T O P I C R E V I E W
Miss Lauren
Member # 25983
posted 05-17-2006 11:07 PM
The first period is seen as a milestone in almost every culture. Here's the place to tell your menarche story. Where were you at? How did your family react? Did you feel changed or matured in any way? I'll go first. I was about 11 years old, lounging around in my PJ's on a saturday afternoon. I didn't really feel anything; I just sorta got up to go to the bathroom during a commercial break and noticed a bit of spotting in my underpants. I had taken puberty classes at school, so wasn't really scared about what to use or anything. The most hilarious thing? I somehow realized the irony and overall coolness, even at 11, that my first period started while watching Xena: Warrior Princess. I was really shy and scared to tell my mom when she got home, and she sorta looked at me funny and was quiet. She reminded me over the next few days over what to do, how often to change, etc. And that was that. I didn't really feel that much different; though I remember being really proud thinking that I was "finally a woman", as development class had wired me to think. Feel free to add your own! [ 05-17-2006, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: Miss Lauren ]
BiGoddess
Member # 23917
posted 05-18-2006 12:43 AM
It was December 19th, and I was nine years old and in the fourth grade. I was at school, and needed a bathroom break. When I pulled down my pants, I noticed that there was blood in my undies, and quite a bit of it. Luckily, none had bled through (thank goodness for black pants), so I simply wadded up some toilet paper to form a makeshift pad and went on with my day. When my mum picked me up from school, I told her excitedly, "I got my period today!" She congratulated me enthusiastically, and I was thrilled. I did have a sleepover planned at my friend's house that night. My mum asked me if I was comfortable being away from home my first night on my period, and, though I was a bit hesitant, I wasn't about to let something like that get in my way. I had a good time at the sleepover, though I felt a little awkward sneaking pads into the bathroom every few hours to change. Overall, it was a good experience. I'm quite thankful that my mum has always been so matter-of-fact with things like that, otherwise I probably would have freaked out. Also, I'm glad I didn't start getting bad cramps along with my period until a year-ish later. My feelings probably would have been different if my "first time" had been accompanied by excruciating pain.
Gumdrop Girl
Member # 568
posted 05-18-2006 11:36 PM
I started up at the statistical average of twelve and a half. I came home from school and ducked in the bathroom. Lo and behold. All I could do was cuss a whole bunch.
Gwaihir
Member # 27276
posted 05-19-2006 01:26 AM
Hmm. . it was August 1, I was 13 (I thought this was the average age! Later friends told me that I had started late) and in the morning I noticed this brownish discharge on my underwear. I didn't think it was my actual period, but rather some "pre-menstrual discharge," or something. My parents were away and my sister and me were being watched by a babysitter who took us swimming that day. Over the course of the day I realized the discharge kept coming and it was darker and more bloody and I thought, "nope, this IS my period." It was very light and lasted about six days, but at some times I was scared because I wanted my mom and she wasn't there. I tried to use tampons, but I couldn't get one in and I didn't use pads because I was too afraid my babysitter would find them so the whole time I just used toilet paper.
Lyra_Daemon
Member # 19961
posted 05-19-2006 11:23 AM
I was 15 and a half! So due to the fantastically late timing I was mostly relieved that it had come at last. I was doing Tae Kwon Do at the time, took a toilet break, and then had to tell our leader's wife I had to sit our for the rest of the session. Fun times.
karybu
Member # 20094
posted 05-19-2006 11:29 AM
I'd just turned 17, it was actually almost exactly 5 years ago. (Yeah, I know that's really late.) I started at school, and bled through my jeans - very noticeably - I actually had to call my mom to come pick me up so that I could change. It was a bit embarrassing, to say the least. Mostly what I remember is being extremely pissed off that this menstruation thing had to happen to me, ever. [ 05-19-2006, 11:32 AM: Message edited by: karybu ]
Miz Scarlet
Member # 3
posted 05-19-2006 11:47 AM
I was almost 12. It was 1981. I was wearing white painter's pants (again, I say -- in my fashion defense -- it was 1981). I was talking to someone I had a crush on. This culminated in me feeling an odd gush, having a good idea of what was going on, scooting my bottom down the hallway towards the bathroom, while never moving my backside off of the wall, and wordlessly escaping into the loo. This also culminated in having to use the old pads, from the nurses office (which were also the ones we had at home) with the elastic belt, pads that literally were thicker than incontinence diapers are these days. I also remember having to wear sweatpants a size too small the rest of the day because that's all they had available for me to change into, and my trendy-self being more embarassed about that than any of the rest of it. It wasn't exactly the best day ever.
September
Member # 25425
posted 05-19-2006 11:54 AM
I was 14, and getting ready to meet up with a crush to go roller blading. I'd been awaiting my period anxiously for several years, mostly because I was afraid that it would surprise me at a really inconvenient moment. All told, it could've been worse, given that I realized it before I left and not during the date. I freaked out, consulted with my mother and was given one of those horribly big pads that feel like diapers. I tried very hard to feel grown-up and womanly, but only felt uncomfortable and annoyed.
LilBlueSmurf
Member # 1207
posted 05-19-2006 12:54 PM
I was 12.5 and i was SO excited. One of my best friends had called me over the summer to tell me that she'd gotten her period and i wanted mine too. It was first thing in the morning and i was getting ready to go to school. I went to the washroom and noticed my underwear was full of bright red blood. My mom had always told me that her first period was brown/black but mine was bright red so i wasn't quite sure what was going on. I called for my mom, who was still in bed, to come look (we've never been shy ... at all). She looked and decided that it was indeed my period. I bounced around the house for like an hour and then went to school and proceeded to tell all my (female!) friends. I didn't have cramps right away, but i had them later that night ... I still didn't regret it though. I was so glad to have it ... I was growing up. Even though i didn't have big breasts (still don't!), i was maturing in ways that many of the girls in my class hadn't and i felt special.
