I remember the very first time I had experienced menstruation. It was my birthday. I had just turned 13 and this was mother nature's lovely gift (but we all know it's really a curse) to me. I was in the middle of class when I felt uneasy. I also felt a little wet. I didn't have to pee & I knew I didn't pee my pants but I couldn't stop circulating around the idea that something down there was wet or different. At this point of my life, I didn't really have sexual urges so I knew it wasn't sexual arousal either.

I'm not sure if I was successful but I attempted to get up and pretend like I was just adjusting my pants/shifting my weight before sitting back down and I noticed a rusty colored smudge on the chair. I sat in this chair every day in class and never noticed the smudge before. I pretended like crumbs or dirt was on the chair and went to brush it off. To my dismay, that was no ordinary stain or debris. It was blood. It was my blood. In an internal panic I quickly felt my pants and surely enough there was a blueberry size spot of moisture.

I'm trying to balance the shock of realizing that I am now hitting womanhood, in the middle of math class, in middle school. I'm panicking in every direction thinkable while also trying to devise an excuse to get to the nurse ASAP. I sit down in my chair, feeling extremely uneasy at this point. It was like the desk had some contagious disease and if I made contact with it, I was doomed for eternal suffering.

I can't remember what lame excuse I made to use the bathroom but instead of making a left to the bathroom down the hall, I book it for the nurses office.

Every girl eventually finds out that one day they will get their period, like the women before them. I had this vision in my head that I would be at home in comfort and my mom would be there to coddle me and guide me on what to do and how to feel etc... but no... I'm in the middle of class, full of a bunch of other girls who are probably fumbling around with the whole period mumbo jumbo as much as I am or they are still enjoying their lives period free.

I get to the nurse and I hesitate when she asks me what's wrong. I quickly blurt out that I was bleeding and that I didn't know what to do and that I needed my mom. She continued to ask me where I was bleeding & how much. I told her that I found blood on my chair in class and that my pants were wet. She seemed relieved about my answer and called me over to the bathroom. She reassured me that everything was okay and that I was just getting my first period. She explained to me the different kinds of symptoms I may experience before, during, and after my period and that I should keep track of how long and how severe my period is. But more importantly, she educated me on the different types of menstrual objects that women use to maintain proper hygiene while on their period. Once again, this was a conversation I thought I'd be having with my mom, not the school nurse. However, I am grateful that I went to the nurse because it would have been way too embarrassing to explain what I was going through to my class teacher in front of all of my classmates.

Nobody wants to be known as the girl who bleeds before all of the other girls. And likewise, nobody wants to be the girl who bleeds last. I feel like there's some sort of hierarchy to womanhood. Who gets their period, who grows boobs first and whose is bigger, who has the nicest hair, and as a girl gets older these weird status symbols alter your popularity and confidence.

But anyways... so there are tampons, pads, cups, and liners. They all serve the same purpose but some are used for different time spans of your period and it mostly boils down to your personal preference and what you are comfortable with.

In the nurse's office, the bathroom had a basket full of a variety of options (excluding the cup). There were big pads, little pads, liners, scented liners, pads with wings, pads without wings, pads that were big enough for 3 people I swear... I won't lie, I felt really overwhelmed. I even cracked the door open and asked her which one she suggested I picked and  all she could tell me was that I just needed to try something and see if it felt okay.

I was already familiar with tampons because the majority of the women in my family uses them plus they get a little more exposure on tv so I picked a tampon up first. I looked at the directions written on the container and this is where a new level of panic settled in. As I mentioned earlier, in this stage of my life, I was not hormonal or sexually active. I had never put anything inside of my vagina before, not even a finger. I attempted to push this plastic apparatus into my virgin vagina and freaked out to the point where I gagged and almost threw up. I quickly threw it away and  had to calm myself down. I picked up a small/moderate sized pad and stuck it to my underwear then finished business and walked out into the nurse's room. She asked me if I found something and if I'm good to return to class and I was on my way. She suggested that I let my mom know the details when she gets home from work so that we can shop for the supplies I will need.

