Article by Janie Kelly
Imagine you’re 12 years-old. You’re a normal kid. It’s the summertime, and you’re at camp, one of your favorite places on earth.
Right in the middle of a kickball game one day, you double over in pain. A sharp, dull ache surprises you. It doesn’t feel like anything you’ve ever felt before. It’s not a stomach ache. It’s something else. Something different.
You spend all week feeling like crap (plus other things.) You know something is wrong, or at least different, but you’re too embarrassed to say anything.
That was me, just a kid, too humiliated and mortified to explain to my counselor, or my friend, or even a nurse — I’ve probably started my period for the first time. My first period.
Looking back, I wonder: Why didn’t I just go see the nurse? What was wrong with me?
Because I was totally humiliated. I felt like an alien. I felt if I had said something, the entire camp would have been abuzz with whispers about me and my gross visitor. Plus, I was really trying my best to impress this kid named Cody. And I was really rocking that Speedo one piece.
My second period came during a dance recital. Dance recitals are all-day, sometimes all-weekend, events. My mom bought me some tampons to help me feel more comfortable in my costumes.
I thought, “OK, cool.” I remembered my 6th grade teacher telling us during a “birds and the bees” discussion that tampons were great and you couldn’t even feel them.
But something HAD to be wrong, because I felt it that day. With every leap and every turn — I thought, “this is the worst, I’m never wearing one of these again.”
Turns out, I’d left the applicator “up there.” All. Day. Can you imagine?
Another incident in 7th grade left me with no choice but to wear a sweater wrapped around my waist all day. I stood up from school lunch and a horrible stripe of *red* marked across the white bench we were sitting on.
“It’s pizza sauce,” I told my friend.
Growing up and getting used to this monthly horror involved one nightmarish humiliation after another. I was consistently embarrassed about it, and to this day, I STILL am.
But why do we feel like this? Humiliated, embarrassed, gross. Even as adults.
Every woman — in the world — barring health conditions has experienced a period. But we are mortified by the thought of it, and the word.
Heck — I can barely even type the word *period* without cringing. Let alone speak it. Yikes.
Tampon companies have even designed special packaging to make feminine products look like pieces of candy — to spare us the embarrassment of being seen with a Tampon in hand.
Having a period once a month is no walk in the park. It’s difficult to deal with, and it makes us moody, nauseous and achy.
We could stand to have a little more empathy and a little less disgust. After all, we’re human beings. Having a period is a sign of health — we shouldn’t feel badly about that. We should feel good.
And I don’t know about you — but I’d want my daughter to feel comfortable enough to visit the camp nurse if something feels weird. I’d want her to feel unembarrassed, unashamed and accepting that it’s just a part of life.
Source: here.
