Okay... new discussion topic here? (Or will I get murdered for bad taste.) (Rosie says: bad taste? hey, check out some of the other stuff we have on here. nothin nasty about this.) I was wondering if anyone is up for a discussion on "that time of month". How does it effect you? Is it just a physical thing, or can it be spiritual and emotional as well?
is it just me, or does using tampons with bleach in them sound like a really freaking bad idea? i don't want bleach in my vagina. i'd have albino babies!... right.... yeah... sure. -ali I'm bad. I use Tampax. My mom used to use Instead, which is sort of a cup-type thing that catches the blood, and you just take it out, dump the blood in the toilet, and throw the thing away. Most women who use them re-use them several times, just washing them out in between... um... insertions, I guess. I know a lot of women who hike who use their diaphragms as "feminine products" (hell, they ARE feminine products), because they're easy to pack out. I tried using pads, and I just absolutely can't stand them. Of course, I might feel differently about them if I wasn't so active with skating and ballet and pilates and the Y and everything, but for me pads just get in the way. Anyways, that's my two cents worth.
Good topic, Rosemary. And no, I don't think it's that grisely a subject, that's what this page is for anyway. Well, I usually use disposable pads, but I always felt bad about it because ya know, they get thrown away and fill up all these land fills... and they're not biodegradable, and they're full of nasty chemicals. So I finally ordered some reuseable cloth pads off the Internet, because I don't want to be contributing to anything that hurts the planet. I tried them, and I also realized that besides being environmentally friendly, they're so much more comfortable than the regular disposables. I mean, I don't feel disgusting with them on, even when they've been on a while... maybe it's because they're more absorbant than disposable pads, but not in a way that makes me feel like they'll soak through and stain my clothes. I imagine that they're quite economical, besides. I actually only started wearing them yesterday, so I can't say how much work it is to wash them and all... it doesn't sound like too much. I'm keeping a bucket under the sink (a nice, descreet area) and I guess I'll just take them out in a couple hours wash it and let it dry in my room. That's basically what women used to do all the time before disposable "feminine products" were marketed. The keeper is like a reusable tampon, made of rubber, and I hear it works really well. I'm wary of putting strange objects into my body, so I wouldn't use it, but it might be good for others. www.thekeeper.com.... I think that's the website. I got my pads from http://www.pacificcoast.net/~manymoons/index.html -Eire In response to what Rosmary said above. . . I don't think menstrual supplies are that grisly a subject. *grins* I'm willing to talk about them, anyway. I use Natracare pads and tampons, which are made from organic oxygen-bleached cotton or something like that. They work well, I've found, but they tend to soak through a little faster than regular pads. I think they're made by a company in the UK, but the health food store in my town sells them and I generally buy them in cases through Mountain People's, so I think they're pretty widely available. My mom uses old cloth diapers, left over from when I was a baby, if you can believe that, and sponges when she wants to go swimming. Sometimes she also uses specially sewn reusable pads that a friend sells at the farmer's market. She has to soak and wash the diapers after she uses them, though, which drives me crazy because she'll leave these potfuls of soaking, bloody menstrual rags in the shower, and if I want to actually use use the damn shower I have to pick them up and throw them in the washing machine. Which is kinda gross. . . it's her blood, after all, not mine. My mom's stuff is more biodegradable than mine, but also tons messier. I don't have the patience to carry a bag full of diapers when I'm on my period, y'know? So. . . yeah. I've babbled for way too long, but that basically covers my knowledge of "feminine products." *grins* Anyone else?
I'm on the pill. Which is supposed to regulate periods. I had regular ones before I got on it...and now I don't. Not a good thing for a hyper paranoid person. My most horrific experience of period panic was actually had on the first day of camp...my first day ever! Three days late. In a strange place. All the while thinking my pills were defective, or some freakish accident had happened and I was pregant.
