Caroline: She

She screams in silence

A sullen riot penetrating through her mind

Waiting for a sign

To smash the silence with the brick of self-control

This post is all about periods. 

And no, it won't be a ton of these things:

                             

There's no point in complaining about the blood or the cramps or cravings or anything. 

Why?

Because no one cares. 

And THAT is what this post is about. 

So here we go...

1) Why are men so disgusted by periods?

Yeah, they're gross.

Chunks of uterus flying out. But it seems dudes won't even go get tampons or pads for their girlfriends/sisters/daughters.
YOU don't have to handle those soaked in blood... WE do. 

Ladies go through their days doing everything they can to hide their periods but often when the period is even mentioned, guys freak out and don't want to hear it. 

Guys, this is happening to almost every girl every month for many many many years. If you can't even hear the words "period blood" or "tampons" you REALLY need to reevaluate what scares you. 

2) Why should we feel ashamed?

Story time! In high school I was in a Spanish class and got my period and was wearing a pad and everything should have been fine. BUT when I got up at the end of class, there was just a spot of blood on the chair. We were the last class of the day so no one else would sit there but one kid noticed and told me it was disgusting and to just leave. I was terrified and incredibly embarrassed! I hung my head in shame for weeks!

But... accidents happen. I didn't do anything wrong. If I had control over the period I wouldn't have one in the first place. I explained what happened to the female teacher and she didn't even blink. She just asked me to try to clean it up and that was it. 

Speaking of accidents happening...

Have you ever been in a crowded hallway (I'm thinking middle or high school) and some guy yells "There's some red on your pants!" and every girl immediately turns to see if it's her blood?

It's happened to me! 

Look, girls are suffering with cramps and headaches and our uterus' expanding and blood spewing out. Believe me when I say
we don't need anyone else making us uncomfortable. 



3) Why are pads/tampons so expensive?

I'm not going into this one because it's self-explanatory. 

4) "Are you on your period?"

DON'T ASSUME THAT BECAUSE WE'RE UPSET WE'RE ON OUR PERIOD.

(I swear so many people will assume I'm on mine because of this post. Point made.)

Girls are emotional. Dudes are emotional.

Girls sometimes cry. Dudes sometimes cry.

Girls can get angry. Dudes can get angry.

Our periods change our hormones. They change our chemical make up for just a little while and we can't help it. If we seem a bit on edge, maybe it's because our insides are shredding themselves up. 

Or, I don't know, we're genuinely upset with something and are voicing our opinion with or without being on our period. 

<<< If one of your organs (that didn't expand and retract daily) just nearly doubled in size for a week...

You may be a bit uncomfortable.

5) "He's such a great boyfriend! He got me chocolate and was with me during my period!"

...okay? 

It's nice of anyone to get you a gift, but it shouldn't be shocking that your boyfriend wants to spend time with you. 

Let me rephrase:

Your boyfriend shouldn't NOT want to spend time with you just because you're on your period.

6) Why do we have to pretend as if it's not happening?

I've never understood this. We shove cotton between our legs, take medication, use those heating pads you can stick under your clothes, and so much else... to make it seem as if we're not on our period. 

But... if almost every woman goes through this then why is it such a secret?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying everyone should just blatantly talk about bleeding out their vaginas and the cramps and etc. But I think every girl I've ever talked to has stories about being stuck in the fetal position because cramps are so bad and yet we go to school or work every day pretending nothing is wrong.

I don't have a solution to this one. I think society just needs to be a bit more understanding to what's going on with women's bodies. 

And to all the people saying "I'm a guy! I don't want to hear about this! It's lady problems!"

You might have a girlfriend.
You might have a sister.
You might have a daughter.
You might have a mother.
You might have two mothers.
You might have female friends.
You might have female coworkers.

49.5% of the world's population is female.

Get with the program. 

One of the roughly 364,594,565 females in the world,