So, if periods gross you out please don't read this! If your male, it's informative and if your female, you can relate. So, there is definitely a stigma attached to periods, there's no denying it's thought of as yukky to talk about, but when young ladies have their first period, and I definitely remember my first one, they aren't fully prepared because of the stigma attached to it, I watched a film on now TV recently called girl flu, the actors in this are amazing and I have to give it 2 thumbs up and I 100% recommend everyone should give it a watch, every female will relate to it, and I sure remember my first bleed, though I've never talked about it properly due to fear of grossing people out, but maybe I should, because I can't be the only female who's had happen to her what I have, the more we talk, the more we realise we aren't experiencing anything abnormal, and it's a natural thing that happens so why is there so much shame to it! So, every film and TV show I see, the girl has her first bleed and it's this red, normal looking blood dripping down the leg, I don't know about anyone else, but that's not what happened to me! I was a late starter at 15, in the 3rd year of high school (in the UK) and I distinctly remember it happening in my geography lesson, I felt this horrible gunge feeling in my undies, so asked to be excused, the teacher wouldn't let me go, now this is in the early 90's, from what I hear things have improved nowadays, they even have proms in the UK now, we used to have a disco with the PE teacher DJing playing 'come on Eileen' and MARRS 'pump up the volume' on repeat, nowt as fancy as a prom! Just for the sake of saying, I didn't do a Carrie at any of the school discos! It all seems quite old fashioned compared to now, but it would be interesting to hear stories around the world, speaking of world, there's 15 year old me in geography, learning about different types of soil, feeling really uncomfortable. I ask around if any of my friends have a tissue, and, as I write this, thinking of how to describe what I did, which is very embarrassing and cringe worthy, well here it goes, I needed to see what this gungy, watery gloopy substance was in my downstairs area, see what a stigma there is how I wrote that! Out comes this brown, earthy smelling substance, with a tinge of red like something out of a tub of 90's nickelodeon gak! I ask to be excused for a 2nd time, because, guess what, embarrassingly, all eyes are on me, and as I look at what's on the tissue from trying to discretely have an inspection of what is in this unwanted substance in my undergarments, how embarrassing , a few of the lads thought I was up to something else and had clocked onto what I was doing, there's me hoping no one was looking! I rushed to the toilet and got rid of as much of this stuff as I could, it was like the contents of a jelly mould was festered there in my undies, it was genuinely the most embarrassing journey to the ladies toilets I have ever had, and as I was waddling to the bathroom looking as if I'm on some stupid wacky Japanese game show, feeling like it's the end of the world and needed to either move to a different country, or change schools, which the latter for definite sounded like the better option, I made it to the girls bathroom, phew! I loaded my undies with toilet paper and then some kind soul gave me a pad, which was so kind and thoughtful. ladies, always (no pun intended ;) haha) carry extra tampons and pads to give to another girl in the toilets, it's always great to be that girl and I'll never forget her doing that, so very kind, and needed, so I've always, oh dear pardon the pun, 藍 done that since!
So, again, in movies and TV, the girl has somehow gotten a perfectly timed menstrual cycle right from the off, the lucky lass, that doesn't happen at all, and I'm sure a lot of females agree reading this. I had a irregular first year with several months of this horrible brown mud, or occasionally jelly like substance. I started on the pill in my late teenage years, and not because of any sexual activity, I was also a late starter at that too, very late starter at 30, yes, 30! So, if your reading this and are still a virgin in your 20's, keep patient, it'll happen when it's the right time! So, going back to periods, when they did get regular in a cycle, they were heavy and lasting for 2 weeks, and of course, I was anaemic, hence, the pill was great for having a normal amount of bleeding, 2 weeks was exhausting! I think I must of kept Always, Bodyform and other brands in business with the amount of pads I used, I tried tampons and failed, they weren't for me, and I noticed in school, the girls all took that as an opportunity to bully me, because pads were considered dirty on their own and just a back up for the tampon, there was this attitude of real grown up girls wear tampons and if they only wear pads, they are dirty and not as feminine, women like Madonna, Kylie and other female icons used tampons (I can't actually prove that, but that was the presumption because of the concerts they did, what if they were on the blob, they must be using a tampon in that costume!) I can genuinely assure you that was the attitude, how daft is that to make someone feel ostracised over! I felt less than girly because I couldn't fit a tampon, my mother would convince me not to worry, but when you are a teenager trying to fit in, no matter what your parents say you try your best to be as cool as the others, and I managed 100% of the time to fail miserably at that! Looking back now, I did notice there was a shame when you were seen to be having a period, yet all the girls had them too, so why they would make me feel different and excluded seems now very ridiculous, they must of had something they were not so confident about within themselves, so to take it out on the nerdy, uncool girl would make them feel better about themselves, quite a strange way to go about life, but that's bullies for you!
I remember being 10 in primary school and being told one day that we had a special lesson just for the girls in our year and not to tell the boys, of course one of the girls blabbed and the boys were acting up wanting to be in on it, would of been better not to leave such an air of mystery about this secret lesson methinks! So, we were all piled into the TV room, and the teacher put a VCR on, which showed cartoon educational videos of periods and sex education and what happens to boys and girls at puberty, there was even a married cartoon couple having some rumpy pumpy on it, they were under a blanket but they looked happy enough, then it showed little tadpoles and something from a little red dot growing into a big red dot then gradually into a baby, I've never found these things any help in the way of them doing nothing but making the whole thing rather horrifying in the way of it all being the negative stuff!
