your first period

lindastar · Joined: 23 May 2004 Posts: 65 Location: astoria, NY

this is a good thread!

i didn't get my period until i was fifteen, and i thought i was going to be a barren pariah before that because everyone else had gotten it. i was sitting in english class and felt a gush of blood (wow, that sounds attractive) and went to the restroom and put a pantiliner on (it was all i had. after carrying a pad around for five years i think i had given up).

i had three sisters before me so i guess i just knew what to do, and i don't remember telling my mom. i'm sure she figured it out, though, when she was cramming tylenol down my throat for cramps for years to come.

ebmpire · Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 26 Location: new york

I was 15 when I got mine. Don't remember where it happened but I can be sure it was unmomentous. I do remember feeling weird that I was the only girl in highschool who didn't have it and when the other girls would be all "blah blah my period.... " I kinda just mimiced their chatter "oh yeah, i hate my PERIOD."

Whenever I got it, my thought process went like this: "Finally I will grow tits!" (In freshman year of HS I went from a 34A to a 36C.) Whoop there it is.

smudgy_cat · Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 346

I got mine in 8th grade, and I was very bitter and upset. I was annoyed that I couldn't do anything fun anymore, and that i had to wear these diapers that chafed and were icky in summer. I even calculated how much the whole period thing was going to cost me...how many packages of pads and liners multiplied by months and years. I was so upset that I had to spend all this money for something I'd bleed on and throw away.

My sister introduced me to tampons, and my mom told me that if I wanted to get sick and die, I could go ahead and use them if I wanted to. My mom didn't really tell me much, but I think it's because she didn't know much about her own body.

cyan · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 54 Location: BC

lrschic · Joined: 01 Jun 2004 Posts: 7 Location: Louisville, Kentucky

At my elementary school they had this thing were your parents could come eat lunch with you. I was in the third grade and I was super excited that my mom was coming to lunch one day. While we were in the line I was extremely giddy and felt like I had peed a little. The lunch was my favorite: chicken fingers, mashed potatoes and cheesy broccoli.
As soon as we got to the table I had horrible pains that made me double over. I burst into tears and my mother took me home 'sick.' When we got there I used the bathroom, saw blood and screamed for my mother. She came in and put a pad in some clean underwear and called the doctor. I was a grump for the rest of the day.
My mom made me watch this tape about puberty and I freaked out. I thought a period went at the end of a sentence! Plus my mom hadn't figured I'd get it so early since she got it at 18.
When we finally saw a doctor, she said it was just a yeast infection... so I was period free after that weeklong incident until 6th grade when I got it for real. I don't really remember what went on then. I'm pretty sure I was the first, but by then I was a pro.
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courgette · Joined: 24 May 2004 Posts: 11 Location: ny

I was 11 and in the 6th grade as well. I was sort of prepared for it since my sister and my mom got their periods when they were 10 and 11 too...I knew what menstruation was all about and how to use a pad, etc. I guess it made me feel special since none of my friends had theirs yet, but then I had a really hard time with it since I was a heavy bleeder and had to go to the bathroom often in school. And I couldn't wear leggings with my diaper-like pads. Yeah, I rocked the 80s leggings.

deborahthecraft · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 364 Location: California

I was 10 or 11 and I was in the bathroom peeing when it started.I screamed for Mom.(I knew about girls having periods from TV...)She walked in,started laughing and crying hystericly,handed me a pad from the closet and walked out.
That was it.
No woman talk,no sex ed, no anything.

kittyroc · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 55 Location: Bay Area

From what I can remember, I was 10 when I had my first period. I was changing when I noticed it and went to tell my mom. She didn't make a big deal about it, just gave me some pads and that was it. Very ho-hum event.

But I know when my younger cousin got her period she started screaming like she thought she was dying or something! HA! Yeah, her parents weren't very imformative about that sort of thing.[/i]

indieinkgrrl · Joined: 12 Aug 2004 Posts: 39 Location: NY

i was also 10 when i got my period for the first time. i was in 5th grade at some friday afternoon show we had every week in the auitorium and we weren't allowed to leave until the show was over. i had the worst stomach ache and had to beg the principal who guarded the door to let me leave to go to the bathroom. i realized that it was my period all alone in the school bathroom stall. a month or so before there was a mother/daughter night at the school where we watched a video with the actress who played little orphan annie on broadway (lol) and she explained what it was like to get her period. then mothers were allowed to ask questions. i never had the period talk with anyone in my family so it was lucky that i had seen that cheesy video! i was in lots of pain...i laid in my mom's bed and watched the news (it was the day of the first world trade center bombing). my mom gave me a pair of gold flower earrings that she had for years and let me pick out a lipstick from the yves rocher catalog. it was a very strange day...
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lumberjack lolita · Joined: 06 Jul 2004 Posts: 31

deleted

Guest · Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2004 9:56 pm Post subject:

I was 11, I don't actually remember a whole lot about it. I came home from school and got changed and realised there was blood in my undies. The next day was a party for one of the "girlie gang" I hung out in, and we played truth or dare and I truthfully was able to say I had started my periods. Out of 10 of us, only two has, so I thought I was an early developed until I read this. I do remember that wearing a culotte dress (urgh, early 90s how I hate you) and a pad seemed like a good idea, but made changing my pad a huge undressing palaver.

I remember my sister starting her periods as well, because she came to me to ask for pads. Not because our mum is unapproachable, but shewas too approachable and open and inevitably would have made a big fuss over it when Fiona just wanted to go back out and ride her go-kart. So, Fi went back out to her go-kart, and I went and told my mum.

brightcorner · Joined: 04 Jul 2004 Posts: 65 Location: SF bay area

This is really interesting! I am frantically searching this thread for positive experiences people had with their moms, because I personally waited maybe half a year before I told mine - just too embarrassed and not real close with my mom. Now the tables have turned and I have an 8-year-old daughter (I started my period when I was 12) - and I so don't want her to be too embarrassed to tell me when she starts! We've had some frank & open discussions about sex, but I really want her not to do as I did. Sigh.
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c_zimmerman724 · Joined: 27 Jul 2004 Posts: 36 Location: waynesboro pa

I was at a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game when I got mine in 6th grade.

siouxsie_homemaker · Joined: 16 Aug 2004 Posts: 22 Location: San Diego

I was 10, 5th grade, when I got my 1st period. That feels like it's such a young age to get your period. My mother was the same age as me when she got hers, so I guess it's normal in our family.

I was reading somewhere about how the age of first menstration has dipped in the last century. 100 years ago it was 16, and now the average is around 12.

I remember being so miserable with cramps that first month. I just wanted it to go away.I think I'm going to try and instill in my future daughter a respect and affection for her body, instead of just looking at her period like a burden.

Gluey · Joined: 03 Jul 2004 Posts: 70

Fifteen, 8th grade study hall. Luckily it was the end of the day so I just shoved some tissue down my pants and somehow made it home okay. I didn't tell my mom or anything, because when my cousin got hers the whole family talked about it-- and I DEFINATELY didn't want that, but she figured it out eventually when all the pads in the bathroom closet suddenly started disappearing.

I always thought it was funny in "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret." How they treated a period like it was the most glorious thing that ever could happen in a young woman's life, when it's really just kind of messy and uncomfortable. I would never embarass my kid by making an elaborate spectacle of her period. It's just wrong, man... it's just wrong.