“You can’t go to the bathroom right now we’re in the middle of class.”
“Just hold it”
“Why do you need to go to the bathroom? You just went.”
These are all things that my teacher said to me when I was trying to go to the bathroom. I was twelve years old and my period had once again started at an odd time. I was trying to leave to get a free pad from the bathroom. I had nothing in. I was starting to bleed through my underwear but he still wouldn’t let me leave until I explained myself.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said.
“Why? You went to the bathroom earlier. Why are you trying to take your backpack with you?” he asked me in front of the class.
He drilled me for thirty minutes. I was uncomfortable, embarrassed, and on the verge of tears. The blood started to seep through my pants and down my leg and started to drip onto the floor. My teacher gave a heavy sigh.
“You really couldn’t hold it until lunch?” was what he said before he dismissed me.
I never got an apology from that teacher, but that day still haunts my memories. No, I could not hold my period. That is not something that is biologically possible. He didn’t need to know why I needed to go to the bathroom, it was none of his business. In his quest to discover why I had to miss five precious minutes of class to go to the bathroom, I ended up missing all of class going to the nurse’s office to clean up and get a change of pants.
I was always taught that periods are a private issue. My mother was so intent that my father did not see pads that she made designated bathrooms for pad usage. The master bathroom was the bathroom my father used, the bathroom that my sister and I used had pads. If one of us was on our period, my mother would instruct us to carefully roll them up in mounds of tissue paper and place them in plastic bags and throw them in the garbage outside after my dad went to bed. Even she would use our bathroom for 5 days out of the month when she was on her period.
But I never understood this. What would happen if my dad saw a pad? Would he burst into flames? Would he dissolve into dust? What was the big deal? Every time I told my father I was on my period, he’d hold his hands up and tell me to say no more, that was my problem, go deal with it. As soon as my teacher saw I was on my period, even though he was the reason why I was bleeding on the floor, he left me to deal with it. Now I understand that it’s supposed to be our shame.
The stigma that surrounds periods is harmful and dangerous. Let me make this clear to everyone, there is nothing wrong with periods. I have periods, and it’s a natural process that a lot of other people go through. It is not dirty, it is not unclean or unholy. Having your period does not mean your emotions are invalid. You are not “hormonal” or “hysterical”. You do not deserve to be dismissed for being on your period. Your body is not rejecting fluids or getting rid of toxins, it’s just another natural secretion of the body. And no, nobody can hold in their period. If there’s nothing to absorb it, it’ll just bleed out.
So don’t be ashamed to be on your period. It’s natural. You don’t need to hide it, you don’t have to consider how a fragile male ego will feel about seeing a tampon wrapper in the trash. You can just be you.
And just remember, if anyone uses your period as a way to end a conversation or dismiss you, you probably have more experience cleaning up blood then they do.