If you are a woman younger than 12 or a man who avoids the word ‘feminism’, you can relate the word “menstruation’ to the TV advertisement with a lady in white pants and a small diaper drenched with a blue liquid from a test tube. Haven’t we all tried to decipher the advertisement at least once in our lifetime? Then we grew up; some men learned and some are still oblivious. Women learned it the hard way. Our life changed and while our parents were happy, we couldn’t understand why?
Menstruation can be termed as the best-kept secret of humanity. Almost all the women (and trans men) from the start of their teen years to their late fifties, go through this phenomenon every month for a week and still if you talk about it louder than a murmur, people stare at you as if you are talking about some disgusting looking alien. It’s sad but not surprising. We are talking about blood and vagina. Both are already controversial individually
and here we are discussing a bleeding vagina.
Oh! The Damned White Pants
To survive the ‘days’, we need some essentials apart from painkillers, hot water bottles, ‘guilty-pleasure’ food and a punching bag. These are known as the menstrual hygiene products. We do have some options like ‘Not-the-virginity-killer’ Tampons, ‘How-the-hell-to-shove-them-in?’ Menstrual cups and ‘Safe-but-not-the-best-option’ Sanitary Pads. Doesn’t matter which one we choose,
a white pant is a No-No!
We can buy any costly product or even shove a blackhole down there but the chances of a stain-free experience are still only 99% at best. This remaining 1% is enough to keep us anxious for the whole day. To be frank, if one is adventurous enough to try this, she will prefer doing some adventure sports (not during the days, obviously) in place of such stunts.
Before going further, there are some misconceptions that should be cleared to those who don’t suffer from it:
- It’s red, not blue (if it isn’t already obvious)
- Yes, it happens every month, we don’t get any ‘vacation month’ (unless pregnancies or medical issues)
- No, because it happens every month doesn’t mean we are ‘used to it’
- Women don’t overreact during their periods, they certainly underreact!
The Suffering
Humans, like all other living beings, are wired to reproduce. For some wicked reason, women are punished by nature for not fulfilling this requirement. Every month, our body takes extreme offence for not stuffing a child inside and everything go berserk.
Bleeding is just a tiny fragment of the whole torture routine.
Some women are luckier who don’t go through painful cramps but those who do, it’s like being punched in the guts every minute for days. Hot water bottles are the placebos of period cramps treatment. They do work but are barely effective. Painkillers are the side-effect producing but unavoidable option. It’s not just the cramps that cause pain. Every atom, every cell of our body start hurting, the operations of the digestive system derail, we somehow start blowing up like a balloon, even the air starts sucking up energy out of us and the list goes on and on.
On an average, periods or menstrual cycle stays for 4 to 7 days. For most of us, you can consider a week of our life taken every month.
Now that’s 25% of our life for 40+ years.
The impact is huge. Getting up from the bed becomes a huge task. Thanks to the bloating, pain and chances of staining, the wardrobe gets limited to baggy and dark clothes. All the plans for the days get cancelled because the world looks dark and gloomy. Every holiday tour or trips have to be planned accordingly, if at all possible because we have to use our office leaves for our periods.
Sleeping is a task in itself.
Half of the sleeping poses are pain-inducing and uncomfortable, rest can cause staining. So, we endure and try our best to avoid an hour of rigorous hard work in the washroom in the morning with surf in one hand and brush in the second. Do you know what’s way more stubborn than a thin blue liquid dripped from a test tube on multiple layers of clothing including a bedsheet? Blood!
All this without letting anyone know.
These are just a few of many physical symptoms, there’s another list of mental traumas we go through. These mental symptoms commonly known as ‘overreaction’, ‘drama’ or ‘excuse to be a bitch’ are part of PMS or Pre-Menstrual Syndrome. Unlike popular opinion, these are not caused by attitude problems or craziness but actual satanic hormones released by our body. So, doesn’t matter how hard we try to feel enlightened and happy, we end up feeling like shit. And you know what happens when you feel like shit and are unable to share the reason, so people accuse you of being dramatic?
You snap!
Then you feel even worse and the emotional spiral goes crashing downwards. This is one of the reasons why menstruation SHOULD NOT BE A TABOO. We may be somewhat accustomed to it but you won’t find a single woman who won’t frown or sigh on the topic. It’s a huge inconvenience where all we need is rest and some pampering. What we get are stares and shushes. Due to some misunderstood practices in the past, menstruation is wrongly convicted as sinful or unholy (I might make a video on it in the future). It affects the whole scenario as the self-doubt rises. How can we love ourselves if we can’t even respect ourselves?
If we can’t respect ourselves, how will others?
What do we want?
Obviously, we don’t want huge banners or marches for support as this is the last thing we want to discuss on a normal day and the only thing we don’t want to discuss during our period.
All we want is a bit of understanding.
There are mainly two types of women. Some women are like me who don’t think even twice before revealing why suddenly we look like pale and unkept zombies holding our tummies. The other kind treats it as their best-kept secret. You can be either one of them, a post-menopausal woman or a man, but if you are one who stigmatizes menstruation, you are wrong. We need to respect menstruation as a normal bodily process and nothing else. It’s painful and it’s exhausting both physically and mentally. We literally lose blood every month. You don’t have to celebrate it,
the least you can do is not to treat it like a taboo.
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