Well, that's paranoia for you. If anyone has any pill-related issues to discuss, take it up with me. I'd be glad to chat. Y'know what I hate? I just finished my damn period two weeks ago, and it popped back up. Damn Damn Damn. fourteen days is not a very regular cycle! fourteen days without my period is NOT ASKING MUCH!!! I'm having my uterus removed. I don't need kids. Ever. I get cramps so bad I usually have to stay in bed all day. And I take lots of IB Profen, (sp) even though I don't really like pills. I always have PMS. Either that or I'm just extremely sensitive and moody. It could be both. But I am very tired right now so I am probably speaking the truth because I am too tired to do anything else!
I don't usually get cramps very bad, but I do get nasty mood swings. Rather one-directional ones too. The subject is on my mind tonight because I felt tired all day, then suddenly around 9:30 I got into bed and cried for an hour and felt very very very shitty. Like, almost suicidal. I wrote a rant in my journal and then suddenly went "Oh. PMS." And then I had a cup of tea and read and was perfectly ok. I hate that just because it's caused by hormones I'm supposed to ignore feeling tired and cramped and just plain shitty one fourth of my life. I need more consideration, damnit! Or maybe I should just come back and write this next week. ;) No, I really do think that being able to stop one's life and take a little break for a week or so would be very very nice... I hate that I'm supposed to just ignore how I'm feeling because nothing 'real' is causing it. I feel shitty. It doesn't matter to me what causes it. Uh, just another PMS rant here... and there I go disclaiming it again! *grin* So, I was just feeling smug because it seemed like the first two days of my period are the painful ones, and those are over with, when a horrible wave of cramping came. Now I can't get comfortable and am wondering if I should finish typing this, or go lay down on the ground somewhere. Maybe moan or whimper. But I'm not a vocal kind of person that way, so I don't. I was also thinking that I don't hate my period, I don't not want it, I don't loathe it, I am not embarassed by it, it does not make me inadequate. It happens to me every month and that is that. My period is me too. There is power in it. Life power. Ms. C ... one of the nice things about being an "adult" "woman", is finally getting used to being in this body. I don't know everything gimpy that male bodies do, but im getting rather well acquaintance with this one. I like finally being old enough to not being embarrassed to death about menstatration... Although i am still frustrated by my whole societies REFUSAL to talk about it, much less celebrate etc... the only thing we really do is just complain or make jokes about PMS. weird eh? -Dawn (who hasnt checked this page in a while, and will say something insightful back to Rosie when she has a moment *wink*) Thoughts
The thing I've heard most from talking to many of my female friends is that starting our periods and entering adolescence made us feel out of control. All of a sudden, we weren't in control of our bodies, we weren't in control of our emotions, we weren't in control of people's changing attitudes towards us. Many of our mothers wanted to make it wonderful for us (especially if they themselves had had an abysmal and uninformed adolescence) and they eagerly planned ceremonies: Women parties, celebrations and rites of passage, public acknowledgement and festivities because we were now, technically women. Which many of us rejected: we didn't feel like women, we couldn't see anything wonderful about our bodies spinning out of control, our way of coping was to be as private and quiet about it as possible, we didn't want anybody to know (much less celebrate it loudly before a throng of friends & family!). I'm afraid I'm still not entirely comfortable with the fact of my period...I hate how taboo it is in this culture (sometimes roughly equivalent with a week-
long diarhea attack), but I also dislike the obsessive glorifying of
menstruation I find, especially in feminist cards, magazines, calendars, books,
etc. I don't mean that there is necessarily something wrong with that. But I
think it makes me uncomfortable merely for it to be treated as an aberration,
whether a wonderful or a despicable one. Menstruation (ugh, that sounds so
clinical!) is mysterious, amazing, powerful, and affects my body & my emotions
& general state of being (and over half the world's population)considerably...it's linked to the moon, which also controls the tides...