justxsome1
Member # 29048
posted 05-27-2006 09:55 AM
my story was pretty funny, actually. i got it about a month after my 13th birthday on november 6, 2004. i was visiting my aunt who lives about four hours away from my house, but we were staying in a hotel because her house is REALLY small. so, i woke up at about 1:00 with really bad "stomach aches" later to be known as cramps. so i went to the bathroom and i felt like i was about to explode, but i never actually went to the bathroom. so finally after the fifth time i went i woke up my mom, and she had no clue what was going on. so she fed me all this stomach ache medicine and none of it helped (obviously!!) and i was in such pain and it hurt like CRAZY! on our way home, we stopped at this restaraunt we go to once in a while and i try to go to the bathroom once more, and i looked in my underwear and i swear my face turned white. so i asked my mom and shes like, "hun, you got your period!" i was about to just jump up and scream with joy and i wantd to tell everyone but luckily, i refrained from that. but when i finally got home my friend came over and i told her, but she wasnt happy for me at all, but jealous. that was because she just wanted to grow up way too fast, and couldnt enjoy being a kid while it lasted. so the moral of the story is, your time will come eventually, and dont try to rush your "body clock." "life is not measured by how many breaths we take, but how many moments take our breath away."
kitka
Member # 22756
posted 05-27-2006 03:47 PM
I was 9 and clueless. I'm pretty sure my mom had told me what a period was, but neither of us expected it to happen that early. So for the first couple of days, I didn't tell my mom and kept changing my underwear... ruined a lot of panties that way. My mom was kind of neutral on the whole issue once she sat down with me & gave me pads; she also announced it to my dad and brothers. To this day I don't understand why she did that. Invariably within that first year, I got my period at school while wearing white pants. And red sweatpants too, but I don't think as many people noticed. My cycle has always been really unpredictable. I can't say I was ever been happy to get my period at all; it meant knife-stabbing pain and not being able to wear leggings (it was early 90s and the 80s fashion still held sway for some of us).
Beppie
Member # 94
posted 05-27-2006 07:02 PM
I was 11 and in 6th grade. I'd known about periods pretty much my whole life, and was looking forward to getting it, Judy Blume-style, but when it actually happenned, I was shocked and didn't enjoy it at all. I lived in the country, and it was drought at the time, so (sorry to be gross) we wouldn't flush the toilet every time we used it. I didn't notice anything, but my mum did, and asked me if I'd gotten my period-- I went to check, and when I saw the blood on my pants my stomach fell out of me and I went deathly pale. I suddenly hated what I'd been looking forward to. By the next day, I felt a little better, because, as far as I knew, I was the first person in my year to get it (there were only 10 kids in my grade-- it was a very small school), and I hoped that having my period would mean that the other girls in my year would let me hang out with them (I was usually on my own, not being cool enough for the other girls, who were known as "the gang"). This didn't work. They just told everyone in the school, which made me feel horrible. (I found out a few years later that one other girl had gotten her first period before me, and had wisely kept quiet about it, to avoid such a scenario). I'd also asked my mum to ring the school nurse/receptionist who was the most lovely woman in the world, so that I'd have someone to go to if I ever ran out of pads or something. She said she would, but when I got home from school, she blithely informed me that she hadn't been able to contact the nurse, so she'd told my MALE teacher instead. I was mortified. All in all, it was a terrible week, and I didn't feel happy again until my first period was over. When my second period came around it went far better, although it did mean that I had to skip the end of year swimming lessons that I'd been looking forward to (it was a few years before I could use tampons with comfort). However, I remained very embarrassed about menstruating at all until a couple of years later when I realised "Hang on, at any given time, approximate 1/4 of all women are menstruating, how can there be anything to be embarrassed about!?" After that, I was fine (except for dealing with the cramps, which turned up about a year after I started menstruating). [ 05-27-2006, 08:18 PM: Message edited by: Beppie ]
Nailo
Member # 26390
posted 05-27-2006 09:20 PM
I remember it clearly. I was 11, it was a Wednesday night in September and I was out with my male cousin and his (then) best male friend at the movies watching "Evolution". I had been drinking a big glass of lemonade, and after a while, I started feeling the way you feel when you need to go to the bathroom but you have to hold it in. When the movie was over, I went rushing to the bathroom because I felt I was going to explode. I felt better after I peed, but the feeling didn't go away, and I thought "that's odd...". Then I looked down at my underwear and it was completely brown. I was pretty shocked... to be honest, and this may seem a bit funny, I thought I had pooped in my pants! My mother had been telling me about periods for as long as I can remember, so that was a non issue. The problem was that I always saw blood as red. I never expected it to be brown! So, since I was really confused and was only with two guys, I said nothing. I went to bed, didn't say anything to my mom. The next day, when I gave my clothes to my mom so she could put them in the dirty clothes basket when I took a shower, she saw that I folded my panties so she couldn't see them. Of course, this was because I didn't want her to know that I had "pooped in my pants". Of course, she asked me if she could see and I blurted out "I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED! I SWEAR, I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!" She looked at it for a second and said "well, you might have gotten your period". So after I took a shower, she showed me how to put on a sanitary napkin. I felt like I was using a diaper. I went to school, and sure enough, more of the brown stuff kept coming. And I had awful cramps; one of my classmates thought I had appendicitis. Only one of my classmates could relate. I was, apprently, the 3rd girl in my grade to get her period. My dad picked me up from school and he said "Mother told me about your special period day!!" And I groaned because I didn't want her to tell him. Oh well, they treated me to a big del monaco steak "just in case my iron dropped". The whole thing was a bit spoiled because my dad had been trying to look at me naked while I was changing the night before and I told him to leave. So he said "I knew something must have been wrong last night because normally you just go around saying OH YES, I'M NAKED SO WHAT and last night you didn't want me to look at you".... Grumble.... But over all, it wasn't that bad. I think it's kind of funny, thinking back on my first reaction. I'll make sure, if I have a daughter, to tell her that blood CAN be brown
Djynnjah
Member # 20056
posted 06-20-2006 02:50 AM
I was twelve and sitting in the car on a hot day waiting for my mother to pick something up at my Grandmother's house. I felt a rush, then another and when I looked down, I saw the splotch on my pants. White shorts too. I think my first reaction was along the lines of, "Oh crap! Now?" So I scooted into the house and tried to get my mother's attention. She rigidly insisted on a very strict, narrow pattern of what she considered to be the ONLY correct behavior when we were younger and interrupting her while she was talking to another adult was definitely 'not proper behavior'. I took my chances though and practically had to poke her and yell, "Mummy, I got my period." Luckily that was enough for her to hold off on the usual blowout. She was happy. Happier than I was. She wrangled up a pad from somewhere, a really thick one and let me stay at grandma's to sleep it off. It changed things though. I asked her not to go spreading the word because frankly I didn't see how it was anyone else's business but she bragged anyway and promptly informed me that it was my duty to tell my friends whether I personally wanted to or not. Then she started cracking down on my behavior because now I could get pregnant. Never mind I went to a strict all-girl religious school and never went anywhere else without her. I dreaded getting any kind of upset stomach because she inevitably accused me of being pregnant. I had absolutely no chance of even meeting a boy, let alone having sex, so it hurt that she would be so illogical about the situation. She was always convinced that I was never washing properly enough and her usual line was, "You're a big girl, you're having your period now! Clean up! What kind of mother will you be?" I sucked it up and dealt. It wasn't easy but after a few years I realized that she might actually have a few problems that require medication (family history of mental issues that she refused to acknowledge, she has old-fashioned ideas and isn't the type to stand firm in the face of negative social stigma) so everything wasn't all my fault and I didn't have to beat myself up for displeasing her all the time. Nowadays, I've got my advil and my divacup and my period is thankfully something that just happens and is easy to push into the background so I can get on with the business of living. It's not a reason to walk on eggshells.
