Periods are a laugh riot. aren’t they? Always sneaking up on you, putting you out of action every couple of weeks and just generally being a big old pain in the ass. Sometimes though, periods go above and beyond an attempt to ruin your day/life.
Like the time my mum drove us all the way to the Trafford Centre to go shopping and I got my period, threw up, fainted and spent my day that should have been spent buying combat trousers in Tammy Girl, instead lying feverishly in the shopping centre’s medical centre. On the upside, should I ever find myself in trouble in the Trafford Centre again, I now know where the medical centre is.
Anyways. Periods – total lols.
Today, over on Reddit, women are sharing their very worst period stories – and boy, have I just learned a lot. Did you know for instance, that your body can shed a big old mucusy lining in a perfectly casted shape of your uterus? Nope, me either. But now I’ve seen it and I can’t unsee it and I’ll probably never sleep again, so I have to share it with you guys, too.
Here’s the worst of the worst.
The uterus cast shedding story (let’s just get this one out of the way)
‘Oh God. Alright, started menstruating immediately after getting in the car for a 12 hour road trip. When I notice it I’m like “Dear ovary god, please don’t let me leak on the seats”. And the ovary god delivered. In the most disgusting way possible. Instead of gradually shedding my uterine wall over the course of 5ish days, it came out all at once. Just a weird white cast of my reproductive system. Cramped like a bitch, but very little blood involved.’
TBF, this normally only happens with pregnant women. The poster later commented that she wasn’t pregnant, but she had messed up her pill. If you want to read more about this phenomena (called a decidual cast), head here. If you want to see a picture of this phenomenon (and I can’t recommend this enough) then head here.
The one that makes you ache with heartfelt anguish at the memory of being a teenage girl
‘When I was in middle school my period started in the middle of my last class of the day. I didn’t think anything of it at first because normally my periods were very light and not very bad right at the beginning.
‘And then the cramping started and I knew this period was not going to be a happy one. I asked to go to the restroom. No dice. “It’s an emergency,” I told my teacher. Still no luck. He shook his head, told me it could wait, and resumed teaching. I raised my hand again. “No, it really can’t wait.” He scoffed and told me not to ask again or he would give me detention.
‘I knew why he wouldn’t let students go to the restroom. A lot of kids at my school were notorious for just disappearing and never coming back, especially during the final period.
‘But still, I was a good student, I never skipped, he knew my parents and knew I wasn’t like that. So I got up and went to the bathroom anyway. My period had already soaked through my underwear and had completely stained my khaki pants (yay school uniforms). There was a huge amount of blood that was going to be clearly visible no matter what I did, and as it was late spring, almost the end of the school year, it was too warm for anyone to have hoodies or sweaters on hand.
‘I cleaned up as best I could, prepared to face the embarrassment, and went back to class only to realise with horror that my seat at my desk was covered in blood, too. On top of this, by the time I got back, everyone had realised what had happened, including my teacher. Needless to say I got to go home early that day, and fortunately my best friend is amazing and has had my back since 8th grade, because she made sure no one spread the story or said anything to me about it, ever.’
This story that makes you realise how confusing the whole thing must have been for teenage boys
‘I was about an hour into Netflix and had yet to reach chill, when the girl I was with sneezed. She squirmed for a little bit, got this shocked look on her face and leapt up off the couch. I did not exactly cover myself in glory.
‘In fact, I freaked out. I was half way through dialing 911 before I figured out what happened. This was the first menses I had seen in person, and I was not prepared for what turned out to be a rather prodigious example of uterine treachery. Nor had I any idea the effect a simple sneeze could have. I legitimately thought she was going to die.
‘Needless to say, my reaction did nothing to help her composure. She locked herself in my bathroom and wouldn’t stop crying. Eventually she came out when her roommate showed up with a clean pair of pants and took her home. The girl totally ghosted on me after that, which was too bad because I was still sweet on her.’
This story which you probably shouldn’t read at lunchtime
‘I get wicked pains that nothing will stop. I’m bleeding so heavy I have to empty my diva cup every 2 hours. And then, suddenly, on day two the bleeding stops. I still cramp like hell and am in pain but hey! No bleeding! I’ll take it. Two days later I start to itch. The kind of itch where you wanna claw your c$$nt off because WHY IS THIS HAPPENING MAKR IT STOP. And then the burn sets in while I’m at work. I mean, Satans spunk all up in my chacha levels of burn. Now, normally, I go the holistic route to treat yeast infections but not today friends! I high tailed it to the drug store and shelled out stupid amounts of money for a 1-day treatment pack. Sweet, sweet relief. 10/10 money well spend. Over the next few hours my body decides it’s time to discharge all the grossness once and for all. I’m used to the cottage cheese consistency stuff making its way out only this time....
This time.... My yeast infection set in while I was in my period. And all that blood I was so happy not to have had to deal with? It was back. Decayed, shriveled, brown clots of vomit inducing moon chunks gloriously mixed with yeast infection discharge was oozing out of my vagina. I used a warm water douche (I know, it’s bad, but plain water is OK) for about 45 minutes trying to get rid of it.’
The story which proves that, whatever age you are, you’re not immune to a spot of leakage
‘My uterus had told me she was done. Nothing had come out for basically two days. I thought it was safe to go unprotected. Then this afternoon, I’m getting ready to leave work and I feel some wetness. Not the happy wetness. The needing-some-supplies-NOW wetness. So I play it cool, and start casually meandering towards the bathroom. Only about 50 yards, not a long walk at all. BUT THEN... a coworker discovers that I know Spanish and insists on starting a conversation. It drags on for 3, 4, 5 minutes... an ETERNITY. And the whole time, I’m struggling to understand his accent (because he’s from a region that I’m not familiar with, so his accent is weird), and noticing that the sticky, warm, wetness is increasing in size. It’s starting to feel like when a balloon gets too full and you know it’s going to pop any minute. I shift from one foot to the other as gently as I possibly can, but the floodgates open anyway. I can feel the tide flowing through my underpants and nylons. I politely excuse myself from the conversation, but as I walk to the bathroom, I feel a trickle over my left kneecap. I examine my leg, and just below the hem of my skirt, I see this red trickle flowing over my kneecap through my black lace nylons. It looks like a flashback to my Hot Topic days. By the time I make it to the bathroom, my undies and tights are so soaked that I have to blot them with TP in order to put them back on. It took easily 6 handfuls of toilet paper to clean myself up thoroughly. Finally I’m in a somewhat-presentable state and the bottle has been corked sufficiently with one of the free tampons in the bathroom (yay, my work, for providing free tampons!). So I walk back to my desk, and I notice a red blotch on the floor, exactly where I was standing while speaking Spanish. Whatever, I’ll just leave it. If I feel really motivated in the morning, maybe I’ll come in with some carpet spray and clean it up. But I’ve just survived the breaking of the Hoover Dam, and it’s time to assert my dominance and just walk out of there, pretending nothing happened. By the time I got home, I noticed there was even some on my shoe. What the fuck, Uterus. What the fuck.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.