I remember the first time I got my period—July 23,1996. It had some seriously unfortunate timing because it was summer vacation and I was supposed to go out to a community swimming pool that day. I wasn’t sure how I would get out of the swimming without actually talking about my situation; and I knew your period wasn’t something that people talked about. I mean, I was pretty sure it wasn’t. I had never heard my mom talk about it. I was the first girl in my group to have gotten my period, so my friends had never talked about it. I had a brother so he definitely wasn’t talking about it.
When my mom called from work that day and I told her, her voice beamed with pride. When I shared my dilemma, she totally understood the need for secrecy. I think that was my first confirmation that periods really are something you shouldn’t be talking about.
So my mom and I came up with a plan to discreetly and covertly cancel my swimming pool plans. I walked to the pharmacy up the street and got the “teen” sized pads my mom had advised me to purchase, “They’re the ones for girls your age”, she said. I looked down sheepishly when paying for them. I hurled them into the plastic bag and wrapped the bag around the pads tightly so no part of the packaging was visible. I walked back home with the bag under my arm, avoiding the gaze of everyone who passed me—they couldn’t know my secret.
This pattern of secrecy repeated itself over and over, much to my detriment. The reality is, my periods have always been super heavy. I needed overnight-super-long sized maxipads, not the tiny, dainty teen sized ones. Knowing so little about menstruation, I was sure something was wrong with me. I was even younger than a teenager and even the teen size wasn’t big enough for me—I must be an anomaly. I bled through my clothes at school almost every cycle; a very embarrassing experience for a 7th grader. I had to skip my swimming lessons regularly, because I wasn’t allowed to use a tampon. But I never explained why I had to miss them; I usually feigned some type of vague illness. My dad would huff about it, still not understanding what was wrong with me.
It strikes me as so odd now. I mean I talk about periods every day with my clients. Let’s get real, most people with uteruses bleed. Mostly monthly. On the regular. For the better part of their lives. So why don’t we speak openly about this? Why is this so taboo? What do we do to our young girls by treating their period like a dirty little secret?
The other day as I was feeling my menstrual cramps hard, I lay on the floor in a tired heap. My parents were over watching my daughter and my dad asked, puzzled, “Why are you so tired today?”
I turned to him and I said, for the first time in my life, “You want to know why I’m so tired today? Because I’m on my period, that’s why.”
And you know what? The world didn’t end. My soul wasn’t engulfed by the shame I felt around my period. Even my dad survived, “Oh I see”, he muttered.
That stuff we’re shoving down and hiding away, the stuff that’s part of our body’s makeup, our nature given cycles? It’s okay to talk about it sweet ones, it really is.
It is my sincere hope that we all talk about it a little more freely, that we all get more comfortable with challenging the notion that menstrual cycles need to be endured privately, that women shouldn’t have to miss work because of their menses, that women should be understanding and kind every single day of the month.
Leave a Reply