Bleeding to Death

Kaci B •  New York •  15

I normally live in Vermont with my parents who are both in the army. They both got deployed for a very long time so I was to go to boarding school. (Please bear in mind that I have been doing this for a while but I had been at home going to a local school for 3 months until my parents were deployed.) There were not many good boarding schools in Vermont but we were close-ish to New York. I got there and about a week later, my first period arrived.

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I was 11 and had been very poorly educated about puberty. I thought I was going to die. I gathered a meeting with all my new friends and quietly said "I'm bleeding to death." Everyone was so worried. Because most of them were 10, I told my mentor who was 14 and she just handed me a stack of pads and tampons and said "you are a woman now".

I am still at this school and I now mentor other new kids. There have already been about 10 period situations and I've only been doing it for 2 months!

A Later Date

Sarah J •  Canada •  16

I was a late bloomer in every single aspect of life. I kind of expected that my period would come later since my mom had told me she got hers quite late. It was like a month after I turned 16 and I had literally started to think that my period was never going to come and that I would just be a woman without a period.

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At this point, I knew a lot about periods because I was so eager to get it that I researched about it A LOT. I was just lying in bed and felt something in my underwear which felt similar to discharge so I didn’t think anything of it. I went to the bathroom and wiped and on the toilet paper was something brown/red mixed with my discharge and I realized I had started my period.

Even though I was super excited before I got it, I got super nervous and didn’t know what to do so I just put on a pantyliner and told my mom. I only got my first period for like 2 days so I thought there was something wrong with me. But don’t worry, it was all good!

Goddess in Red

Nandini J •  Rajasthan, India •  19

As a 10 year old, I was extremely excited about Indian weddings and heavy duty attires, which is when my goddess in red visited. I was fully dressed in fancy Rajasthani poshak for my cousin’s wedding when I had my first period.

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If my memory serves me right, I had no clue what was happening inside of my body when on the outside there was a DJ night happening. Yes, I had absolutely zero idea about menstruation or period cramps, because nobody was expecting a 10 year old to be visited by Aunt Flo.