I can't quite recall when my first period started exactly, but my earliest memory of it is at a school camp at Lake Keepit, near Tamworth, NSW.
The year was 1986, I was 11 years old and it was probably around October or November, I remember that the weather was quite hot. I'd skinned both of my knees just a week before the camp so I had horrible scabs on my kneecaps that the flies just loved, they pestered me the whole time.
During the camp I got my period. It was dark and sticky and not too heavy, but heavy enough that I should have worn a sanitary pad. I was so embarrassed and probably quite scared, so I said nothing and just changed my underwear and stuck the dirty ones into my bag to take home. It didn't even occur to me at the time to rinse them out and when I got home my mother went through my bag to collect all my dirty laundry.
Well, dirty laundry is what she found. And she was so cross with me, she gave me a lecture about how I should always wear a pad (nobody told me!!) and I should have told my teacher that I was bleeding, she would have helped me. Of course, I hated the teacher who was supervising the trip so there was no way I was going to talk to her about it. I vaguely remember Mum telling the teacher that she had found dried blood on all of my underwear when I went back to school.
Isn't it funny how we repress alot of these memories. I still feel embarrassed when I think about it. No wonder I hated talking to my mother about anything personal, especially when it came to "women's issues". I was so mortified by it all, I was even too embarrassed to go out and get my first bra so Mum took a guess and bought one for me. This was probably just a month or so after my first period and I was so upset that I had to wear a bra when all of my friends were still flat chested and didn't begin to really develop breasts for another year or so after me.
Ugh... I think I have alot of tapping to do on this to release the shame. Perhaps this is why I have had so many problems with bleeding and pain all these years and they have only been getting worse?
I had my first period when I was on holiday with my friend and her family. My friend had already started her period so she helpfully gave me a tampon. What she didn't do was tell me exactly how to use them. Needless to say I didn't swim for the rest of the holiday!
ReplyDeleteOh no, that's terrible :-(
ReplyDeleteIsn't it funny (as in sad funny) how these things affected us all those years ago and can still affect us as adults today (they do in my case, anyway!)
I think I've been carrying alot of shame for years and it has affected my confidence. My mother wonders to this day why I always avoided talking to her about any really personal stuff - it's her motor mouth! All quite innocent but she doesn't understand how rousing on me and then telling the teacher made me scared of talking about my gynae issues and then that manifested itself into shame about my body and not feeling "womanly".