lollipop89
Member # 29487
posted 07-01-2006 06:37 PM
My first period was actually pretty awful. I was twelve and a half, and when I saw blood in my underpants, I told my mom right away that I'd gotten my period. She gave me pads, and explained how to use them. The next day my grade was going on a week-long nature retreat, so I packed a box of pads and didn't think twice about going. This probably was not my smartest move. The whole thing was very Outward Bounds, with us being split into small groups consisting of one girls tent, one boys tent, and one couneslor tent for the entire week. We had to pitch those tents ourselves, keep the campfire going on our own, and cook all of our own food. We also had to go to the bathroom in the woods. We could just pee on the ground, but for everything else, we had to dig a hole. Then get this; we were shown what kinds of leaves could be used as toilet paper, and told told that if we wanted to use regular TP, we'd have to communally burn it. I was mortified, and scared to even bring up the issue of pads with our two male counselors. My period was extremely heavy, and I was miserable for the entire week. I get chills just thinking about it. Although, I do apologize for ruining the ecosystem of Connecticut with all of my buried pads!
cool87
Member # 29292
posted 07-02-2006 11:13 AM
I was 14. I was the only one who hadn't gotten her period yet among my friends. And it was at my house, so this was a little easier for me. It was just brownish blood at first I was not sure it really was my period but my mom reassured me. This is one of the few things I talked out with her. I don't really talk to her about feminine stuff, that's sad because she is a nurse and sometimes she could be of great help. Anyway, my few other periods, were awful. I've never took the pill or anything. My menstrual cramps were awfully bad, I was sure there wasn't only my period going on in here. Advil or Tylenol didn't work. I couldn't do anything and just sitting was awful too. It really was not a funny thing. I had to wait for a few months, before it gotten less worse. The key was to do physical actvities to help ease the pain. It works but that isn't funny to do sexual activities when you have heavy bleeding going on here. My bleeding was heavy at first. It's getting better but I'm irregular. Sometimes I can go two months before having my period. But I know it from the second it begins because I start to get cramps out there. And I know because of the ovulation thing when you get white transparent discharge a lot in your underwear. I know that few weeks after that, there will be my period. It always works. I wasn't using tampons at first. I tried it once but had a really bad experience. I put a tampon but let the applicator on, you know the plastic thing. So it hurts and it was my first time using a tampon so I didnt want to really use it again after. I use it but not often.
nina_brown04
Member # 17973
posted 07-02-2006 12:13 PM
I was 8 when I got mine. My mother explained it all to me beforehand about the day I become "a woman". I started wearing pads "just in case". I remember being in church and I sneezed and I felt something "gush" out. I later discoverd that I had started my period. Heres a little embarrassing moment of mine: I went with my dad to the drug store to pick up some pads all by myself. I picked up what I 'thought' were pads and headed to the counter very proud of myself and feeling like "a woman". I get to the counter and the cashier looked at me and said "You know these aren't kotex?" Me, not knowing what she was talking about said "Yeah I know" (still feeling like a 'woman"). She gave me a sort of "I feel sorry for you look". So I get home to show my mom what I had bought and to my suprise she fell into laughter. I mean the holding your stomach, teary-eyed kind of laughter. Come to find out I had bought those adult diapers for people with weak bladders! Lol....
cool87
Member # 29292
posted 07-02-2006 01:24 PM
8-9 years-old. It's so young. I couldn't have imagined having mine at that age. [ 07-02-2006, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: cool87 ]
guiltyangel210
Member # 22137
posted 07-02-2006 04:55 PM
I had just turned nine when i got mine, so it must have been about christmas time 1998. I was in a swimming lesson and all of a sudden i got the most excruciating stomach cramps (i've always had dysmenorrhea, even from my first period and it sucks big time). I started to be in so much pain that i couldn't swim and basically almost sank and drowned, so my teacher took me out of the pool and to the changing room and told me to get changed and that she would call my mum in for me. So i got changed and i noticed some brown stuff in my costume but didn't really know what it was. My mum had explained about periods to me when i first started developing when i was about seven and a half, so if i'd remembered i would have known it was my period. As it was my mum took one look at me and just said 'are you bleeding?' and i said yes and she explained to me that i'd started my period and gave me some pads and told me what to do. I just absolutely broke down in tears and sobbed and sobbed my heart out for about half an hour, till it sank it that yep that was it i was all grown up now (which i actually regret thinking now as it has contributed to my emotional problems in later life *I* think). I had to skip a lot of swimming lessons in my last two years of primary school because mum didn't want me to use tampons incase i forgot to change and got TSS. They were always very irregular too, right up to when i went on the pill in 2005. I was always a little funny about going to sleepovers if i had my period too. I'm not so bad now as i know i can cope with it and i stay at my boyfriend's house everyweekend no matter how heavy or light my period now. The only place i'm still funny about going to when i have my period is my maternal grandparent's house, because i hate feeling uncomfortable in their house. Now i always know what day my period will be on thanks to the pill so i can plan things like visiting my grandparents around that. It's funny as well now because i always know the exact moment when i've started because i suddenly get sharp upswing in pain along with a sort of trickling feeling in my uterus and birth canal, which feels really odd. so yes, i've been having period for 8 years now. I was the first to start out of everyone i know and the youngest to ever start in my family and oddly enough i get just as bad dysmenorrhea as my mother had before me and my grandmother before her and my great-grandmother before her, and my cousins all get it too but all of them who have had children have found that it eases off after childbirth, so i'm hopeful yet.
