Your first period...?

Absolutely lass

It was a week after my 11th birthday, and I was going ice skating with friends. I was in my parents' en suite and called my mum in, who made sure I knew what it was and gave me a pack of sanitary towels. I thought I was very grown up and remember whispering about it with my best friend on the ice rink later.

I've reported it too.

It is either genuinely wildly transphobic (mocking the miniscule number of trans women who try to fake a period, who frankly deserve sympathy not mockery) or it is to stir up trouble

Ive reported your post jolly

I cant figure out who you are taking the piss out of but its not very pleasant

Mine was much the same as yours OP, except I yelled for my (younger) sister and she went and fetched mum.

She appeared flustered, then gave me a pack of Dr White pads; and neither of us ever ever mentioned it, ever, again.

LightofaSilveryMoon Are you me?

All my friends started before me so i knew the ins n outs but hadnt experienced it myself.

I started at school and used tissue folded to stop the mess and pondered for the last 2 classes how to tell my mum.. i dont know why i was so scared to tell her..we had spoken about it. But apparently i chose the angry approach. I got home from school, got changed and launched my stained trousers by the washer and shouted "these need washing" and stormed off to my room. She came up when she saw with a cup of tea and a hot water bottle and all was discussed and well

I fainted - I did this for the next few too. Apparently the same happened to my Aunt so it may be something in the family. I was 12 when I started them. My early periods were long, painful, bloody affairs I was put on the pill to help with them. I knew what it was though so there was no fear of them as such, they were just unpleasant.

These days I have the Mirena - I still have the PMT symptoms (including the delightful loose bowels!!) but far less bleeding (sometimes none).

I must say as a teen having read 'Are you there God it's me Margaret' I was overwhelmingly relieved we didn't have to bugger around with belts and the like.

And now im bored of them...its been years!!!

Mine mostly behaved themselves and didn't give me grief, but I kind of miss them now they are gone. It's like a way of marking time has also gone.

I'm glad I was late (at 14). So knew all about it. Still sat on the stairs in tears cos of the cramps. Poor DD is only 11 - though I had already told her all about her all about it. When her her dad offered to get to get her a hot water bottle she refused and cuddled up to her dog and got the heat from her. #StaffiesRule

Avocado bathroom, not sure at first what was happening, and a mother who didn't mention it ever again... Check, check, check

SpartacusVonWaitrose

Has anyone read Artichoke Hearts, by Sita Brahmachari? It's a wonderful book, with a storyline that includes the main character getting her first period, staining a special piece of clothing. Her grandmother is a feisty left-wing feminist activist & artist. Can't recommend it enough, for adolescent girls (and boys) and for mothers!

I'm sure you mean well but this sort of seems the other extreme of saying periods are shameful and must not be talked about- it's saying they are not shameful but it takes a story book and a feisty left wing feminist activist to explain them.

LassWiADelicateAir, it's not a story book. It's a novel. It's a coming of age novel. A popular genre of children's fiction but most of the classics in it are about boys. Those that aren't don't mention periods, despite periods being a rather important feature of girls' growing up!

The period is used in a symbolic way. The grandmother doesn't explain or exploit or even know about it. The story is mostly about the main character's process of emotional separation from her parents and grandmother as she enters a new stage of development.

It's a wonderful book. I could say more but it would spoil it for potential readers.

My sister was in the bath when I went in to use the loo (sounds weird but we were an all female house with only one bathroom, so grew up not worrying about nakedness)

Anyway she saw the blood in my pants and said I should tell mum. I was to embarrassed to, so she shouted at the top of her voice I'd 'started'. My mum panicked that she had no products in for my but sister had some tampons in her bag so I used them.

Nothing traumatic but felt a bit of an anticlimax, when sister had started a couple of years previously she had been give half of boots to try and it was made a big deal of. Always felt a bit robbed not to get the same.

I was 14 and had found out about periods from girls at school. My mother never spoke of it apart from a mortifying day when she said 'are you ready, you'll be doing this soon' and threw a used sanitary towel on our coal fire. I was disgusted.
I felt tired and achey one Saturday while at home with my dad, she always met my auntie for the afternoon and brought home fish for tea. I was supposed to lay the table and butter bread. I started bleeding and laid on the bed all afternoon feeling crampy and when she got in she went crazy saying I was lazy and miserable and my poor dad had been on his own and had had to get things ready for tea. I yelled back saying 'actually if you must know I've started my periods'. She instantly changed to kind and concerned but I just turned my back on her. I felt like she wanted her moment of mothering, her rite of passage. I refused to speak about it and denied her that. I despised her.

We had "the talk" in the last year of primary school when I was 10/11. When I went home DM "Well now you know all about it, I'll put a pack of towels in your drawer, just use them when you need". No personal talk, no birds and bees, she left it all to school to teach me. The pads sat in the drawer for about another year before I started, quietly, unannounced. DM didn't do talking, but she did work for a chemist, so I never had to go and buy towels myself - she just bought me a pack every month, put them in my room.

