The Day I Became A 'Real Woman'

Periods.

Sorry to be so frank, well in actuality I'm not sorry at all, because that's what periods are like, a sudden unexpected shock (unless you're lucky and regular as clockwork) and almost always relatively unpleasant.

This is the story of my first period.

I always thought I'd get my first period at home, with my mum there to run and get me some supplies in that emergency situation, or at school, where I could be supplied with them at the office and/or my mum could come and collect me.

I was very, very wrong.

As per usual with my history of inexplicably bad timing, I got my period at one of the worst possible times to get it, apart from perhaps just before sex (though in honesty, periods are a blessing in disguise if you want to get out of sex because some people actually don't take 'No I don't want to' as seriously as 'Oh well i'd love your peen but i'm bleeding profusely and you might get some on, around or indeed inside you.').

Just for some back story to this situation here, I don't have a close relationship with my father, we are very far apart as people, and he's a very overly masculine man with a penchant for thinking vaginas are for sex (but not mine, obviously) and that blood that comes out of them are not his business nor does he want to know about it. He's very awkward at dealing with problems I might be having, emotionally, physically or otherwise, he's just a very masculine man not equipped to deal with having a child, which really he probably should of thought of before he went ahead and made one, but I digress.)

I see my dad at most, once a year, if that. A few years ago, when I was 15, I went to visit him and his then girlfriend. The day continued as normal and everything was as ordinary as is possible with him around. The evening rolls on through and I get into bed, as I'm just nodding off I'm getting a slight twinge of homesickness that happens every time I visit my dad (mainly because he usually lives at least 3 hours train journey away) and I try to sleep it off, however this is rudely interrupted as I feel a pain that is both dull and sharp at the same time, it comes from my abdomen but for some reason I assume it is just really, really, really bad gas. It is not. The pain that is now ripping through my uterus is so intensely painful that I begin to literally weep. I don't know what's wrong with me and I'm scared and tired, the pain combined with the sheer tiredness caused by train travel and early mornings actually causes me to hallucinate slightly, as i'm nodding off the dreams sort of merge into reality and I get very confused, angry and scared. Eventually I get so tired I just pass out.

When I wake up I feel something is very wrong, the pain is gone but I feel strange. Warm. Too warm. I feel damp, and there is a scared moment when I fear that at age 15, I have wet the bed. To my horror, I peel back the bedsheets to reveal the most blood I have ever seen come out of me. There is a huge puddle where I was lying (luckily it was a camp bed and so cheap to replace) and my pyjamas are soaked through front and back, my underwear is beyond washing and everything is a deep, intimidating red. I am very aware that my body has betrayed me in some way. Initially I thought I may have had some sort of internal bleeding, it is only when I piece together the previous night's pain combined with the puddle of blood staring up at me that I realise what has happened.

I am stuck in a small apartment in Bournemouth, soaked in blood with my overly masculine father for assistance. This had not happened to me before and I was scared and embarrassed. I had made such a mess in the night there was no way of hiding it. My hands shook for half the day even after it was all sorted out. I was a wreck.

I change my pyjamas and pants for an spare set and ran, a hand cupping my vagina, to the bathroom. Upon arrival I assessed the damage. It was official. It had happened, and it had happened here and now of all the times it could have happened. I stuff as much tissue as I can fit into my underwear, not sure if this mornings puddle was the worst of what my body had to offer, or just a taste of what was to come.

I shuffle awkwardly out of the bathroom after endlessly washing my hands of the mess. I sit... awkwardly and the tissue, already covered in blood pushes up against me as an extremely uncomfortable reminder of exactly what was going on right now, and the fact that I couldn't do anything to delay it. My dad looks at me and it becomes very apparent he knows something is wrong because all the colour has drained from my face (most likely because any blood circulating my head exited via my vaginal opening that morning) as I sit and eat cereal, my hands shaking so much the milk is dripping everywhere. I try and figure out how I am going to deal with this without telling him what is happening. He keeps asking what is wrong, and I won't tell him. I keep saying "Can we go to the shops after this?" to which he says yes and keeps asking yet again what is the matter. He goes outside and calls my mum, as though she would somehow know what was happening. As he does I say to his girlfriend "This couldn't have happened at a worse time." and try to hint the word period without actually using it, as though saying it might suddenly cause it to erupt once more from my uterus. She asks me what I mean and I have no choice but to utter the words "I just got my period. I haven't had it before."

Immediately she understands the issue and has to relay it to my panicking dad outside, my mother overhears this conversation on the phone and feels intense pain for me, whilst also finding it slightly funny that the odds were so slim and yet it still happened. His girlfriend hands me a small wad of sanitary towels and I quickly apply them as soon as possible. Following this we go out to the shop and I hobble behind the two of them, attempting to speed up the pace but scared it may make me bleed faster. I spend every waking minute of the next week in the toilet. If we go out anywhere it must be near a bathroom, and we can't be out long for my period pains hurt so much the first time that I was nearly sick. I spent most of my time sitting around, sitting on the toilet attempting to push out a healthy turd (impossible when I'm on my period, the act of farting alone is so painful that it's better just to never eat or drink anything, just to reduce the chances of it happening).

Safe to say it was not the best week of my life.

Add to it the fact that my dad kept mentioning it and telling me I was a 'real woman' whatever that meant and how he was proud... as though I had somehow done him a service as a daughter by proving myself able to procreate, as though the sheer amount of blood I had produced seemed to him to show my strength, as though strength can be measured in menstrual blood loss... it was a difficult time for me.

To this day whenever a period rolls around, even if it is not as intense, or I am expecting it, I am still filled with the utmost dread and disgust, most likely because that first period has scarred me forever, which means I will now associate any period not only with crippling pain but crippling embarrassment.

On the plus side, I am a real woman now.