KittenGoddess
Member # 1679
posted 07-02-2006 08:14 PM
I was in 7th grade, and it was the day of the state fine arts competition (which was being held at my school). I was singing with my Jr. High Choir (that was my only event that year, I believe) that day. I got up in the morning, and low and behold, my period had started. Just a bit of brown stuff. My mom had explained the whole thing long before that (she's a nurse), so I wasn't terribly worried. But I must confess that I was completely distracted during the entire preformance that day. I'm surprised I didn't end up singing, "Uterus, oh my period..."
Monotonous
Member # 29530
posted 07-03-2006 04:37 AM
I remember, Friday, the day before I got my period, I had very strange lower back pain that just wouldn't go away! I was complaining to my father as he parked in front of the house that my back hurt and I couldn't figure out why. He shrugged it off, of course, and I thought that maybe, once I got out of the truck that I would feel better. Maybe it was the way I was sitting. No... And it didn't go away that night, either. I was 9, and knew about periods and all, because my Nan got me that gURL book about puberty and being a teenager and sex and all that stuff since we didn't talk about that stuff in the house. The next morning, I went to the bathroom and, lo and behold, bright red blood on the toilet paper. I promptly summoned Nan into the room, yelling, "I got my period!" and I felt so great and womanly, putting on my pad like a real big girl. About a half hour later, the cramps set in and I was laying on the couch, moaning and crying, and not wanting to be a woman anymore. My dad walked into the room and asked me what was wrong. I told him my stomach hurt. He thought maybe there was something wrong with my appendix or something crazy like that. Curiously, the next week our school had a special class for girls about female health. In order not to scare anyone, they said that periods didn't hurt at all! I remember I snorted very audibly, being on the rag while their spewing this "no pain" garbage! 6 years later, my periods have gotten worse. More painful and more irregular. But, it could possibly be because I notice much more than I used to when my periods are late now that I've been sexually active. Those pesky sperm!
onewish01
Member # 29500
posted 07-03-2006 12:28 PM
I got my first period when I was in grade 6. I really didn't know what it was at first, because it didn't look like actual blood. I kept hiding the dirty underwear from my mom because I was scared she was going to be mad at me or something. Finally, my dog got a pair of my undies (to chew up... he was quite the chewer when we got him) and my mom found him with them and came to ask me if they were mine. I just kind of nodded, then she told me what it was and I was suprised. She was happy though, lol, and helped me through the first couple of days.
Darcy783
Member # 35378
posted 10-03-2007 10:17 PM
It was August 1996, about a month after my 13th birthday. I think my mom was having a yard sale or something, because I distinctly remember her being outside the house for some reason. I don't remember why (possibly, I thought I had a stomach ache which turned out to be cramps, but I don't remember actually HAVING cramps that first time) I went to use the bathroom on the ground floor of our home. When I noticed the blood in my underwear, I shouted (through the closed bathroom door and out the open main door--which was right next to the bathroom) for my mom to come in the house. When she was outside the bathroom door, I told her (though probably not in so many words) that I needed a pad, because there were none in that bathroom, and since I'm the eldest child in the family, my mom was the only one to have her period before I was, so she would know where they were. She went and got me one, and then later blabbed the whole thing to the rest of my family. She just doesn't understand the concept of "things other people don't really need to know," especially when it comes to her children's personal lives and such. *rolls eyes*
Tuxy
Member # 30392
posted 10-03-2007 10:56 PM
Hmm, last when I was 12, I knew what to expect (kind of) so I wasn't really surprised. My reaction however, was, "Damn, did you have to start today ? My grandmother left for the city two days earlier city, of all times to go. All I really remember is I woke up, and noticed my pajama bottoms were wet and red-stained. (And of course, we were running a friend's house, I left behind a lovely 'spot' on the mattress.) Since my grandma was gone, I had to go ask one of my grandmother's friends for help and some pads, very embarrassing for the both of us. I can't believe some of you had them at 8-9! I had just learned about periods then!
LittleMissSunshine
Member # 33438
posted 11-04-2007 01:02 AM
Well, let's see. I was about 15, and at home relaxing after a hard week of school (Honor's and AP's classes...). Went to the bathroom, noticed some light spotting,and stuck on a pantyliner. For the first few months, my periods consisted of light spotting. Later on, as a few of you know, I started having extreme pain, and was later diagnosed with Endometriosis. Honestly, it wasn't really a big deal for me. I had already had upwards of 3 school sponsored sex-ed classes, and pretty much had all of the information down. Not to mention, I felt like a bit of a freak among my friends, being (really and truly) the ONLY one without her period. So in the end, actually getting my period was a bit of relief. My family didn't make too big of a deal out of it, because frankly, it wasn't too big of a deal to me. I believe the way one views menarche depends greatly on the age at which it occurs. I think that having a *bit* more emotional maturity really led me to view menarche as more of a "medical" occurance, rather than some great "life change" or "becoming a woman".
LittleMissSunshine
Member # 33438
posted 11-04-2007 01:05 AM
*Sorry, computer glitch!* [ 11-04-2007, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: LittleMissSunshine ]
LittleMissSunshine
Member # 33438
posted 11-04-2007 01:07 AM
*Sorry, computer glitch!* [ 11-04-2007, 08:40 AM: Message edited by: LittleMissSunshine ]
Leabug
Member # 27966
posted 11-04-2007 11:53 AM
I personally didn't have the greatest first period ever. I started going through puberty at a pretty young age- grade 3 or 4 really- so I had a lot of things going on with my body that I didn't really understand since we hadn't covered it in school yet and, for some reason, my mom had never brought up. I was at a summer camp the year before grade 5, and had been feeling really crummy- I wasn't having fun at the camp and was homesick, not to mention the cafeteria food gave me perpetual tummy aches. I went to the washroom at lunch and saw some brown stuff on my underwear, and actually thought I'd soiled myself cuz of feeling sick from the food. Of course, I was embarrased, so I didn't tell anyone- it was really awkward trying to explain why I didn't want to go swimming with everyone else (I thought it would happen again), for example. But finally, a perceptive counselor took me aside and asked me what was going on, and suggested I come with her to the cabin to get something. She gave me a bunch of pads and explained that what I'd had was my first period, and she let me call my mom to talk to her. So, not the funnest story ever, but once I figured out that it was my period and not anything else, I felt way better Plus it gave me a sort of status amongst my friends- I was the very first to have a period, and they were all jealous!
