What's the story of your first period?

[dudsville]

Ok. There's probably a weird period troll, apologies if I trigger them, but I'm drinking wine while watching feminist Netflix comedians instead of the news and I was just remined of my first period.

It was years after my parents divorced. I was on a road trip across Europe with my gipsy nomadic father and his new wife, who I did not like. We'd stopped for petrol and I'd gone to the loo. I had to ask my father to help me and he was well meaning and we managed. Once we got to the family location there was a phone and i was expected to ring my mum, which i did. I remember that conversation being a let down.

It's an important moment in a young girl/ woman's life. What are your stories?

I guess I'm interested because politics at the moment are so gendered, and I wonder if we're taught to dismiss it, like it's just another bodily function. But as a woman in her 50s, menopausal, it's had a huge and regular and impactful role in my life. Maybe it's origin story isn't phenomenal, but it's rhythm has shaped me. I'm constantly amazed that we just go on as if it weren't, regularly, happening. And I say that as someone who's been "lucky" with an easy cycle.

I was quite young, only 8, so hadn't had the conversation about periods yet. Screamed for my mum as I thought I was dying.

I have always remembered mine! I was scared of getting it for some reason (well, with GOOD reason I suppose, given how crap they are), and yet I was one of the first in my year. On my Y7 sports day. I went home for lunch and saw it, then came down and ate, without telling my mum, then went upstairs again and realised I had to tell her as I needed a sanitary towel .. and she gave me £1 for an ice cream on my way back to school (which I never bought, as I lost my appetite). I even remember what I had for lunch! Sausage butties! I also won the shot-put event that day.

So, so weird the things you remember. And I ALSO remember taking my little brother for a long walk after school so I didn't have to be in the house and potentially talk to my mum about it. We had a weirdly private relationship - still do - and the thought of her knowing what was happening to me at that exact moment horrified me.

I was 11, went to the loo, and it was there. DM had bought a pack of pads after we had the Sex Ed talk at school the previous year; so I raided my bedside drawers for a pad. I then told DM, and that was the end of the conversation, she wasn't good for those kind of discussions!

A lot of things happened when I was 13 that was one of them

These stories are interesting to me, apologies for the concerns re trolls, and maybe we should take that as a warning not to be graphic??? But the comedienne I was watching was saying, of course, if men had them we'd know all about them. Now I don't believe this is true, prostate issues and all that, but I work in a largely female environment, and I'm amazed that the impact of this isn't recognised among us. That we're just meant to quietly get on with it, as if every day is the same, when from one day in each of our lives, it changed.

I was sick several times and had an upset stomach so mum let me stay home from school (she had to work). I think I was 12?
When I realised that I had started my period, I raided the bathroom cabinet for sanitary towels, and told my mum when she got home from work.
I remember her seeming disappointed that I hadn't called her for advice or anything and had just "got on with it".

I was at school. I told my sister later that eve, who told my mum. I felt that I couldn't talk to my mum about it as she wasn't open with that sort of thing, and hasn't talked to me about it, but luckily I'd learnt at school. I remember my mum referring it as "being unwell" .

These stories are also useful from the perspective of mums, so we can prepare our daughters adequately. My little girl is nearly 9 and I want her to feel confident when it comes.

I was 11 when I started mine. We were on holiday and I sat in the livig room with my mum for ages until I plucked up the courage to tell her. We didnt have a good relationship then (or now) but thank goodness she didnt make a fuss.

There was cheering and fanfare and speeches

I was 13 and noticed blood in my knickers and felt terribly embarrassed and ashamed - not sure why. I didn’t tell anybody and managed it with toilet paper.

On around my third period my Mum noticed blood in my knickers and confronted me and I pretended it was the first time.

My mum bought me a t-shirt. That was weird.

I genuinely don’t think people should share these stories here irrespective of the OP’s intentions. These intimate images of young adolescent girls hitting puberty stacked up on a publicly visible site is fodder for so much.

Nope

I thought "Bollocks. Well, I suppose it had to start some time and I've been lucky to get away without it this long. This is going to be a pain in the arse to deal with for the next 30 odd sodding years. Judy Blume can get stuffed".
I didn't tell anyone.

Just had a thought requiring brain bleach.
JY wanks off to Judy Blume books. Betcha.
Ack.

There it was and I dealt with it. At boarding school. I was 12yo and the first in my dormitory - I was COOL for all of about 3 months until Queen Bee got hers too. They were the best 3 months of those hideous 5 years at that school.

The most JY thread I've ever seen.
Ladies I really really second people up thread I don't think you should share here. No one is 'shaming' periods or asking you to not talk about them in general. But on a thread like this I can only imagine dodgy motives.

I'll stop the thread here, If I can. While I appreciate the sharing of an important aspect of life, as I see it, there are clearly concerns and I know I just don't fully understand, but I can respect that.

Jonathan, are you the op?

We put bunting up and had a street party and a good ole knees up.

We ad nowt in. Ma med me trot 4 mile int'fuckin snow wi a 10 bob note. 4 fuckin mile, wi no shoes mind.

Got me sen back ome, t'weren't me squirt, sat on a bleedin tomato adnt I.?

The day it happened to me I'd been feeling totally miserable but hadn't recognised it as PMT. It was January and for some reason I was locked out my house. I remember running up the road to my friends house and she sorted me out with painkillers and a cuppa. Bless her! Didn't tell my mum, we werent close and she was a blabber mouth and I was very private.

My first three periods were had using loo roll and praying it wouldn’t sleep through my school skirt.

I was petrified to tell my mother. She was just awful. I wasn’t supposed to know anything about periods.

I eventually told her on my fourth by feigning ignorance and showing her my pants when I was on the loo.

She had to go and lay down with shock, paraded and would t let me out of the house to see my friend as “men would smell it and have sex with me”.

She was crazy.

Prayed, not paraded.