Your first period...?

[LightofaSilveryMoon]

A usual Sunday morning.

But.... usually, I had a bath on a Sunday night, but that day, I really felt like having a bath in the morning,

And after running a full bath, I took my pants off and discovered a huge blob of blood in there, soaking through.

I showed my bloodied pants to my mother. She appeared flustered, then gave me a pack of Dr White pads; and neither of us ever ever mentioned it, ever, again.

Any other women's experiences of first period?

It's actually nice read about other older starters. I was 14 and later than all my friends by quite a considerable time.

I was tall but incredibly skinny, so that probably didn't help. I was also a late developer, figure wise never got decent boobs! and I felt like a freak, so I was so happy when my first period finally arrived.

Little did I know what was to come...

They can feck right off now, thank you very much!!

nice to read about

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!

Review here (sorry I don't know how to do clicky links on the app):

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/26/artichoke-hearts-sita-brahmachari-childrens-review

I was 16, nearly 17 so it was long awaited. My mum made me go to the dr when I turned 16 and I had the most excruciating lecture from him about how a period was the “weeping of a disappointed womb”. I finally started after a sleepover at a friends. Mum was out when I got home and I was asleep when she got back. She woke me up to ask why I hadn’t told her.., er I was asleep Mum! The relief of being normal wore off very quickly

I was also 14. Got mine on Xmas day. I was so relieved as I felt like such a freak late starter. It was totally untraumatic, probably because I was older so mentally more prepared.
Worry a bit about my 12 yo who is showing no signs of puberty yet and getting teased by her friends.
Had enough of the flipping things now though and keep telling DD she will get bored of it pretty quickly when they do show up

I was 12, on Christmas Eve.
No gentle start for me, I was in pain the whole day and started bleeding in the afternoon. Christmas day was horrible as it was very heavy.
Thus it continued until I was eventually put on the pill.

I was 11 and on holiday, in the summer before starting secondary school. The blood was brown so I thought I'd had an accident - washed my pants in the sink so that nobody knew. Of course I had the same problem later that day, so I told my mother, scared that there was something wrong with me, and she asked to see my pants, told me what it was and gave me some pads.

That was fine. What made it feel shameful was that she told her best friend about it in front of me and the friend's reaction was something like 'Really? My (same-age) daughter would never tell me about something like that or let me see - she's too grown-up for me to see her naked.' Not that I had been 'naked' anyway, but it made me feel as if I'd dealt with it completely wrong.

I also got told off in front of others for trying to discreetly put the (well-wrapped) used pads in the bin while we were staying with her friend. Apparently the thing to do is save them up and take them all home in your suitcase to put in your own bin. Even if your host is both female and aware that you're 11 and having your period.

I was 9, we’d just had year 4 sex education at school so I knew what was happenening.

Saw blood, told my mum, she rushed to chemist to buy me some pads and all was well.

We’ve always been quite open about periods so I knew it wasn’t something to hide or be ashamed about

I was nearly 14 and I had been checking my knickers for the best part of a year waiting for it to happen. Typically when I did get my first period it was in the middle of the night and I woke up to a scene from a horror film. My mum had already given me some pads and I knew what to do. She gave me a hug when I told her.

My step mother on the other hand was going through a really right on hippy phase and gave me a mooncup. That was excruciating! It put me off using menstrual cups for a good ten years.

FWR is not a woman only space. There are so many antagonistic posters on the board now, I no longer want to post about this kind of issue.

Mine was light and mysterious (that changed pretty quickly)

When I told Dm she said ‘are you sure it’s not ribena’!?!

It still makes me laugh. What did she think I was doing?!!

I was quite late stating mine (15) most of my friends had been having theirs for a while so I pretty much knew what to expect. All I can remember is going to the loo and seeing blood on my knickers, telling my Mum and her giving me some tampax slender for teen girls. They were a bugger to start with, soon got used to them, but quickly realised how completely ineffective they were as leaked constantly!

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.

LOL! We also did that! And I went to a girls school so we could have these conversations sitting in the classroom with no boys to take the piss or be embarrassed in front of.

I was almost fifteen when mine started so I had had my mum, my aunties, my older cousins and all my school friends recounting a wide variety of experience. I was prepared for anything!

When my first period eventually did come, it was such an anticlimax. A bit of what looked like very dark red snot maybe twice a day and all over and done with in three days. You are (I was) stupid when you are (I was) young and I felt quite cheated that I couldn't really create any drama out of it.

FWR is not a woman only space. There are so many antagonistic posters on the board now, I no longer want to post about this kind of issue.

I know what you mean. You don't want to be wank fodder for some vile lurker or to provoke a narc rage of exclusion from the MRAs.

On the other hand, though, this type of thread is at least generally left alone for women to talk to other women without supervision, accusation or interruption, so I like them.

(Hope I haven't tempted fate there.)

Oh my goodness...some guys would pay to read this thread.

Thankfully my mother was always open with me, she used to be a nurse so everything to with the body was perfectly natural. I didn't tell her, I helped myself to what I needed but she noticed and mentioned it.

It was just before I turned 11. My parents were holding this film night of old film they’d taken - on those old cameras back in the day (I sound ancient!) and I’d gone to have a bath before everyone turned up. There it was. My mum gave me a huge pad that felt like a pillow in my pants and I felt utterly self-conscious the whole evening, as if everyone would know.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!

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 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.