women's periods can get in synch if they spend a lot of time together... so it's pretty kewl. But it's also a pain in the wazoo, it's painful (sometimes), and sometimes it feels dirty, inconvenient and unsettling. It's a normal thing. Yes. Normal. Which is how I like it to be treated...okay, not normal like white bread is normal, but like the weather is normal. It affects your life Hey you peoples! Imagine what it must have been to be an eighteenth century woman, when people didn't even think PMS existed, and the women wore corsets TO BED!! More thoughts...I saw this disqusting ad in a magazine a month ago. It was all like, "Do you think that your period connects you do your ancesters, that it's a spiritual amazing thing? Well, we don't! We think that you should use the pill so that you don't have to worry about it anymore!" Disgusting. I almost puked. Still more...I have noticed I've gotten into bad moods before it starts. It makes me feel really helpless, because are these emotions real? It's like, I can't even trust myself. Just a bit more...I get cramps but I don't mind them. I really don't. It's strange. It feels like a bad stomach ache but there's something weirdly nice about it. And finally, have any of you ever had an embarresing incident? Like, sleeping at a friend's house and wake up to find their clean white sheets red? I don't want that to happen! ~Athena. My period often still makes me feel out of control... of my emotions, my body... I have PMS primarily in the form of the much-discussed Mood Swings. I tend to get very sad & vulnerable somewhere around mid-month, often for very small reasons, or ones that would normally not bother me, or for none I can think of. Sometimes this is a releif... it makes me feel balanced, especially if I've spent a month of being outgoing and loud, to spend a few days being lonely and sad and feeling like a snail out of the shell. Sometimes it's annoying. Sometimes it pisses me off not to feel utterly in control. But I guess I'm stuck with it... I really can't imagine what it would be like to be without it. I'd like to hear what other guys (in addition to Ari) have to say about it. I know if I were a guy, I'd probably be pretty scared/weirded out by the whole idea. (But please, if you have any rude stupid comments save that for someplace else...we're all tired of hearing about our "infections", ala Newt & others of his ilk!! *grin* )
(when you start a new paragraph or new line, don't make spaces with the spacebar. Just press enter a couple times -wanderlust) Rosie!! I swear... you just have this knack of saying things in just the right way, it amazes me. :o) It's a normal thing. Yes. Normal. Which is how I like it to be treated...okay, not normal like white bread is normal, but like the weather is normal. It affects your life Exactly! A very very good analogy too... I feel the same way, but I could never put it into words. In some ways I like the glorifican of menstruation, it makes me feel special to be a woman (on the other hand, it also has that ring of "Well I have this and you don't so nyah!") but I cannot relate to it. The only special treatment I want is a few days off every month to lay in bed all day ;) As for pms... I have no idea if I have it or not cause' mood swings are pretty normal for me, I always have them. Basically, I don't mind menstruation any more. It can get quite annoying, but it's a consistant part of life for me and I like consistancy. -wanderlust
My period is rather easy. It doesn't bother me (yay to tampons!). I bleed usually from about four to six days, and I have never gotten cramps. Either that, or all my friends are wimps ;). Before this last period was the first time I got strong cravings for sugar. I don't know if that had anything to do with my period...and I personally don't give a damn (I can say that right *G*). Sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with it, like when I am traveling or something, or wanting to go camping...but it never turns out to be a bother :). My periods are neat. "I rule!" hehehhe ~Erin I got this from a joke mailing list that I'm on, and I thought that it was appropriate to post in here... Oh, yeah- don't bother making pages for all those... that *would* keep someone busy, though! "women, PMS and light bulbs" How many women with PMS does it take to screw in a light bulb? One. one!! And do you know why it only takes ONE? Because no one else in this house knows how to change a light bulb. They don't even know the bulb is burned out. They would sit in this house in the dark for three days before they figured it out. And once they figured it out they wouldn't be able to find the lightbulbs despite the fact that they've been in the same cupboard for the past seventeen years. But if they did, by some miracle, find the light bulbs, two days later the chair that they dragged from two rooms over to stand on to change the stupid lightbulb would still be in the same spot!!!!! and underneath it would be the crumpled wrapper the stupid #)#(*(*^*&% lightbulbe came in. why??? because no one in the house ever carries out the garbage!!!! It's a wonder we all haven't suffocated from the piles of garbage that are 12 feet deep througout the entire house. The house! The house! It would take an army to clean this.... That's how many." Can't we all relate to that??
