It’s probably NOT “Okay”….Period

I remember the first time I got my period. I was attending the Titanic exhibit at the Florida International Museum with my parents. The year was 1998, and I was 14 years old, crushing hard on Leonardo DiCaprio. My obsession was so intense that I requested to go to a purely historical exhibition about the disaster, even though Leo would be nowhere in sight.

Little did I know, as I looked at the relics of a sunken ship, that deep below my surface, I was embarking on my journey into womanhood. I remember feeling strange, and all of a sudden, I noticed a dark spot of blood growing larger on my jeans. Panicking, I ran to the bathroom with my mother, and she ended up buying an enormous Titanic Exhibition T-shirt for me to cover my “accident.”

And so began my fraught relationship with my womb. Fresh out of the gate, my periods were painful and crampy, and a trifecta of heating pads, pain meds, throwing up, and roly-poly bed gymnastics became staples in my coping. My mother and sister assured me that they had similar issues throughout their lives and that it was “normal” and “probably ok.”

I always thought it was weird that big drama was made out of getting a cold or breaking a thumb, but when it came to the pain that my womb was capable of, “it’s probably ok” was a common refrain from my family, even my gynaecologist. No matter how bloody the period or brutal the pain, or how strangely formed the things that occasionally passed through me during my cycle, “It’s probably ok” was a sentence that I clung to until I, myself, learned to become dismissive of one of the most complex elements of my health as a female-bodied person. 

Fear of the big illnesses (the C word) is so primal in my psyche that I’ve spent a considerable part of my 20s and 30s relishing the feedback from doctors who were quick to say, “You are young, so you probably have nothing to worry about,” while also being aware that I have barely allowed them to conclude that with the basic, semiannual check-ups I normally undergo. I also moved countries at 30 (after some years of inconsistent health insurance in America) so my already scant medical history had to have a bit of a fresh start. 

The most gruesome memory I have of a bad period was on a camping trip with friends. We were moving from campsite to campsite, and I hadn’t properly organised myself with my supplies (from pain meds to pads). I woke up in the middle of the night in a scorching pain panic, so nauseous I had to crawl on the ground to wake up my friend and beg them to drive me to the nearest motel, about an hour away. 

I won’t get into the details, but there is no shortage of stories in which my whole world has come to a screeching halt from the level of agony I’m capable of experiencing on behalf of my womb.

I’m about to turn 40, and I just went through a series of screenings that I pushed myself to get because of irregular bleeding and the encouragement of a partner who is much better at self-care than I am. For the first time in my life, I am going to get a hysteroscopy to assess the nature of my womb and hopefully have some issues addressed that will improve my quality of life when it comes to my menstrual cycle. I’m a bit ashamed that it has taken me this many years to get a procedure I probably could have benefited from earlier in my young adult life.

But I won’t bear the full brunt of guilt. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard from female friends that their pain, their concerns, and their monthly experiences have been grouped into the “it’s probably ok” category that the grossly under-discussed and under-funded arena of women’s health research and advocacy is often relegated to.

The truth is that many of us want to hear that nothing is wrong, and casual assumptions can lead to preventable issues becoming worse. I know it’s my responsibility to push for answers and trust how I feel, and to know that even if wall-punching and crying monthly pain is “common,” I don’t have to accept it as normal. PERIOD.