Thursday
Member # 36710
posted 01-28-2008 07:43 PM
I was thirteen and two months. I woke up on a school morning, went to the bathroom, and when I got up the water in the toilet was red. I went to my parents' room, where they were still in bed, and told them, and Dad said 'are you sure?' and I said there was blood in the toilet, and they said that was it then. Mam said that would probably be all, but to go down and put on a pad anyway - she'd been keeping some for me - and I did. On the way back to my room, just outside my parents' room, my legs suddenly went from under me and I fell. They leapt out of bed and somehow managed to run out of the room and catch me before I hit the floor, so I wasn't badly hurt, but I felt ROTTEN. Seriously, I don't think I've ever felt iller. My head I'd banged lightly on the vacuum cleaner, my stomach felt really, horribly sick in a way I'd never felt before, and my arms and legs were weak _and_ numb _and_ pins-and-needling _and_ sweaty. I could barely breathe to speak. Mam helped me into bed and as soon as I lay down I felt much better, everything but the slight pain in my head went away and I started to go back to sleep. She said that maybe I wouldn't go to school today and I think I laughed; I definitely wasn't going to school. Later on I felt better, and the next day Mam wanted me to go to school so I'd start to think of it as normal, but in the end I didn't, I think I said I would see it as normal next time. I think it was the next day we went to a hotel for the weekend: my parents had gotten some kind of special offer and wanted to celebrate a few different things. I remember I said I couldn't swim in the pool and Mam disagreed, she was sure I couldn't be bleeding very much because she hadn't, first time, but I knew I was and I didn't swim, but still had a nice time. My moher was also very impressed when my next period came 21 days later rather than eight months or something. I didn't have any other symptoms after that first kind-of-fainting incident until two years on, thankfully. I wish I still didn't though...
Stephanie_1
Member # 36725
posted 01-29-2008 05:28 PM
My first period was a HORRIBLE experience! It all happened the day before my twelfth birthday (July). I was sleeping in my bed and a little before 5AM I woke up and I remember thinking that I had wet the bed or something because the sheet felt wet (which was odd because I hadn’t done that since I was four). I threw the covers back and got out of bed, and I remember there being a dark spot where I had been laying … but I didn’t think much of it right away. I turned the light on and looked at my bed – and then I screamed. My parents came rushing in and my dad said that I had started my period, but my mom thought it wasn’t true because it was so bad. My parents packed me in the car and drove me to the ER, when there I had to go through a whole bunch of tests and everyone was really nice to me, but I just wanted to go home. The doctors agreed with my mother that there was something going on – but nobody seemed to know what. I was checked into the hospital for “further observation” and to be hooked up to an IV. I remember being really sick … I couldn’t stand up without getting dizzy and I couldn’t eat without feeling really nauseous. Some of the nurses brought me a cake and they sang to me with a couple of the doctors and of course my family (Right … Happy birthday to me…). Two days later they sent me home with instructions that if anything happened further to come back. Later I was diagnosed with PCOS and while the OBGYN says that may have been what happened, we’ll never really be sure.
selina
Member # 33376
posted 01-30-2008 01:57 PM
i was in year 6 and i came back from dancing class to find a whole lot of blood. and i was wearing my best pair of kinickers that day!
bee_is_me
Member # 38122
posted 05-01-2008 06:25 AM
I was 13.75 and so had been anxiously awaiting my period for some time. I'd had a few stomach pains in the days before and told my dad (who I am very close to) and he said it might be my period, but I didn't think so because there was no blood. The day I actually got it, we'd been swimming and the pair of board shorts I was wearing were dark maroon. I was at a friend's house, had some more pains and felt a gush. I thought it was just usual discharge which I'd had for a while. When I got home, I went to the til
Independence_Day
Member # 39211
posted 07-08-2008 12:51 AM
I'd just barely turned thirteen when I got mine. I was really relieved because all my friends already had theirs (I'm a grade ahead...). It was spring I'd been having this weird feeling that I was going to get mine for a couple of days. I even wore a pad to bed one night because I was sure. But then I felt dumb and took it off and threw it away. A day or two later, I got it in school which was super-unlucky, but most of the class was gone on a trip, and when that happened, our teachers pretty much let us do whatever we wanted. And I discovered it before it had a chance to leak. *Phew* I didn't have anything with me, though...luckily some other girl had left a bag full of literally DOZENS of pads. I don't know who it was, but I was (and am) ETERNALLY grateful to her. I was also really lucky that--since it was my first time--it was really light so that one pad lasted me the rest of the day (several hours...like five or something, bc I went to a friends house after school). Anyways, I almost didn't tell my mom because I just don't really tell her anything (I ended up telling her, anyways because who else could buy me pads? I didn't have money hardly ever). (I was lucky, again. The space between my second and third periods was so long that we were out of school before #2 came along.) My two probably worst experiences I ever had with it were both in 9th grade. #1: when I was wearing white jeans and leaked and #2: when I didn't get to change my pad soon enough and it leaked all over my jeans...luckily I had a very long jacket. UNluckily my science teacher assigned me to sit next to my crush...why that one week out of all the others available??? I made the mistake of telling my mom when my little sister was in the room. She was really mean about it, and I was really mad at her for it. It was hard enough telling my mom. My "revenge" though, was that she got hers at an older age than when I got mine and it's super irregular (my first one and second one were 45 days apart and after that they've always been about 28 days per cycle). Mine was never brown when I got it. It was red like all the others after it. I never knew until I was reading an article about it that it was often brownish and that sort of thing at the beginning. My sisters was, I know (she told probably EVERYONE who was female). She told my mom that she got it. Then her friend (who got her first one a day or two before her) said that she'd told HER mom by showing her a bloody pad. So then my sister walks down the hall with a soiled pad in her hand. "See mom?" OMG. I get shudders at the very thought. My mom's just like "Um, yeah, that's nice dear...you told me. I believe you..."
Chocolicious
Member # 38714
posted 08-04-2008 11:39 AM
I was 12, and I remember that seventh grade had started only a month ago. I just went to the bathroom after school and then I noticed that the water was orange... so I was like, "Oh. Mom's going to make a big deal... hmm.. I'm hungry." I told my mom and there was minimal freakout. My dad didn't know what to say, so he just kind of mumbled, "Are you ok?" and then we went back to playing Final Fantasy. Though, I do remember kind of worrying that I would faint from loosing so much blood. No one had explained exactly how much blood one would loose, so I thought that I would be someting of a faucet.
