Periods

Labradora

Ma explained in a religious context with some sort of little book, if I remember correctly.
I menstruated at 11 years old so no tampons but sanitary towels.
I wasn't shocked or frightened by my periods but I found the towels , should we say " unhygienic" . I was told about tampons in my teens only by my friends and I assume because I was still a virgin when I tried to insert one, clueless, I nearly fainted.
I think I always had low hormone levels for reasons I won't bore you with so I had a lifetime of 3-day light periods with very little pain.
Condolences to ladies who struggled on with heavy , painful periods.

Thanks for the well-wishing - as I was certainly one of the ones with those heavy, painful periods - for years!

That was the other aspect to periods - not just 1. What was what when they started - but 2. How things went from then onwards?

I wonder how many of us never got caught out by our own bodies after it had all started up? I spent years fearing being "caught out" and a few times my body did embarrass me with leaking and such. It certainly stopped me dressing exactly as I had decided for a few days every month - just in case of let-downs.

Add the sick leave from work and - once they got to the stage they were looking for any excuse they could to reduce our numbers in the cheapest way possible = it was unnerving to have to take the odd day off on sick leave for that reason. I figured I could keep risk of embarrassment under control - but I couldnt stop the element of often feeling ill with it. So I would land up every year with several days off work on sick leave for that reason - and worried in case they added them onto my own sick leave (ie with illness a man could have also had). I mentally divided my sick leave between a. my own and b. "female" sick leave and was ready to defend myself with stating "discrimination against women" if they counted the period sick days against me - as well as my own so to say (ie what a man would have had too). Thankfully I at least didn't have to claim "sex discrimination" against them - whew!

I really couldnt figure why VAT was put on period products (probably still is) - as the whole concept of VAT is it's not applied to necessities I thought. A noticeable amount of money was coming out of my poor single person paypacket anyway - as I had to use so much sanitary protection - and it added insult to injury knowing the Government was charging me tax on it too!

Just did quick check - and that VAT applied all the way to 1 January 2021. Thankfully it's been removed nowadays.

Oh Lordy not a clue….started 1st term of secondary school.
We’d had a talk at primary but before anything useful was disclosed they said go home and tell your mum what we’ve been talking about and she’ll tell you the rest.
No such luck; my mum was cleaning the windows and just said “oh that’s good dear”.
Thought I was dying when I started…finally blocked the loo with toilet paper and mum realised what had happened and gave me some pants with a hook and pads that attached. And a little pamphlet about reproduction.
Which is why I never ever shared anything about my personal life with my mother. And also why I got a huge shock when I had a boyfriend at 17 and we started getting physical - had no idea what was down his pants (going to an all girls grammar school didn’t help either) 🙄

I lived with my father, when my periods started (still at junior school) I had no idea what was happening, I went and told her! My poor daughter was at Scout camp when her periods started!

As an addendum to these quite sad tales I would att that at the grand old age of 52 I suddenly developed horrendous bleeding lasting two weeks, with a two week interval. I felt dreadful, but a removal of the womb lining called endometrial ablation solved all problems and I never looked back. Thank you NHS. There is no need to suffer. It was a day case procedure and painless under anaesthetic.

My lovely Mum could never talk to me about anything vaguely to do with sex. Amazing that she and Dad had my brother and me!!! Wwhhen I was about 9 or 10 she shoved a small booklet at me which was supposed to educate me about periods. Never did read it thoroughly. She did say that part of becoming an adult meant I would bleed 'down there' every four weeks. When I started (one Saturday morning), aged 11 years, she gave me that ubiquitous belt and a pad, and said I did not need to go to my normal Saturday dancing class.

I felt very modern when I said I want to go - and did so. Mum just gave me one final warning of 'not letting anyone touch me down there now'. And that was that This was early 1950's

Did not discover how wonderful tampons could be until after I was married.

With my own four daughters, all of whom were very sporty - they used tampons from day 1 and were able to continue their normal active lives. From quite young I encouraged them to explore their own bodies, and during bathtime showed how tampons expanded.

I always explained periods as the body preparing a nest for a foetus - and discarding that nest if it was not being used that month.