Chapter 1: My first period 🩸

Some brown blood and a loud bathroom search for the mystical tampon.

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I originally got my period when I was 13. I was at a distant family friend’s house and I suddenly felt something warm in my underwear. Period havers will know the feeling of a nice unexpected surprise, followed by a cramp or two. Now, imagine not knowing what the hell that feeling was. I can’t honestly remember when my mom had talked to me about periods, but it seemed to have completely left my mind. Now, I’d like to preface that my mom made sure to talk to me about it and has always been supportive. That being said, I think anyone who starts bleeding out of nowhere, especially if they aren’t in their own house, will start to panic - no matter how often they were told about it.

"I think anyone who starts bleeding out of nowhere, especially if they aren’t in their own house, will start to panic."

So, I remember going to the bathroom, seeing the blood - which I am already not great with. Now, of course, period blood doesn’t affect me AS much, but blood in general makes me queasy. Anyway, back to the story. I’m there, blood covering my underwear - and it’s like the brownish blood that we’ve all seen, unsure of what the hell is happening and why it had to happen when I was so disconnected from somewhere I would have been more comfortable. I was not prepared, my mom hadn’t shown me how to use a tampon yet and cups weren’t mainstream (I feel so old saying that). Even if I knew how to use a tampon, I didn’t have any! Although I had family there, it’s not like I could open the door while on the toilet and scream out my cousin’s name! I would have done that at her house, but not this one. I was completely on my own for those 5-10 minutes. So, I did what anyone would do and I searched the bathroom and apparently wasn’t as quiet as I thought I was. My cousin who was with me at the party mentioned that after I left the bathroom and asked if I was ok. I didn’t find anything and ended up folding lots of toilet paper and placed it on my underwear. I was scared, nervous, and thought I had done something wrong. I told my cousin after she told me I was noisy and her eyes got so big because she hadn’t gotten her period yet either.

Luckily, my aunt is also someone I’m very open with. I talked to her a bit about it when we got back to her house and I remember her giving me a pad. To a 13 year old getting their period, the pad is like a gigantic diaper - at least this one was. It was SO uncomfortable. My body felt so weird, I couldn’t get used to it and I felt like it made so much noise when I walked. Luckily, that was it for me for a whole year. It didn’t continue another day, it was just that one amount of blood and it didn’t return until I was 14. I honestly don’t know why, but hey, I was so traumatized that I was relieved it didn’t come for another year. That’s also the year that I got mono so my body was dealing with enough.

"I wasted about 10 tampons before getting it right"

I can’t actually remember getting it at 14, it just showed up one day when I was with the same cousin again! To be fair, she, her twin, and myself grew up together and were always together as well. So, now I got my period, we were the only ones home and I had no idea what to do again except I didn’t want to use those damn diaper pads. Since I had had that first bleed unexpectedly, my aunt stocked the cabinets with tampons in case we needed them. So we pulled out the little folded instructions, that are just as terrifying as not knowing what to do, and tried to figure it out. I wasted about 10 tampons before getting it right, and you may be thinking “ok, it’s not that hard.” - yeah, now! Now that you have years of experience, it’s basically muscle memory. But the first time putting a little white, bleach-smelling stick with a cord in yourself is pretty scary, especially if BLOOD is seeping out of you. This is why I say my period started at 14, because it didn’t stop after that, unlike the year before. My first few months had a bit of pain, to the point where I would use a heated magic bag on my back and a hot water bottle on my front, have lots of Advil, and movement was quite limited. After about 3 months of having it, the more intense pain started to come forward. I’d have to stay home from school, bedridden for 7 days. In the beginning my period always lasted 7 days. Then the pain throughout the rest of the month hit and it was excruciating.

Thankfully, my mom never doubted me, never questioned my pain, my need to stay home or anything related to my period. She was there for me, and when I told her how much pain I was in, we went to our family doctor and I was prescribed a disgusting, terrible birth control - we didn’t know it was terrible then. It kind of helped the pain but then I also gained weight, as so many do, the hormones were nuts and honestly, in retrospect, it was not worth it. I want to also mention that my mom had no idea how terrible the birth control was, she’s the one who made me change it immediately when we found out and also at that time, so many around me were prescribed the same. SO HERE WE ARE.

I’m quite lucky when it comes to period experiences. With the exception of the embarrassing search for pads in someone else’s home, I was at someone’s house when I got it and was able to talk to my family about it. When I chat about first period stories to people, I hear some crazy stories. I couldn’t imagine getting my period at school or a lot younger, like so many people I know. A friend of mine got hers at the age of 10 (!!!) which is so young and so scary to think about.

If you have kids or kids in your family, the best thing you can do is educate and prepare them young. Whether they will get their period or not, educating all kids is so important. Not only will it change their experience with periods but it could help someone with their own. So many kids are embarrassed by their period because it’s not talked about. But we can change that narrative, we can normalize periods and normalize helping others when it comes to periods and period products.

Tip: Prepare a period kit for your kid and leave it in their backpack. Tampons are very intimidating so even pads and/or panty liners are a fantastic start. Do this when they’re 10, because it’s better safe than sorry. Kids deserve to know about their bodies, let’s start educating them young.

Hold old were you when you first got your period?

• 0%10
• 0%11-12
• 0%13 or older