I have often asked myself if periods are more than just the monthly flow of blood from a person’s body. And each time I find myself with the same answer.
Periods are indeed directly linked to a person’s confidence and mental health. I think when I got my period for the first time, I discovered self-loathing. When you are told that something that comes out of you is unclean, impure, disgusting and must not be seen by anyone. It surely shakes you up. You begin to like your body less. As if somehow, once this blood lines the insides of your panty, you aren’t a child anymore. It is an imposed maturity.
No one talks about what you are going through. Everyone tells you that you are overreacting, you are crying too much and whining a lot. They tell you that you should wrap up your stained sanitary pad neatly into a newspaper and put it into a black polythene, never to be seen by anyone else. You begin to think twice before wearing white pants, what if the pad can’t withhold the strength of my uterus? What if the blood flows onto my pant and everyone can see it? You begin to think that your pain is invalid, and you are just crying for attention. You ask your friends if your backside is clean every time you get up from your chair. You dream of giving a powerful presentation in front of a large audience but when you turn around, there’s blood on your pants, suddenly the audience is snickering, and your dream becomes a nightmare. Your confidence takes a major blow.
You wonder if it must be this way though. You wonder how you would have turned out if you had been told that you are worth so much more than your body, and if you were told that the blood that flows out of you is nothing to be ashamed of. If you were told that you could be stained and confident. If you were told that period cramps are truly the worst, and if you can pull through them, you can pull through anything.
Even as I write about this, my hands quiver and my eyes become moist as I regret having hated my body so much. I regret letting the ten-year old me feel lost, weak, and afraid. And if there is even a remote chance that I could stop one more child from feeling the way I did when I first got my period, I would put my heart and soul into doing so.
-Himanshi Gupta
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