Horizon
Member # 35890
posted 08-04-2008 08:34 PM
B'lieve I'll pitch in, too. I was right at 12.5, and it was mid June. The month before, I thought I saw something strange in my underwear, just a lone red dot, but I ignored it. So in June, I happened to feel something strange when I was watching TV and when I went in my room to look, I knew what I saw. And I was not happy. I remember I flipped out and somehow thought my mom would be angry at me, (even though she'd tried to talk to me about that kind of thing before, I usually chose to shrug it off). Of course, she wasn't mad and explained to me how to use a pad and how to use tampons if I needed them. I spent that week being miserable in the hot weather with this diaper-like contraption in my pants. A couple days later, my stepdad found my cat dead in the road the morning of the day we were going to have family portraits done. He hid her from me and we all went to get pictures taken. Needless to say, every time I see that picture, I think of periods, hot weather, and my poor dead cat.
Bun Bun
Member # 37353
posted 08-04-2008 11:07 PM
I must have been 11, I think, because it was the summer after grade 5. I had known for years what periods were because when I was in grade 1, my mom told me about them because she was sure that I'd start puberty early because of the amount of meat I ate (something about tons of hormones in the meat?). So anywho, we had just had lunch at Wendy's, and I was getting terrible stomach cramps. I thought that was to be expected, I just had a quarter pounder meal, and supersized it. But when I went to the bathroom, I realized that I was bleeding pretty heavily. I remember telling my mom, and being SO embarrassed about it because at school everyone thought periods and pubic hair was disgusting. She gave me a pad, and being stubborn and independent, I wouldn't let her show me how to put it on. (As a side note, has anybody ever seen that episode of Braceface when Sharon gets her first period when she's out rollerblading with Alden? And he thinks she dying from food poisoning from his parent's restaurant or appendicitis and he calls an ambulance... Classic. XD) [ 08-04-2008, 11:08 PM: Message edited by: Bun Bun ]
May Day
Member # 39174
posted 08-07-2008 11:29 PM
in hind sight, my reaction to my first period is a bit lol:P I got it in year 6 (age 11.5..ish) on "open night", the night where everyone's parents come to school to talk to teachers, walk around and view your awesome work. We live up the road from my primary school and for some reason we went back home. I went to the loo and i had bled a lot! i was terrified initially, i thought "oh god what have i done to my pants?!" and was pretty upset. When mum pointed out that i'd just got my period i was..ecstatic:P i was bouncing around singing about it around the bathroom. Then we went back to school where i proceeded to bound up to my gfs and tell them how all grown up i was! I still am pretty spiffied when i get my period actually, i kinda enjoy it being part of me. Of course sometimes it's a lil inconvienient, coz i'm still not a tampon user, but it really isn't a big deal. Girls, enjoy them coz they're part of you:)
Noosa07310
Member # 44140
posted 09-22-2009 09:17 PM
OMG the most embarassing thing that ever happened to me in my life. I was 12 and going to be 13 in 2 weeks. I was a 7th grader. I was sitting in class at school and I got up to go to PE class and next thing I knew, my friend was asking me; are you hurt? I said no why? Well you have alot of blood on the back of your jeans. I was swimming in blood. Even the seat I was sitting in was full of blood. This happened after having bad cramps for a few days. I then noticed it and said Oh My God and wrapped my coat around my waiste. I did not want people to see it, I was embarassed. Howeer, I knew all about periods because my mom explained to me. I ran to the nurses office because I wanted to get an early leave excuse to go home and get out of my bloody clothes. I called my dad to pick me up from school, he was a cab driver in NYC, and take me home ASAP. I told him what happened and he saw for himself, when he picked me up. My mother also saw what happened, when I got home. She told me to go to my room, take of my close and go take a bath. She put my bloody clothes in the laundry and gave me a sanitery napkin to wear while I was in the tub. After I finished in the tub and got dressed, she took me to the drug store to get Sanitery napkins and congraduted me on becomming a woman. She also told me that soon her and my dad will be looking for a nice husband for me. My mother got engaged to my father a week after she got her first period. their marriage was actually arranged. That is part my parents' culture though. looooooool [ 09-22-2009, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: Noosa07310 ]
Noosa07310
Member # 44140
posted 09-22-2009 09:43 PM
quote: Originally posted by Horizon: B'lieve I'll pitch in, too. I was right at 12.5, and it was mid June. The month before, I thought I saw something strange in my underwear, just a lone red dot, but I ignored it. So in June, I happened to feel something strange when I was watching TV and when I went in my room to look, I knew what I saw. And I was not happy. I remember I flipped out and somehow thought my mom would be angry at me, (even though she'd tried to talk to me about that kind of thing before, I usually chose to shrug it off). Of course, she wasn't mad and explained to me how to use a pad and how to use tampons if I needed them. I spent that week being miserable in the hot weather with this diaper-like contraption in my pants. A couple days later, my stepdad found my cat dead in the road the morning of the day we were going to have family portraits done. He hid her from me and we all went to get pictures taken. Needless to say, every time I see that picture, I think of periods, hot weather, and my poor dead cat. Periods can be painful and sickning. I get nausious when I get my period. I am miserable when I have my period during the summer. Itr is like wearing pampers. I nicknamed it "the monthly illness". I actually crave raw beef during my periods,though I can't eat meat during certain times during the year.
Noosa07310
Member # 44140
posted 09-22-2009 09:48 PM
quote: Originally posted by Miz Scarlet: I was almost 12. It was 1981. I was wearing white painter's pants (again, I say -- in my fashion defense -- it was 1981). I was talking to someone I had a crush on. This culminated in me feeling an odd gush, having a good idea of what was going on, scooting my bottom down the hallway towards the bathroom, while never moving my backside off of the wall, and wordlessly escaping into the loo. This also culminated in having to use the old pads, from the nurses office (which were also the ones we had at home) with the elastic belt, pads that literally were thicker than incontinence diapers are these days. I also remember having to wear sweatpants a size too small the rest of the day because that's all they had available for me to change into, and my trendy-self being more embarassed about that than any of the rest of it. It wasn't exactly the best day ever. My first period happened in 1991 and I was turning 13 min 2 weeks. My period was my birthday gift from God.