Evening all, In like a totally weird talkative mood tonight so thought i would drop in here and rattle and you all. :)Its amazing what sporadic things you start taking for granted as a woman. Like say as an average person you get up one morning and yawn and stretch and look in the mirror and make sure your head is still on strait and go to the bathroom and realize there is blood dripping out of your body. And that isn't all that weird or twisted or much of anything. Its just like normal. blood. coming out. Now granted yadda yadda yadda i know it isn't blood per say, its technically something much more complicated then that but for the sake of simplicity we will just stick with blood. Think about that one for a second. Think about it for a full minute if your a guy. So its just like, yah, whatever, find a pad and go on with the rest of your day. And granted your breasts hurt so much that all you want to do is lie in a bath and sometimes it feels like your stomach is trying to get out of your body the most complicated difficult painful way it can, but just another day in the life of This Body. hell its even vaguely comforting. So there's like this scary group pushing for all woman to end up on this drug that eliminates the need to have your period. btw, is it just me or is "period" such a bulky heavy inexact phrase? menstruation is too formal, period too easily confused with basic grammar skills. I want some word that is semi formal but honourable and powerful and like, you know, thatness. good. appropriate.) It kinda worries me. I have this theory about bodies, being it took us 15-20 billion years to get the way we are right now. the way you are right now at this very moment has been specifically created through millions of ancestors. yah, feel a little honoured. Anyway, i figure 99.99% of what our bodies do is totally normal and healthy and doing whatever it needs to do. Frankly, I trust my body more then i do most quack doctors out there. If its decided to do this, power to it. Lest i can do is try not to stand in the way. (BTW, and god do i feel rambly tonight, i still have problems connecting this "I" and "body" thing."I" am not a conciseness trapped in a body some where.)Dawn I just have to mention this, since we have a page for it: the keeper, a super enviro & health friendly alternative to pads and tampons (the bleach and rayon used in tampons is baaad stuff, especially so for younger women). It's a sort of cervical cup made of 100% natural gum rubber. Check it out (http://www.thekeeper.com/). I use it for most of my cycle every month. Most supermarkets and drug stores now carry a throw-away version of this concept, called "Instead," which might be worth trying as an initiation into the whole concept (but throw-away sorta defeats the point in my mind.) s.p.o.t. menstrual health web site, for non comercially sponsored info about toxic shock and the like. http://www.critpath.org/~tracy/spot.html ...and The Museum of Menstruation is just soooo cool. http://www.mum.org/ -(reanna)
My period follows the moon almost perfectly, although it just recently switched from coming at one phase in the moon cycle to another one... and I wonder at what the spiritual implications of that are. I'd like to think there are spiritual implications... normally right as my period is starting I end up crying lots... all the walls around my emotions break down and I collapse mentally/emotionally. In some ways I feel stupid about how much I break down emotionally with my period. I don't like it because its like announcing to the world that I'm at what a lot of people seem to think is a very icky stage of the month. And yet... in other ways... hey, my period isn't dirty. Its a natural cycle and why should I have to repress the spiritual/emotional part of the cycle just because people find the physical part disgusting? - Christy Good questions! In some ways i am really gratful for my emotions and how they can be SO haywire some days/weeks. For all the down points, i know people who exist in seeingly emotional numbness that would enjoy the luxury of being able to cry before bed. I like having my body on a cycle, i cant imagion it working any other way. I like to think that i am finally old enough to start appreciating my period and wonderful things like having hips and breasts. BTW, nothing drives me QUITE as crazy as being told that i am upset just because its "that time of the month" or "harmones". 1- I still have a reason to be upset and 2- if it IS the main reason im only going to want to kill whoever made it. *grin* Dawn My period never seems to affect the way I behave, actually! I seem to be the only one I know who is like that... - Fuzzhead Heh, I don't have a period of my own (Yeah, I'm male), but those around me do, and it affects me... there's some sort of change that happens that I notice, that affects how I act too. Maybe it's pheromones? . On a purely emotional level, it's nice to have a time to talk about all the little emotional things that didn't seem big enough at other times and have it all just come out in the open. (Ari)
actually, it's been recorded (and I'm sure y'all can back me up on this one) that women who live together or interact socially often tend to have synchronized periods. (think: dorms, housemates, best friends, family) interesting, no? ~becca~ yeah, i remember once (and it was at 'that time of the month') my mom yelled at me for making her period come a few days early. :) marina
