Bloody Frickin’ YAY

First Period

I remember when I got my period for the first time —

and isn’t that a strange way to phrase it? “got my period” sounds like it’s a cool thing, like “got my first bike” or “got to drive a car for the first time” — but really, getting a period is not a cool/fun/desirable thing to get as far as I’m concerned

— and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day^TM that ensued.

I was 11 years old, in the sixth grade. And – luckily, I suppose – I had ‘started’ early in the morning, so it’s not something that surprised me in the middle of a math lesson or a geography report; instead, it just… blobbed(?), I guess… quite unexpectedly onto my underwear when I sat up to get out of bed in the morning.

I wasn’t terribly bothered by it.

Or… Let me rephrase:

When the initial blobbing occurred, it was something I knew enough about that it didn’t alarm me.

Like, my mom — she tried, right? (though really, she failed miserably) — to give me some sort of… I dunno, education(?)… about How Girls Become Women^TM so I’d know what to expect and supposedly be fine with the whole bleedingoutmycrotch thing. And I was. Kinda.

I mean: I was fine in that I understood the biologics of the situation.

I do NOT mean: I was fine.

Because I was BLEEDING.

Frickin’ EVERYWHERE.

And lemme tell ya: the honkin’ huge pads that were required in those days¹ were like wearing a diaper. Plus, the wetness of it. Like, smeary wetness between the diaper and the skin.

Just…

*shudder*

So yeah. It was kinda awful.

Bloody fucking awful, as a matter of fact.

I didn’t make it through the whole school day that first ‘first day’. I had already changed my pads twice by the time the lunch bell rang (and I had only taken two to school with me, so my supply was OUT) and not only was the sticky-wet discomfort an absolute horror to deal with, but also I felt like EVERYBODY KNEW.

Of course, in actuality, nobody knew.

But when you’re 11 years old and horribly discomfited, you can’t really make yourself believe that.

So I called home from the office at lunch time and asked my mom to come get me.

And…

Well, let’s just say that my mom is NOT the kind of mom who will tolerate that.

So the next day — and every period day afterward, until they stopped happening² — I was given approximately 47 pads to keep stuffed in my backpack just in case and pretty much told to Man Up about the whole Womanhood thing.

Which I DID.

I mean, what else could I do?

Besides, by the time I was 12 — just a few months after The First Day — our lives were in such disarray due to my parents’ divorce (and everything that led up to it, and everything that followed) that I was grateful for the reprieve that being at school brought me. I would never give that up just because of feminine hemorrhaging FFS.

And menstrual cramps? You know, those twist-your-insides-worse-than-dysentery and stab-you-from-the-inside-like-a-hot-poker groin pains?³

Oh hell no, I did not complain.

Man.the fuck.UP was pretty much the message I received loud and clear if I so much as winced, eh?

And you know what the weird thing was?

Well… One of the weird things. Excluding the be a man about it thing and the general weirdness of human biology thing.

The weird thing was: Somewhere along the way I had gotten the idea that getting my period would somehow make me different than I was before, but also that it would make me the same as the other girls. (Most of the girls in my class had started by the time they were 10. I was a late bloomer in my peer group.⁵)

But neither of those things were true for me.

It was rather like expecting to be admitted to a secret club…

And then finding out that the club wasn’t only NOT a secret. The club just wasn’t period.

If only the period itself just wasn’t…

Oh, wait. The period just wasn’t actually was a thing for me, wasn’t it?

~ To Be Continued ~

This post is part of my Inspirations spring-into-summer writing project. After reading about midlife period experiences from two other bloggers recently (here and here), I started thinking about my own menstruation experiences, starting with the beginning of my journey on the bumpy road to womanhood.

¹1987, baby — yee-frickin’-HA — I wasn’t allowed to use tampons until I was like 16, because good girls don’t put foreign objects in their vaginas

²Enter: PCOS

³There have actually been studies done in which men are subjected to simulated cramping (via electrodes) to see how well they can tolerate the equivalent of moderate menstrual cramps and while there is a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo involved in the Explanation of Findings, the gist of it is: men can’t handle it. So if you are a person with a penis, don’t be dick when it comes to how women feel/behave during That Time of the Month⁴ — because you have zero fucking clue, m’kay?

⁴I hate this term. Likewise, anything remotely equating to “on the rag.” And don’t ever talk to me about aunt Flo. (Nurse Flo is another matter.)

⁵It is normal for females to start menstruating anywhere between age 8 and age 15; much depends on genetics, but there are also factors like diet, stress, activity level, etc. that can have an effect. If you, dear reader, are female, and {1} you started earlier or later (which is also normal !!!!! — but if you have a female child who is outside this window, it is advisable to see a doctor), or {2} just aren’t sure where you fit in your experience, I want to assure you — YOU ARE NORMAL.

~~~~~~~~~~

Also, also: CHECK ME OUT with the numbered footnotes⁶ — woot! 😉

⁶KERPOW