but the problem I have with it is that it is not reimbursed by healthcare. So, to claim that such medicine is actually a way out of this situation is quite elitist – great that more privileged people can do it, but how can we make it accessible? \n\nAlise \n\nWhat are your relationships with your book now?\n\nMorgane\n\n\nThe book was published more than a year ago now, and I’m glad it happened. I’m happy it is being read and shared. I was hesitating to do it for a while because I knew it could never be inclusive enough. These days, when you publish a book that has to do with gender studies or feminism, it shouldn’t be a one-sided experience of the female body – and I know how much women at large, but also women other than white cis ones, need more and more visibility. \n\nBut I also knew I couldn’t make an embodied or personal statement for them, still, I tried my best with my resources at the time to give little bits of my part in this puzzle – and I wish there were more diverse pieces of the puzzle out there. Hopefully, as time goes by, more and more voices and perspectives on this subject can come to light, and render the plurality of female health and its experiences.\n\n![SETMARGINS_Cycles_025.jpg](https://bi.cyclestories.co/uploads/SETMARGINS_Cycles_025_6121d52318.jpg)\n","color":"#346c34","subtitle":"talk with the author","createdAt":"2025-07-04T10:51:02.203Z","updatedAt":"2025-07-31T11:52:20.594Z","publishedAt":"2025-07-04T10:51:07.573Z","author":null,"meta_description":null,"rank":0,"additional_components":[],"image":{"data":{"id":133,"attributes":{"name":"book.jpg","alternativeText":null,"caption":null,"width":1179,"height":663,"formats":{"large":{"ext":".jpg","url":"/uploads/large_book_703bd07ad9.jpg","hash":"large_book_703bd07ad9","mime":"image/jpeg","name":"large_book.jpg","path":null,"size":13.02,"width":1000,"height":562,"sizeInBytes":13024},"small":{"ext":".jpg","url":"/uploads/small_book_703bd07ad9.jpg","hash":"small_book_703bd07ad9","mime":"image/jpeg","name":"small_book.jpg","path":null,"size":4.95,"width":500,"height":281,"sizeInBytes":4945},"medium":{"ext":".jpg","url":"/uploads/medium_book_703bd07ad9.jpg","hash":"medium_book_703bd07ad9","mime":"image/jpeg","name":"medium_book.jpg","path":null,"size":8.71,"width":750,"height":422,"sizeInBytes":8708},"thumbnail":{"ext":".jpg","url":"/uploads/thumbnail_book_703bd07ad9.jpg","hash":"thumbnail_book_703bd07ad9","mime":"image/jpeg","name":"thumbnail_book.jpg","path":null,"size":1.73,"width":245,"height":138,"sizeInBytes":1732}},"hash":"book_703bd07ad9","ext":".jpg","mime":"image/jpeg","size":15.53,"url":"/uploads/book_703bd07ad9.jpg","previewUrl":null,"provider":"local","provider_metadata":null,"createdAt":"2025-07-31T11:52:17.566Z","updatedAt":"2025-07-31T11:52:17.566Z"}}}}}],"meta":{"pagination":{"page":1,"pageSize":25,"pageCount":1,"total":1}}}

"Cycles, the Sacred and the Doomed" talk with the author