when I went through menarche, I didn't tell my mom. it scared me, I think... it was a huge deal, and I was surprised and overwhelmed. she found out, eventually. I had thrown away my underwear (I didn't know that you could wash them out)... and she found them. I actually tried denying it. I remember being embarrassed and nervous and hot. but it was ok, after that. I've gradually grown able to talk about it with my mom normally... to have someone privy to what I view as a private me thing. ~becca~
I got my first period on Christmas Day. Looking back, I think that's really funny. :) I have a really "light" cycle, I guess..I hardly cramp at all (but I tend to mood swing), and the longest I've ever bled was for maybe three or four days. - Emma I tend to get horrible reactions in That Time Of The Month. A recently discovered one was a case of hiccups on-and-off, for about 24 hours In addition, I experience very painful cramps. Very. Painful. Very. Apparently my newest period side effect, though, is hallucination. I was lucky enough to be scared out of my wits by a big black flying thing that was in my room just last night, only to realize that it was only I that saw it. Boy, was that a relief! :/ and, of course, your regular old garden-variety mood swings, headache, muscle soreness, fatigue, nausea, and upset stomach. Not bad. I suppose I'm a bit cynical about the whole period thing. Truly, I don't hate it so much, but it is irritating. And did I mention that it hurts? I suppose that some "PMS" symptoms are more like chain reactions, because when you have terrible cramps that is when your stomach is irritated, and you become moody because of all the pain, and you don't feel like doing anything, of course your head begins to hurt and you feel worse than you started out. Maybe in the end it's worth it, to be able to bear children and all that.. but really, after years and years of getting your period who wants to go through something ten times as painful for a whole nine months? -Mari
wanderlust adds: For the cramps and headaches, I just chug down advil after advil all day for about three or four days. :)
Hmm...I've liked reading what everyone has to say on this subject, but I've something to add that I haven't heard mentioned. I hear lots about mood swings, but all right within a few days of your period. Do anyone else's moods go in full-month cycles? I definatly do. Let start with say, a week after my period. I relax, am my normal happy bouncy self, and am not even a little bit hormonal...very even tempered, I feel in control of my moods and to an extent my sexual drive. This stage goes on for maybe another week and a half. Then, about a week and a half before I start, I usually have one down or depressed day, to warm me up....then, I go through this very intense energetic stage where all my systems are go. My emotions go haywire, my sexual drive goes way up. A few days before my period, I settle down again....when it starts, I'm cranky for up to a day and then I'm pretty much normal aside from being a little moody. Right about when it stops, I go through this big maternal phase where I wish I was a mother and I cuddle everything a see, and then a few days after that it starts over again. Thoughts, anyone? -Robyn
I don't notice my moods going through as much of a cycle, but my acne certainly does. Right before my period it's horrible. As in, I don't want to go anywhere or do anything without a paper bag over my head. During and after my period it evens out, and the week and a half or so after my period I have a wonderful complexion. Then a pimple appears here, another there, and there we go again. Moods... I definitely get tired and grumpy right before my period. I wander around the house yelling, "Why am I so tired?! Why am I so grumpy?!" until my mom says "PMS" and I say "Oh" and feel even worse. In one way it's nice to be able to blame a bad mood on hormones, but another way my emotions are mine. I don't want them denied, even if I don't have a practical and logical reason. Generally I find my period extremely inconvenient. Two weeks out of every month I just want to stay home all day. I get cramps occasionally, rarely bad ones. I suppose my period makes me pay attention to my body in a way I don't most of the time. And the thought that some day a person could grow in my body is increadible to me. At this point I have no plans of ever having children, but the idea is really amazing to me. And even with the inconvenience, I'd still rather be female than male. :) marina Periods, periods, periods. I think I am lucky in some respects. My mother has always talked about things like menstration, sex, the whole kit and kaboodle with a lot of ease so it never bothered me, and when I did get my period it was not a traumatizing experience. It was an irritation more then anything else. I find that my period is just one of those things a woman deals with. It can be a spiritual experience for some, but for me, it is just part of life. Yeah I get cramps sometimes, (usually the day before it starts and a few days after that) I feel a little more irritable then usual, and I remember white may not be the wisest colour to wear that day. I think periods are cool, because it is a symbol of what chicks can do, that guys can not do. We, women can produce children. That is a pretty amazing thing. I think in many cultures it is a taboo subject because frankly since the ancient times, this is such a foreign and mystical thing to the men. I read this book on rites of passage with various tribes and cultures, and women are often sent away from the rest of the population sort of out of fear. Yet what I find interesting is, this is the time of the month that