Friday, August 16, 2013

This Post is Very Personal and Probably too Graphic. You've Been Warned.

I'm sure this post has been written hundreds of times, by hundreds of women who have had enough with "that time of the month." And all I can say to that is: here comes another one.

For the last couple of years my period has been a little screwed up. Like I get to experience the joy of womanhood every TWO weeks. Wah for me, I know. It sucks. (And for those of you who are thinking, "why don't you go to the doctor then?" I say "Shut up. I KNOW!" Here's how it goes every two weeks: Crap. My period is here AGAIN. I should call the doctor and get this figured out. Except I feel like total crap and want to hibernate for the next week. Eight days later my period ends. I have tons to catch up on, like laundry and feeding my children. I just want to LIVE for a week or so and be HAPPY! My period comes again and I have no desire to do anything, least of all make a phone call. Rinse. Repeat.)

And of course, this is the situation I'm in right now and thats why I'm writing this. Because I am SO SICK of being a woman. If there wouldn't be negative consequences for when I'm old, I would seriously just have it all removed. I know they say after women go through menopause they mourn the loss of their "womanhood" or whatever and I say: eff that, yeah right.

I know men like to pretend that women exaggerate all the womanly stuff and at this point in my period, I'm pretty sure I could rip a man's head off with my bare hands and throw it into the next county. Come again man? You really want to go there?? And I know if a man read this, they would roll their eyes and act like I'm just a raging crazy person. But you know what? Right now I AM a raging crazy person--thats the point!

I'm going to be honest, the men I know--for the most part--are pretty big babies. They can hardly deal with a little sniffle, let alone if they bled out of their hoo-hah for seven days. Add to that, massive cramps and a hormone roller coaster, they would be begging to get off this ride.

And the thing is, I'm not even exaggerating one bit. I'm really being quite honest. Right now, I'm sitting at my computer dealing with horrendous lower back pain, feeling like if someone just looks at me wrong I could get pretty violent, swinging back to laughing hysterically over a funny cat video, to weeping openly over a commercial. This all happens in a matter of minutes. And thats just the hormones!

Then we get to the different ways to actually deal with the flow:

There's pads. Its so fun to feel like you're walking around in a diaper.

There's tampons. I once got a tampon lost up inside me. Do you know how scary that is?! Because not only are you dealing with something foreign up there, you could now possibly DIE from toxic shock syndrome. Yay.

There's the diva cup. I personally can't use tampons (they don't work because I have a tilted uterus) and I'm so sick of pads that in a fit of desperation, I ordered a diva cup. This is supposed to be miraculous and life altering. I wish I could explain how this actually feels for me. The best way I can describe it is like having a giant fist shoved inside you, pushing on your bladder and organs and my body just wants to expel it from my system. It feels like my body wants to give birth to this thing: its time, push it out NOW!! Besides that once you do go in there to remove it you look like you've been in a bloody battle and frankly, I just never wished to know myself that well.

To sum it all up: there just isn't any "GOOD" way to deal with bleeding down there. There is nothing thats super convenient and "nice," or comfortable, like you "can't even feel it!" The best thing I can think of would be to just sit in the shower for seven days straight. I think I could dig that.


And the point of all this?: maybe we as women (and maybe you men too) should cut us some slack. Maybe when there's a woman you really don't like, instead of thinking "she's such a *bleep*" you can think "dang, I bet she's on her period, and that sucks so bad!" Or maybe when you see a woman crying and upset, instead of thinking "wow, she's a mess, she needs to get her crap together!" you can think "that poor woman has been bleeding out her hoo-hah for days now, I'd be crying too!" You know??

I'm not saying to use it as an excuse to act however you want. I'm not. I'm not saying people should get to be jerks without consequences. I'm just saying, on your end to deal with that person, maybe its easier to think they must be going through something instead of they're just a jerk. Does that make sense? And I'll try to do that for women now. I will really try.

I mean, unless I'm on my period and then I'm just going to hate everyone. Okay then?