Jill2000Plus
Member # 41657
posted 09-23-2009 04:07 PM
My first period happened at the end of year 8 (I was 12, I think, or maybe 13), I was in the middle of last week activities wearing blue denim dungarees and I saw blood in my underwear when I went to the bathroom, I was cool with it, but I think I got stomach cramps at some point so that made that day less fun, I also can't remember whether I got my period first or started masturbating first, because I definitely remember feeling uncomfortable about touching my genitals to put in tampons and check them out when I first started, though I think part of that was my hopefully unfounded fear that the smell from me touching my genitals would linger and someone could tell, anyway my point is I dealt reasonably well with it, but I remember not feeling truly ok about it for a while because I had that residual body shame, I'm quite certain I remember being reluctant to masturbate during periods for a while, I will say though, the school nurse was lovely, as they always were about everything and made sure I was comfortable, I think there was a stain on my trousers but I didn't really care all that much about it, I was too busy fencing with willow sticks and making a bird sculpture out of cardboard, fabric and broken AOL giveaway CDs.
cthulhu_hungers
Member # 47022
posted 05-11-2010 09:31 PM
Oh God, where to start. I was 15 the day my period started- literally 15, I started on my birthday. I had no clue about periods in middle school. I lived in one of those households were we didn't talk about sex, ever. Girls talked about tampons and pads in my middle school but I was too shy to ask what them what they were. My middle school didn't help, our sex ed was only about "the miracle of conception" and had no useful information whatsoever. I learned about my period from an American girl book. The day I got my period I found blood in my panties, wiped it up, and when I got home asked mom for a pad. She bought me these huge pads for extra-heavy flows that I *hated*. It took some convincing, and me joining track, to convince her to let me wear tampons. My periods are so light, and rare, and so unpredictable that I've never really had any warning symptoms of my periods. Sometimes I get a periods when I am really stressed. When I get a period that isn't a result of stress, my only real warning sign is that sometimes I get really, really horny for 2-3 days a week before the start of my period. I remember it being so bad when I was in high school that I would not be able to sleep or concentrate. And because we didn't talk about sex in my house, I didn't know what was happening to me and didn't know about masturbation, so those times were pretty much hell for me.
bee_is_me
Member # 38122
posted 05-30-2010 10:12 PM
I was 13.75, just before I started Year 8. I knew that quite a lot of girls already had their period and so had been anxiously awaiting mine for some time. I'd had a few stomach pains in the days before and told my dad (who I am very close to) and he said it might be my period, but I didn't think so because there was no blood. The day I actually got it, we'd been swimming and the pair of board shorts I was wearing were dark maroon. I was at a friend's house, had some more pains and felt a gush. I thought it was just usual discharge which I'd had for a while. When I got home, I went to the toilet and noticed that there were dark patches on my shorts. I couldn't tell that they were red, because of the colour of the shorts, so I was a bit confused at first. Then, when I realised what it was, I swore. Unfortunately, my brother was in the bath (we only had one bathroom) and he asked me what was wrong. It was very embarrassing. I then had to go upstairs to my dad, who was with my other brother, and tell him what had happened. He was just like 'Well, you have pads, don't you? Go and use one.' When I think back on it, I find it funny that it happened for me in a house with 3 males, none of whom really knew how to deal with this major event of my womanhood! I felt proud and grown up, and remember thinking when I woke up the next day 'This is the first day of the next 40 years of your life!' Haha. Then, when I went back to my mum's place, we went out for dinner with some friends, to celebrate my 'becoming a woman'. [ 05-30-2010, 10:17 PM: Message edited by: bee_is_me ]
Kawani3792
Member # 48854
posted 02-18-2011 05:41 AM
I was always an outsider type person, and around 8th grade the popular girls took to asking if I'd started yet. I was and am nowhere near confident enough to pull off the "And why do you want to know?" response, so I just said "No". And was still saying no at the end of freshman year. And liking that quite a bit! In no hurry to start my period, start needing a bra and deodorant, or any of that "womanly" stuff. It was late May, freshman year had just ended, and I was at Walmart with my mom, dad, and best friend. I had to use the restroom, noticed some rusty red, brownish stuff on the toilet paper, and folded some into a makeshift pad, then told my friend I thought I'd started. In the grand tradition of all females who were embarrassed when they started, my friend told my mom, who told my dad that "We need to go over to the pharmacy area and get some pads." There was a quick bit at home about be careful not to put it in upside down, cause it'll hurt. That was about it. I'm pretty thankful that I was always paranoid about when it would start...when I was 14 or 15, I snuck a couple tampons from the box my mom never used and practiced, and these had some boxy, uncomfortable cardboard applicators. So I got to know myself really well, and was more than prepared when I decided to start using tampons recently (There's a brand at my walmart with little "myth-or-fact" bits on each box. Hot showers are good=fact. Chocolate cravings=fact. Women are smarter during their periods=fact.) since these have the fancy plastic applicators and are a lot easier to deal with.
TonicTwelve
Member # 34415
posted 02-18-2011 05:31 PM
I got mine in Year 10, a couple of months before my 16th birthday. I'd have been happy to hold off forever, but my mum had said that if I didn't get it by the time I was 16 she was taking me to a doctor. She'd said that last year at 15 too, but I managed to talk her out of it. I wasn't really worried because I knew she hadn't got it until she was 18. Everyone in my friendship group had started ages ago and I felt very lucky that I didn't have to worry about it. When I got it I was home alone during the spring holidays. I first I didn't realise because it was very light brown discharge and then it clicked and I just took a pad (I had masses of pads and tampons and stuff from teen magazine showbags that were packed with samples. I guess it worked cause I'm still using the same brand, even after trying others!) put it on and didn't tell anyone. My mum had always made a huge deal of it.. she persisted in telling complete strangers that I hadn't got it, even after I asked her not to. So I didn't tell her for that whole first cycle and just took that used pads straight out to the garbage bin outside so she wouldn't see them. It took me about 1 day into the first period to decide that I hated the feeling of sitting in my own blood, so I decided to try tampons. I was (and am) super comfortable with my body, so I just did it (no applicators on most Australian tampons!) and it felt kind of odd the way I put it in but I got the hang of it over the next few days and I have never gone back. The time it happened I did tell her and made out like it was my first. As expected, she made a massive deal of it and wouldn't stop asking me for the next week "what colour is it, how much blood?" and wanted to see my used pads everyday (which I didn't have because I was using tampons except at night.) It drove me nuts and I tried to explain to her that I wasn't embarrassed but I couldn't see why she wanted to know that much and to me, it was like her asking me every day "how often do you go to the toilet, what colour it is, how much?" Now I just shut up, cause whenever it comes up in conversation, the whole questioning starts again. I only tell her when she asks and even then, in the most vague of terms, so she's under the vague impression that I'm super irregular and only have periods every 6 months. I buy my own pads and tampons (she has an absolute terror of having anything inside your vagina other that a penis, and would crack it hugely if she knew). Would REALLY love a cup but that will have to wait. Now when it happens it just fades into the background pretty much. I love those apps that you can track your period with, it means that I'm prepared when its coming (my cycle is fairly regular) and I catch it before anything stains.
