I knew the basics before I got it, but I had no clue…
* The blood wouldn’t necessarily be red. When I first got my period, I spent a few min looking at my underwear wondering how I shit myself. I didn’t know the blood could look brown, or be thick.
* That tampons weren’t a good idea yet. I was 10 or 11 when I got my first period and physically smaller than an adult woman. My first attempt at inserting a tampon was very painful and unsuccessful. I wouldn’t use them until I was around 14 or so.
* That when you use pads the blood can get on your bottom and I’d have to occasionally clean off the toilet seat after using it.
* That getting your first period DOES NOT mean you’re fully developed and fully able to bear children. I could have technically gotten pregnant at that age, but I was still a child and pregnancy would have put my life in danger because I was still physically immature.
* That it wouldn’t be regular for another few years.
* That very painful cramping is NOT NORMAL once you reach your 20s and is cause for concern.
* That the blood and tissue you pass can look chunky or stringy and not like blood from a cut.
* That stress can halt your period for months BUT
* That doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant
Feel free to add your own
Relatable
-passing blood clots is completely normal
-that your period may straight up skip a month when you first get it
-and then it’ll happen twice in the same month
-getting your period does NOT automatically make you a woman
Painful cramping isn’t normal in your 20’s? That’s a little concerning, mine have been getting exponentially worse
It is NOT normal.
I can 100% guarantee you have endometriosis, PCOS, or another hormone problem. If your doctor says it’s normal, DEMAND a second opinion.
Thinking that it’s normal is how people end up infertile or dead. It’s why so many women under 40 these days are having an almost impossible time either conceiving or preventing conception. Because no one teaches anyone that it’s the sign of trouble that can very seriously hurt you.
Anyone who has severe cramps, heavy bleeding, or irregular periods after about 19 years old should seek medical advice. None of those are normal.
If you have skin tags, a hard time losing weight, migraines related to your period, depression that is amplified when menstruating, severe mood swings, sleep disturbances that get worse with menstruation, or any other significant health problem that started with puberty and is worse when hormones are fluctuating you need to be checked.
None of the things that people relate to women on their periods is actually an example of a healthy woman. It’s an example of people who need one form of treatment or another.
Do NOT go to a general doctor. Find a women’s health center. Obgyn doctors. ASK SPECIFICALLY FOR A FEMALE DOCTOR. (Also helps with creating a demand for female doctors, win-win)
And if the doctor you do see tried to write you off as “nothing” or “its normal”? Politely insist for another doctor. People forget: you are paying them for a service. If you believe the doctor is not taking you or your problems seriously, ASK FOR ANOTHER DOCTOR. Specifically, “Do you have another doctor on staff who is more experienced with female health”. It is WELL within your right to change doctors as you see fit – you owe no loyalty to one specific doctor if they aren’t meeting your needs.
Reblogging for all my followers with vaginas. I have so many sisters and friends with vaginas and I didn’t know most of this. I turn 30 soon. You’d think I’d have pick up these bits of information over the years in conversation.
Hey!! Hey everybody with periods!!! If you have a period you should read this, because it’s helpful, and people with periods really aren’t taught enough about their own bodies.
even if u personally don’t get a period, someone u know/care abt prob does & u should pass this along
women’s health is health & we should all know these things, i feel
Tag: women’s health
why is there such a stigma against wearing pads? like why is it that people who wear tampons are seen as ‘strong’ and ‘cool’? y’all know that someone people can’t wear them bc it hurts them or that they just don’t like them? stop making it seem like people who wear pads are childish and weak compared to those who wear tampons
Ok kids buckle up because I know the answer to this question because I am a bitter, vindictive person.
So my first semester of PhD work in a musicology program involved this horrible class with a professor that wanted to suck the life out of all of his students by constantly belittling them. We had to write a short paper each week and present them conference-style and then he would tear us to shreds and do it all over again next week. The purpose of the class was supposedly to have us write papers about materials that hadn’t really been looked at by musicologists yet, and my class had music in advertisements. I was also the only woman in the class and the prof was lowkey sexist so I kept trying to do feminist topics without losing my entire will to live.
So we get to the end of the semester and I am just completely out of fucks, I have one paper left to write and I say fuck it, let’s write about pads and tampons, there must be something there, right? It turns out there IS something to be said there (and this gets back to OP’s question). Early pad and tampon commercials were very similar to each other; basically here’s a product to help you stay clean during your period. But around 1980, suddenly there’s public outcry and panic over tampons due to TSS (Toxic Shock Syndrome). At that point no one really understood how TSS worked but they knew it had to do with tampons. So women freaked out and started switching to pads instead. Now the worst offender, Rely, was taken off the market and other tampon commercials got slapped with little warning signs like “This product could cause TSS” so women bought even fewer tampons. This is when the advertising strategies for the two products changed.
Pad advertisements were now about “cleanliness” and “purity” – they knew you couldn’t get TSS from pads and they were going to emphasize that fact. You’ve got women in white dresses with long hair slowly walking through fields of flowers with pastoral-y flutes in the background. And to fight back, tampon companies take it the complete opposite direction – they ignore TSS entirely and start showing businesswomen running to catch the subway, sporty women riding bikes, basically any sort either high-powered position or active woman showed up in these commercials with contemporary pop-song type music over the top. The clear intention was “yeah we know that these could cause TSS but they’re much better for your mobility, both physically and career-wise.”
I got done giving this paper and I look up to see my four male classmates and one male professor in varying shades of pale-ness and they just all sort of looked at me for a couple minutes without knowing how to respond. It’s one of the proudest moments of my PhD career so far.
Anyway the two products have been advertised basically the same ways ever since then. Now pads are much more comfortable and discreet, and we understand how TSS works and how to avoid it, but the commercial strategies are cemented. If you want to be a strong, on-the-go woman of COURSE you’ll wear a tampon because you don’t want to be one of those sissy ladies in the pastoral field of flowers over in pad-land, do you?
This post is fascinating and entertaining.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 