Best think I remember about "the talk" was that it was girls only, and we came out of the session with a pink leaflet about periods. It was the end of the school day, and I left the leaflet on my desk whilst I went to get my coat and bag from the cloakroom. When I came back the boys were gathered round, looking at the leaflet; and the girls were saying "How could you, how embarrassing". I was quite blase about it, and replied "Well they'll need to know sometime if they're going to have girlfriends and wives", I didn't see menstruation as any kind of taboo despite my Mum's reticence to talk about it.

I don’t feel inclined to provide fodder for other people’s “authentic experiences” and narratives in this regard for the many lurkers this board attracts. This thread makes me uncomfortable.

I was 10 (nearly 11), but I didn’t know what it was because there was no sex Ed at my junior school and my Mum hadn’t thought she needed to tell me so early (this was in the 1970’s when it was pretty unusual for a girl to start her periods so early). I thought I’d soiled myself. Luckily I was at home and when I told my Mum she went and got some pads. No stick-on pads then - they were looped and I had to wear a belt. So uncomfortable! Stick on ones came in a few months later, thank goodness. I don’t remember much being said. I think I gradually found out what it was all about from various sources, mainly a sex Ed book a friend’s mum had bought her and then human reproduction lessons in the first year of secondary (the only sex Ed we ever had!).

I was 12, we were boating on the norfolk boards and went to visit relatives

Had one or two spots in my knickers and my mum had to get some sanitary towels from my aunt

It was all terribly exciting and every one was being very very nice to me and those few spots were all i had,

The first time....after that all hell broke loose and i was on the pill to regulate my periods by the time i was 13

And now im bored of them...its been years!!!

A girl guides camp. I was 11 and woke up one morning with blood in my pyjamas, I had to tell the guide leader, who gave me some money to buy pads from a shop.

Even though my mum had done the period talk and given me a couple of packs of pads when I started secondary, I was too embarrassed to tell her I'd started; don't think I considered how I'd get more pads once I'd finished the pack. The guide leader told my mum a couple of days later.

It was a Saturday, my mum and I were in a department store in our nearest city. I must have been 11 or 12. We both needed the toilet, so mum dragged me into the cubicle with her.

She went, then it was my turn. I stared in horror at the brown mound in my knickers. Mum sighed and said "well, you're a woman now", ( ) and disappeared off to get me some pads, leaving me sat in the cubicle waiting for her for what felt like hours.

I have never been so embarrassed in my life, and spent the rest of the afternoon with what felt like a mattress between my legs. The only other time we spoke of it again was when I wanted to use tampons, I never got on with pads.

SpartacusVonWaitrose

Has anyone read Artichoke Hearts, by Sita Brahmachari? It's a wonderful book, with a storyline that includes the main character getting her first period, staining a special piece of clothing. Her grandmother is a feisty left-wing feminist activist & artist. Can't recommend it enough, for adolescent girls (and boys) and for mothers!

I'm sure you mean well but this sort of seems the other extreme of saying periods are shameful and must not be talked about- it's saying they are not shameful but it takes a story book and a feisty left wing feminist activist to explain them.

I was 12 and staying at my grandparents house (my parents were there too). I even remember the date, 4th August! I'd been quite excitedly waiting for my period for a while. I noticed the blood when I went to the toilet and told my Mam who said "oh you poor thing" and got me a sanitary towel. She wouldn't let me have tampons as she was convinced you couldn't use them when you were still a virgin. Took me years to talk her round on that one.

Mine came at school. I knew about periods so wasn't confused but I felt sad, I felt like it meant I wasn't a little girl any more and I didn't feel ready to be 'grown up'. I went home and cried to my mother who laid me on her bed and cuddled me and told me how it doesn't change anything and that it was a good thing because it meant my body was working as it should. Made me feel so much better. She then made it into a celebration and took me shopping for some treats. When I was feeling better she talked to me about tampons and recommended that I use them and helped me understand how to use them. It's a happy memory for me because of how my lovely mother handled it.

I was 12. I had a pretty traumatic teenagehood to be perfectly honest and all i remember is about 3 days later being in the conservative club at the weekend with my mother [stepfather was an alcoholic and so weekends were always in clubs and pubs]...and being give 50p to go get a pad from the ladies.

i bought the pad from the machine on the wall. It would have been 1979/1980.

It came with a waist band, and had none of these wings we know so well [what a marvellous invention they were] - and two safety pins. I have utterly no idea what the fuck to do with it so I chucked the waistband and safety pins in the bin, and positioned the pad in my knickers and clenched my thighs together for the rest of the day.

After that I made sure I had more suitable pads bought from an actual shop - they had a strip of double sided sticky tape which apparently taped the pad to knickers in those days. They never stayed put.