women get time off. Many go to huts and relax. In western culture it is really hidden and you shouldn't act like it exists. I think what really ticks me off about menstration is this view that if a women is really irritable or upset, "she must be on the rag." I think a lot of guys need to deal with this irrational fear of a woman's reproductive cycle. On the humorous side of things. My period is quite erratic, I can go six months without having it and so on. When I was about fifteen, my period did not come for about eight months. For five seconds there I thought...is there is a star rising in the east. (I am catholic and I was a virgin) My mother laughed when I told her and said she had the same feeling once. I do admit when my period is over I sorta leap in the air because it is one less thing to think about. -Gennie On a sidenote, what I really hate is finding that it is 11 pm at night and you have run out of tampons or pads and you have to go to the store. I get really bad cramps about 15 minutes before my period starts, bad enough to wake me up when I'm sleeping and those last through the first day. I get mood swings too. Sometimes a couple days before I start getting totally hyper and silly and it drives the rest of my family crazy. -Kathleen Hmm.... do we want to start a masturbation discusion, or is that too risky for an open forum like this?
this is the thing i hate most about being a girl. yeah. wonderful, i can have kids. but it gets in my way, i think it's a pain. ~samara Here's a coupLa things I do at some point during my cycle. Take a bath. Something about relaxing in warm water, and just being quiet and still for a little bit, with candlelight only, that helps with any out-of-sorts feelings. Also, raspberry leaf tea is incredibly comforting, like the first sip of it just makes me feel like everything's all right. Has to be true raspberry leaf tea though, not the raspberry flavored stuff. -Hannah That time of the month goes like this I get it, deal with it, and forget about it (well until it happens again). That time of month is inconvenient and sometimes messy... I usually get medium to mild cramps the first day, and try to spend the day lying in a hot shower or reading. On the other hand, it makes me pay attention to my body. It means my several methods of birthcontrol have been effective: it means that my body is (probably) capable of producing life, AND that it hasn't done so yet. It means it's time for me to start a new fertility chart, which is fun. It means the period when it's safest to have sexual intercourse is drawing to a close. I don't have really strong moodswings associated with my cycle, but I have had cycles where my sex drive fluctuated strongly with my fertility. If I could go back to my menarche again, I would wish that I was comfortable mentioning it to my mom (I think she was really hurt that I didn't), and also that she'd given me stuff! Specifically, a couple of books on tracking my fertility, a pad of blank charts, a plastic speculum, hand mirror, and flashlight, a digital thermometer, maybe a Lady Fertility Tester, a small pack of o.b. tampons, a thing of pads, some extra panties, a rubber menstrual cup, and washable cloth pads, so I could try all of them. It probably would have been a couple years before I was interested in FertilityAwareness, but I would have known when I was ready, and I would have had years of practice and records. I think I'd be more comfortable with myself, and I know I'd have an easier time integrating my fertility into my birthcontrol plan. I didn't even *think* of using a speculum and hand mirror and flashlight to look at my cervix until I read about it a couple weeks ago. In retrospect, it seems so obvious, but it never crossed my mind! It's an important and sensitive part of my body, and being able to look down there and check on it whenever I want to now is totally empowering. -- Julie(lipse
okay, so, i only have a problem with bleeding when it interferes with how i interact with members of the opposite sex. in other words, if i'm getting 'comfortable' with a guy, the last thing i want to do is stop cold and say "dude, i'm on the rag!" or something. maybe i'm uncomfortable with it.. yeah, i guess it's not the most comfortable thing discussing such things with males, for me at least.. while i can talk it to death with sistahs. pretty silly, i know. hehe.. my cunt is built like a wound that won't heal.. People rid toxins from their bodies through mucus, from the nose and mouth. Women menstruate, which is another outlet for toxins, and this may partly account for their longer lifespans. PMS is a disorder caused by the influx of toxins around the reproductive system before they are released. Thus, the more toxins in a person, the greater the discomfort prior to her menstrual cycle. This is not the only factor, others include body type, stress, and health, but it is a large one. (Look, look, Wind geeked! that's twice in one month! whoa!) I personally don't like it when women claim any different treatment because of their womanhood, and pms is one of the most abused of women's problems. Although it is good to know what and why it is. And that's all I have to say about menstruation at this moment. ~Wind~ Oh, wait, there's more. The first time I menstruated, I was an incredibly peaceful person. It was like a calm had surrounded me. And then at the end, I was climbing trees and getting into fights again. This has only happened to me twicein conjunction with menstruating...maybe those were the only times I was truely balanced. Anyone else get that?