It wasn't until my 30's that I discovered cloth pads, I didn't even know they were a thing! I was researching how to save money on the extreme amount of pads I was still buying, imagining that I'd more than likely filled a whole landfill with the amount I'd used! There was, and still is, a misconception with cloth pads that they are dirty, I can genuinely say it isn't the case hand on heart. What is more dirty than having something that is full of chemicals, plastic and bleach right next to one of the most sensitive areas of your body? Plus, the manufactured ones, which we are lead to believe we have to buy, are designed to be changed every 10 minutes due to the design of the waste spreading wider than it naturally would, therefore making the pad look full, plus they aren't very good for you in the way that the plastic makes your vagina sweat, causing rather an unpleasant smell, which, is caused by the chemicals in the pads too, this is very unnatural and rather scary we have got accustomed to using something which is dangerous to us! The misconception of wearing cloth pads is that you are wearing something that has had blood on it and then it's thought of as forever tainted, now think back to when terry cloth was common for nappies, mums saved money using them and granted they washed them properly, and cared for babies bum properly, not much could go wrong, same with cloth pads! I'll write a blog on how to wash them properly, they are lovely and gentle to wear, much more comfortable and the waste blood doesn't spread as much as with the mass produced ones in the shops, plus, you know exactly what you have washed them with and will be healthier with more Comfortable monthlies! Plus you will save hundreds, even thousands over a life time, and also little to no landfill, pads take over 200 years to decompose so you will be doing your bit for the environment! Please comment below if you want my advice on anything and I'd be interested to hear others points of view, and break the stigma of periods, feel free to ask my advice should you not have anyone you can talk to about periods, there's no judgement here and it's always helpful to speak to someone impartial, thanks for reading!
So, again, in movies and TV, the girl has somehow gotten a perfectly timed menstrual cycle right from the off, the lucky lass, that doesn't happen at all, and I'm sure a lot of females agree reading this. I had a irregular first year with several months of this horrible brown mud, or occasionally jelly like substance. I started on the pill in my late teenage years, and not because of any sexual activity, I was also a late starter at that too, very late starter at 30, yes, 30! So, if your reading this and are still a virgin in your 20's, keep patient, it'll happen when it's the right time! So, going back to periods, when they did get regular in a cycle, they were heavy and lasting for 2 weeks, and of course, I was anaemic, hence, the pill was great for having a normal amount of bleeding, 2 weeks was exhausting! I think I must of kept Always, Bodyform and other brands in business with the amount of pads I used, I tried tampons and failed, they weren't for me, and I noticed in school, the girls all took that as an opportunity to bully me, because pads were considered dirty on their own and just a back up for the tampon, there was this attitude of real grown up girls wear tampons and if they only wear pads, they are dirty and not as feminine, women like Madonna, Kylie and other female icons used tampons (I can't actually prove that, but that was the presumption because of the concerts they did, what if they were on the blob, they must be using a tampon in that costume!) I can genuinely assure you that was the attitude, how daft is that to make someone feel ostracised over! I felt less than girly because I couldn't fit a tampon, my mother would convince me not to worry, but when you are a teenager trying to fit in, no matter what your parents say you try your best to be as cool as the others, and I managed 100% of the time to fail miserably at that! Looking back now, I did notice there was a shame when you were seen to be having a period, yet all the girls had them too, so why they would make me feel different and excluded seems now very ridiculous, they must of had something they were not so confident about within themselves, so to take it out on the nerdy, uncool girl would make them feel better about themselves, quite a strange way to go about life, but that's bullies for you!
I remember being 10 in primary school and being told one day that we had a special lesson just for the girls in our year and not to tell the boys, of course one of the girls blabbed and the boys were acting up wanting to be in on it, would of been better not to leave such an air of mystery about this secret lesson methinks! So, we were all piled into the TV room, and the teacher put a VCR on, which showed cartoon educational videos of periods and sex education and what happens to boys and girls at puberty, there was even a married cartoon couple having some rumpy pumpy on it, they were under a blanket but they looked happy enough, then it showed little tadpoles and something from a little red dot growing into a big red dot then gradually into a baby, I've never found these things any help in the way of them doing nothing but making the whole thing rather horrifying in the way of it all being the negative stuff!
It wasn't until my 30's that I discovered cloth pads, I didn't even know they were a thing! I was researching how to save money on the extreme amount of pads I was still buying, imagining that I'd more than likely filled a whole landfill with the amount I'd used! There was, and still is, a misconception with cloth pads that they are dirty, I can genuinely say it isn't the case hand on heart. What is more dirty than having something that is full of chemicals, plastic and bleach right next to one of the most sensitive areas of your body? Plus, the manufactured ones, which we are lead to believe we have to buy, are designed to be changed every 10 minutes due to the design of the waste spreading wider than it naturally would, therefore making the pad look full, plus they aren't very good for you in the way that the plastic makes your vagina sweat, causing rather an unpleasant smell, which, is caused by the chemicals in the pads too, this is very unnatural and rather scary we have got accustomed to using something which is dangerous to us! The misconception of wearing cloth pads is that you are wearing something that has had blood on it and then it's thought of as forever tainted, now think back to when terry cloth was common for nappies, mums saved money using them and granted they washed them properly, and cared for babies bum properly, not much could go wrong, same with cloth pads! I'll write a blog on how to wash them properly, they are lovely and gentle to wear, much more comfortable and the waste blood doesn't spread as much as with the mass produced ones in the shops, plus, you know exactly what you have washed them with and will be healthier with more Comfortable monthlies! Plus you will save hundreds, even thousands over a life time, and also little to no landfill, pads take over 200 years to decompose so you will be doing your bit for the environment! Please comment below if you want my advice on anything and I'd be interested to hear others points of view, and break the stigma of periods, feel free to ask my advice should you not have anyone you can talk to about periods, there's no judgement here and it's always helpful to speak to someone impartial, thanks for reading!
Comments
Post a Comment