Periods: there’s nothing particularly nice about them.
You bleed for about three to seven days - depending on how unlucky you are in the menstruation lottery - and they can be painful, messy and inconvenient.
Over the past few years, women have started to open up (excuse the pun) about their period experiences, to normalise a natural bodily function that has been stigmatised for far too long.
Now, women have taken to Reddit to share their worst period stories. From severe pain to spillages and diarrhoea, these stories are about as ladylike as they come.
“I managed to smack myself in the face with a tampon once. It was... odd and I’m still not entirely sure how I did it, I was sitting on the toilet, reached down to pull it out, it smacked into my underwear and just ricochet up into my face.”
“A couple months ago I started having weirdly erratic periods; volume, timing, symptoms, duration―the whole shebang was just off. Then last month, just when I was sure Aunt Flo was getting ready to pack it in, I got up from a nap and walked into the bathroom, where my vagina spontaneously and single-handedly reenacted the elevator scene from The Shining.
It
Was
Everywhere.”
- axisgrid
“The Sneeze.”
“I once had a crazy heavy period that lasted about three weeks. It ruined almost everything I owned, underwear, pants, blankets, even a rug. I was changing in my room, when a huge, stinky, slimey clot fell out onto my rug and left a dark stain. Changing pads and tampons constantly did not save most of my possessions.”
“From 12 until 16 I would have horrid PMS the week before my period. Bleed to the point of passing out and vomiting almost nonstop the week of my period and then need almost a full week afterwards to recover from the severe anaemia and weakness my period had caused.”
- LolaZe
“Getting locked in a toilet cubicle with a skirt on & having to climb over the door.”
“Every month.”