Problems Only Girls With Period Understand

Just so you know, we, girls, are going through one of the most agonizing moments in every single month of our lives. Every single month of our lives, we we are being murdered by our uterus because every single month of our lives, the red flag is up. Yes! Every single month of our lives! Is my description too much? Well, the hardships we are suffering are also too much. We encounter problems only girls with period understand. But I listed down those struggles hoping that you will somehow understand us and hoping that period will be an excuse to our undesirable behavior. So boys, listen! I mean, read!

1. We are all aware that having a period gives us so much pain. Backache, bloating, breast swelling, breast tenderness, constipation, cramps, diarrhea,dizziness, fatigue, flatulence, headache, joint pain, migraine, muscle pain, nausea, ovarian pain, tension, water retention, weight gain – name it and we’re all feeling it.

2. Have you experienced being asked to look at a woman’s butt to check if she has blood stains? I know it’s awkward to ask but we need your help because it will be more awkward if we’re unaware of it. Although it’s normal for us, girls, we still feel uncomfortable, especially when we’re surrounded by strangers. We don’t know if they see something already or not.

3. Stains are not just on clothes. Literally, blood stains are everywhere! We experienced waking up in a pool of blood. I experienced seeing a blood stain on a wooden chair in classroom. And in one of my most embarrassing moment, I stained a jeepney’s seat! I really can’t hide my face that time and went out as fast as I can when I reached my destination.

4. Because we want to find the right sleeping position that could ease the pain, we end up sleeping in awkward positions. But the problem is not yet solved because of two reasons. Firstly, no matter what sleeping position we engage into, we could still feel the pain. And secondly, we should be careful on how we sleep because we don’t want to have red blots on our beds.

5. There’s always a week in a month that we don’t feel beautiful because aside from our unwillingness to do makeups and other beauty stuff, acnes are coming out! During menstrual cycle, hormone progesterone increases the production of facial oil glands that fills up the facial pores. Oh how I hate having pimples!

6. Instead of thinking about our final examinations next week, writing our thesis, doing our school requirements and accomplishing our work activities, we think of why we have to deal with this pain and all that. This leads us on having loss of concentration, or worse, anxiety, crying spells, irritability, mood swings, sadness and stress.

7. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing but menstruation causes food cravings. Basically, we want to eat every food we see. Maybe, for those who are in control of their diet, they are in big danger. Me? I don’t care. Food is not my bae. It’s my enemy. I’m greedy on food on normal days. What more if I’m on my period?

8. Sanitary napkin problems! Two negative externality of wearing pads concerns health and environment since it is made with plastic that could endanger the environment and toxify our body. But setting the science aside, the main problem of wearing pads is the fact that it makes our skin down there itchy. We can’t just scratch that in public.

9. Aside from our inability to scratch the itchy parts of our body due to sanitary napkins in public, we have to refrain ourselves from scratching, even when we are in our private rooms, because it will leave scratch marks on our skin. Our skin is so sensitive during this days that even a soft scratch could mark. That’s our number one rule!

10. As I said, we feel restless whenever we are on our period because we don’t know if our pads or tampons are already filled and bloody shit flowed out to our pants. Therefore, we have to check time by time. And by checking time by time, it means going to the toilet time by time. Sometimes, I feel like I need to poop but nothing happened when I came into the toilet. It’s just so distracting!