Your first period...?

I was on holiday, and I remember we went to Stone Henge later that day. There was no pain that first time, although in later years it would feel like being pressed against a blazing hot radiator. It was so exciting, I felt like I was floating.

I was 13, saw the blood in my knickers. Told my mum and was given a sanitary towel. That was it. A bit of a non-event really. I was expecting it to come along at some point.

I had no idea what was happening. I went to use the bathroom and there was blood! I thought I was dying. I was 9. My mom and half-sister were downstairs and I told them there was blood in my underwear. They were very scientific about it all, and it did not help me feel much better. I was completely traumatized.

A friend later lent me her copy of Dear God, It's Me Margaret. I was baffled as to why any one would want this horrible thing to happen to them. I had outgrown the book 6 months before.

I was on a school residential abroad, the teacher sent me off to the local shop to buy supplies. In schoolgirl French

Day before New Year’s Eve, I was 12, we had a friend of the family staying - a socially challenged, talkative bachelor who would have ensured that my mum was kept busy entertaining, feeding and watering him so no time to talk to her alone. I was playing with Lego, went for a wee and thought I’d shat myself - over the next 24 hrs realised where it was coming from and concluded it must be my period - spent New Year’s Eve trying to figure out my mum’s (super plus) tampons - she found a bit of wrapper on the bathroom floor and guessed, I denied all then next day was like ‘erm... about last night...’

I thought I must have cut myself. I had no idea. I hid my pants in my wardrobe because I thought my mum would be angry I’d ruined them. That night I bled over my ‘popeye’ nightie and knew I couldn’t hide that so put it right to the bottom of the wash basket and hoped my mum wouldn’t notice. I didn’t understand what was going on. I was 9.

Anyway, Mum did notice and talked to me about it. Explained all about periods quickly then presented me with ‘happy shopper’
Sanitary pads. I was mortified at the whole thing and we never discussed it again.

I have explained the facts to my daughter who has just turned 9. She told me, not long ago, that her friend has started her period and had to put a pad in her pants. She then said “and you’ll never guesss, she got another period the very next day!”. Seems that although I thought I’d given a good explanation, my dd thought a period was a one time thing!

I was 9. I was on the loo and shouted to my mum that I was sorry but I thought I'd pooped myself (pink knickers looked brown) and Mum rushed in and said 'oh dear, don't worry' then gave me a pad and some paracetamol and then I remember her saying to my dad 'see I knew the acne was early'

She was amazing though, my dad had cancer and about 2 weeks previously she'd found a breast lump so it really couldn't have come at worse time.

Mine would have been entirely undramatic (last thing at night, at home, put a pad on, went to bed) if it hadn't been for my mum.... Told her when she came to tuck me in. I don't think I've ever seen a human being move so fast. She darted to the Draw of Women's Things and then spun round yielding the largest maxi night time pad you have ever seen, was back at the bedside within millisecond waving it in my face while whisper-yelling "Put one of these on! Put one of these on!" I was like "erm... I'm sorted thanks mum"

Joking aside, it was always implicitly a shameful thing. And always just a massive inconvenience. Apart from the utter relief when it indicated I was not pregnant a couple of times it's not something I've ever felt great about. And I've been lucky in mine thus far in life, not too much pain and not too much blood but still could do without very happily.

Christmas Day when I was 12, I woke up to a funny feeling, I thought I had shit myself at first.

Now I know it was ‘old’ blood, it went bright red throughout the day, I tried to run a bath but was crippled with pain.

My little brother unlocked the bathroom from the outside after hearing me cry and saw the bloody towel on the floor. He ran downstairs and told my mother I was dying.

My mum made me use her panty liners when my free school pack ran out, and I bled everywhere for 3 days.
Maybe because it was xmas time and no shops were open.

I was 11, I'd been at secondary school for about 3 months and was struggling with the change from a small town primary school with 52 pupils total to having 32 girls in one class.

It was a Friday, I'd just gotten home and gone into the bathroom. I remember being so scared. I waited in the bathroom until my mother came home from work, wondered why I hadn't cooked the dinner and came to look for me, wooden spoon at the ready.

I thought I was dying.

She bangs in the door and wallops me, sees my bloody pants, gives me another wallop, gets a pack of Dr whites from the cupboard, tells me to put one on, slams the door and phones my grandmother to come and get me so I could spend the weekend with her.without any expla action to her or myself.

Golly, that's just given me a flash back, SpartacusV, of being in a swimming pool with my mum, and her starting her period in the water. She was a really robust woman, completely unembarrassable, but I remember the comments and states as she hurried out of the pool, and I could see in her face that she had been horribly traumatized by it. I still hate swimming pools, and feeling so vulnerable in them, and I've only just realized it totally stems from that moment.

For about 2 years, from the age of 12, I checked my pants for blood EVERY time I did a wee. Seriously, every time!

I know. I'm sure my friends and I were doing the same from when the early starter in our group had her period. I even have a vague memory of her showing us a bloodied towel.

We were camping! And it took me a day to realise what it was, similar reasons as FloralBunting.
Of course family and friends were there and of course my excited mother wasn't discreet and of course I leaked and bled through most of my packed clothes...

It has been one unending source of angst after another.
And the appropriation gives me the effing rage.

For about 2 years, from the age of 12, I checked my pants for blood EVERY time I did a wee. Seriously, every time! Then one day, while exploring a local ditch with a friend, I felt a bit strange. I ran home to the toilet, pulled down my pants, and there it was! It was very exciting! The whole thing was like a scene from an 80s teen movie.

My mother was happy for me. She gave me a hug and a box of Tampax, but offered no further assistance. I followed the directions (remember when they told you to put one leg up on the toilet?! Do they still do that?!), but struggled to get it in. So she gave me a tube of KY Jelly to lubricate the tube!

A few months later I had gone out with my dad for the day. After lunch, he inexplicably drove us back home! I could not understand why, until I went to the loo and realised the crotch and the back of my shorts were soaked in mass quantities of blood. We never spoke of it, ever.

The girls in my class discussed who had started and who hadn't and we listened avidly to the one girl who had started quite early telling us all about it.

My mother discussed it with me well before it happened.I remember my grandfather and I were going on holiday for a week together one summer and she gave me a packet of towels to take with me just in case I had my first period.

I can't remember exactly when I had my first period but it was all quite matter of fact. She supplied towels and the slimmest version of Tampax. It took me a couple of months to be comfortable with tampons but she suggested I persevered as she thought tampons were preferable to towels.

I thought I'd crapped myself. Experience and hindsight tells me it was 'old', darker blood, rather than the brighter, fresher stuff. I was visiting friends in a completely different part of the country, and I was 12, I think. I don't think I really understood what was going on, and the not-knowing-what-to-do was exacerbated by being so far from home. I just remember being in that avocado bathroom, in a house that only had one female in it, panicking about mess and smells. It was pretty humiliating.