Oh gosh. I'd never seen this page before. This is wonderful! I have to admit, i never ever ever EVER thought about most of this stuff. pads and tampons are bad for you? why didn't i think of that before? bad for the environment? i should have thought of that too. thanks everyone, for letting those of us who are slightly more clueless in on these things... and now some thoughts!
I think something that defines me as a female is one day I'm thinking my ovaries are the coolest thing since sliced bread... and the day I get my period I curse their very existence. On a random note, I remember the *exact* date I got my first period. -eira My family is all pretty chummy together. My sister and I will even talk about our crushes now (well, maybe not the most current, most severe ones but other than that yes; we're pretty open about our attractions I think); it's nice to joke around with those things and get them off our chests, let our dearest loved ones know what we're thinking, get their approval. And etc., on and on. But this is one topic my sister and Mom and I are almost completely silent about. It really doens't seem to make sense from an otherwise so "heathly" (la de da de da) group of people Hey, this is an awesome page. It's nice to know we all go through the same or similar stuff each month. I don't feel so alone. I get cramps pretty much every month, only twice have they been REALLY bad, but both times I was also sick with the flu. As for emotional pms stuff, I get mood swings. Not real serve ones. I just feel confused a lot because I move so quickly from one feeling to the next. I don't have time to get my thoughts in order before I speak so it's hard to have a conversation without it turning into something I didn't intend for it to. I got my first period when I was 10 and a half. I honestly didn't know what it was. I mean, my mom had explained to me the facts of life and told me what periods were, bought me a book. But that day when I got my first one, I didn't have a clue because I thought I'd be at least another year older before it happened. I think this would be a good topic at Womens Group at camp. How old were you when you got your first period and how did that affect you? I was the first of any of my friends to get it, I was also the youngest of my friends, and the oldest of my siblings. I never really had a "big sister" figure. Robin I got my first period when I was 11...I wanted so badly for it not to be happening that I just pulled my underwear back up and hid in my room till my mom came home from work, aand came downstairs a little teary-eyed and told her. I made her promise not to tell my dad or anyone, and I didn't even tell my best friend for months. I thought she would think I was gross. Years later, I stopped while riding my bike to look at a rock painted by native american girls coming of age hundreds of years ago. It made me wish that I had had some sort of ceremony, marking my passage into womanhood. At 11, I wasn't ready to be a woman. I think it would be interesting to have some sort of ceremony now; to at least do something. Paint, burn candles, or even to have a collective ceremony for all the girls (women!) at camp, to assure ourselves that we are women and we are goddesses. NBTSWikiWiki | Recent Changes Edited 107 times, last edited on March 3, 2002 by 208.187.147.140. © 2000 NBTSC Webmasters |
do y'all wanna talk about what "feminine products" you use? I mean, yeah it sounds kind of grisly..but I'm interested..I'd really like to hear from chicks who don't use tampons or regular disposable pads. what are all the alternatives out there? tell me! 