Unlucky Duckie
Member # 50712
posted 06-02-2011 01:26 AM
My first cycle started around Thanksgiving, a month before my 16th birthday. It was evening time and I was home, thank goodness. I had been waiting for it since my mom gave me "the talk" @ age 9. I'd been kinda jealous and embarassed that all my friends had had theirs for years at that point. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong with me since I wasn't althletic or really fat (the only explainations I'd heard on why some girls didn't get periods before 16) I slapped on a pad and carried on with my night. Of course when my mother saw the sanitary wrapper in the trash she asked if I was cramping really bad or needed any Midol (and then called my godmother and grandmother to tell them. Why do mothers think this is family news?) I didn't, the first time was painless.......the times after? Not so much. But after that it didn't come for about 4 months. It continued like that until my mom took me to the obgyn to go on the pill.
The Confused One
Member # 48587
posted 07-09-2011 01:07 PM
I was 9+, a month before turning 10. I remember seeing brown stuff on my undies, so showed mum and she told me what happened. She wasn't surprised because I'd been having discharge for months. That first time was both embarrassing and horrible. It didn't start heavy, but it continued for two whole months. And the school holidays here start in mid Nov to end of Dec. My period started at the beginning of Nov. So I was still going to school. Of course, I felt the need to tell a FEW friends about it in case I needed help from them (I'm paranoid). Unlucky for me, one of those selected friends was a meanie. She started calling me 'Period Girl', in a LOUD voice and in front of everyone. I think I was one of the few girls in school who got their period at such a young age. I'm not so sure on that, because I'm a loner, I didn't go around asking others. So it was embarrassing that she needed to nickname me like that. Everyone looked at me like I was an alien after that o.O Except the others of the few selected friends though. THEY seemed to understand. Well, needless to say, I got my revenge when SHE got hers. Because I already had the experience and she didn't >:3 Still, I wished I didn't open my mouth. It was horrible because of constantly bleeding for 2 months But I guess, now when I look back, after all those years, it just feels like another day of my miserable childhood. And I'm pretty sure everyone already forgot about me and my first period In a way, I'm glad I started so early, I got regular faster than my friends, got way more experience and definitely more knowledge (I got curious about things faster than them). On the other hand, during those years, I was horrified. Cause as some of you know, I get heavy flows and terrible cramps =/ (I have a feeling I got them from mum... She too, had heavy flow o.O)
copper86
Member # 95710
posted 05-19-2012 11:04 PM
I think I was eight or nine; so I must have been in Grade 4. I don't really remember a lot about it; but I ironically remember the bathroom I was most likely in and which house it was (I've lived in four homes over the course of my life). I think I was really excited to get it... And when I got older, I'd think, "Why was I excited?" But when I started to use tampons, life was so much easier. My mom told me what to do - both with pads and later on with tampons - but her mother had never told her anything about periods; so when she first started, she had to ask her older sister. I'm thankful that my mom was there to help me!
LittleRedWolf
Member # 95958
posted 06-08-2012 07:18 PM
It's funny; I only talked about this for the first time recently with my best friend of eight years... we're 20 and 21 respectively! Talking about it has been so not 'the done thing' with most of my friends and family. I was around ten at the time, I think. Although I'd been given a 'how babies are made' book at age 6, it said nothing about menstruation, and I didn't know such a thing existed until one day when I was nine my mother told me she 'had to talk to me about something' (naturally I assumed I'd broken something and was in for a scolding!) and gave me a book about female puberty. Anyway, I went to the bathroom at my gran's one day after feeling inexplicably antsy (but no pain) all day, and there was a relative smidge of bright red. I had about 30 seconds of 'oh god no I'm dying what do I do what-' before I remembered that whole period deal. My mum told me it usually happened the same age for a daughter as the mother- in her case, 14, so I was still pretty startled. I made do with a wedge of toilet roll for the rest of the visit. When we left I was all squirmy in the car, not sure what words to use. She asked if I was alright and I blurted that I 'had some blood but I'm only ten, is it alright? Am I allowed?' or words to that effect. She was surprised but seemed happy about it, and luckily there was a pharmacy on the way home where we stopped off and got pads. The pads we got were terrible uncomfortable chunky things that were chosen just because it was the same brand as she used as a teen, but this was 2000 and designs had changed! I do remember her reiterating a lot that I shouldn't use tampons until I was 16, and even then it would be better not to try them until I'd had sex. I think that was based in some pretty unmedical 70s ideas of what should be allowed to touch/be able to physically fit in a vagina when. I'm often stunned by how much of what I learned from my books is actually biologically unsound, and that book was very current at the time. I've still never tried tampons. :x Never had the embarrassing 'LOOK EVERYBODY! LOOK WHO GOT THEIR PERIOD!' experience so many of you describe, though... my mother is a master disseminator of discreet information, and suddenly one day everyone just knew and was accommodating if I needed pads while in their care. I was pretty neutral on the whole idea for the first year or two- I was regular as clockwork from day 1 with little or no pain and never a dot of leakage- but then when I hit 15 my uterus decided it had been too forgiving of me and it was time to dole out some major dysmenhorrea-shaped discipline. I now loathe the entire process, and frankly take it a little bit too personally. Luckily I now get the shot, which eliminates them down to a little ache and a smudge once every three months.
DawnEos
Member # 107449
posted 05-04-2013 03:25 AM
I got it when I was nine. I don't actually remember too much about it. I remember that after school, I went to the toilet and saw blood in my undies. At the time, I knew what a period was, but I had no clue what you were meant to do when you had one. I called my mum over and she was a bit surprised because she was expecting me to get it when I was 10, because that was when she had her menarche. She let me stay home from school the next day to give me some time to get used to using pads and stuff. It was also probably to stop me from going to the chess tournament on that day, which was probably a good thing because I'm horrible at chess.