I've always used pads my entire life. There was only one time when I needed to use a tampon and it was the most excruciating period moment of my life. I spent the night at my aunts house and all she had were tampons and it was late at night so we couldn't go out and go get some pads just for the sake of 1 night of sleeping over. So I attempted another go at the whole tampon situation. This time, I got it in...kind of... I could feel a portion of it poking out and I know it definitely wasn't in all the way, but it was absorbing the blood so I tried to sleep with it half-in. To give you an idea, it felt like I had a dildo or a butt plug or something, wedged into my vagina, but partially hanging out to where my legs/underwear were making it wobble around. It was just horrifying.

After that day, I've done a pretty damn good job at always having pads at home or in my bag in case I get my period in public or if I'm at work and I need to change etc...

Flash forward from age 13 to age 26. So, according to my cycle, I'm not supposed to be getting my period until the 22nd or 23rd of August. But I started bleeding on the 16th/17th and now it is the 18th of August and I'm in full blown PMS. The bleeding was minimal enough for liners so I packed 4 of 5 of them in my bag for work today. I was at work for almost 12 hours and not only did I go through all 5 liners, including the one I wore into work, but I had to grab a tampon from the supply station.

Considering the fact that I've only tried to use tampons twice in my life, and it was well over 13 years ago, I had no idea how a tampon worked. I was texting my boyfriend in a panic because I had to google how to use a tampon and look at diagrams and stuff. I'm a freaking 26 year old re-living the same horror I did when I was 13.

When my friends need to bum a tampon and they ask me for one, I always have to inform them that I don't use or have tampons, just pads. They look at me like I'm some sort of nutjob. I always felt like there was an even amount of women who wear tampons or pads. I know recently menstrual cups have been gaining popularity but I will definitely never join that train. As I mentioned before, what you use is completely personal preference, so there's no right or wrong way to manage your period. But for some reason I still get weird looks or passive-aggressively judged for the fact that I use pads instead of tampons. It's almost as though, using pads makes me less of a woman because I can't handle the commitment of shoving plastic and cotton up inside of my vagina.

I mean I've mentioned in previous blogs that I'm not a huge van of vaginal intercourse. I get absolutely no pleasure out of it so having a tampon inside of my vagina, despite its small size, is extremely uncomfortable. As I mentioned, it feels like there's a vienna sausage sized dildo, doing the shuffle in my snatch. I'm not a fan.

But today, I had no choice. It was either, bleed all over my underwear and work pants, or suck it up for a few hours and wear a cotton brick in my cooch. I chose the brick. So the first time I put the tampon in, I did the same thing as a kid where I didn't have it in the whole way and as I was walking around I felt like some awkward duck waddling around. Thankfully I was alone so nobody saw this disturbing sight but I couldn't live with myself. I needed to conquer the damn tampon.

So I pulled the tampon out, threw it away in the trash and grabbed a new one. This time I finally inserted it the entire way and it felt like nothing was there. So it's not that tampons are bad and they don't function properly in me, I just wasn't applying proper application & I wasn't familiar enough with the process or sensation to really give it a chance. I managed to have the tampon in for a full 2 hours. As soon as I got home I popped that sucker out & put on a pad and now I feel way more comfortable.

But it got me thinking... did successfully applying & wearing a tampon for a few hours for the first time make me feel empowered? I mean, there was a good few seconds where I was proud of myself for accomplishing something that I thought would plague me for life, but do I feel like a more valuable woman? Not really. Despite having the tampon in properly, and not really feeling the tampon, I felt like it made my cramps worse. Plus I knew in the back of my head that there was a foreign object in me and every fiber of me did not approve of such an alien in my body.

I think that it's a good thing that I was able to overcome this idea of not being able to use tampons.
I think my dislike for them is extremely valid, and not based off of a unfair bias. If I'm ever in the situation again, I know I can handle it and continue my day in peace, but I will always opt out of tampons when I have the option to do so, even if it means mega granny panty pads.

So if you're a fellow woman, have you had a similar bringing up/situation as me when it came to getting your period the first time and the preferences you've developed over adulthood?

Do you prefer tampons or pads? I wonder what kind of divide there is.
I feel like more people use tampons versus pads, but that might just be due to the people I know using tampons instead of pads. But I do know many people online who use pads.