#ilona rants about her period pain struggles

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

honestly i really wonder how on earth i managed to get through years 7 to 10 at catholic school when i skipped so much school because of my periods….. and by year 10/2011 my depression & anxiety/burnout/mental breakdown that was spurred on by the staff giving me daily guilt trips about correct “young christian woman behaviour and presentation” about getting me a “date” from a boy in my year for my junior prom/year 10 formal.

as i’ve said multiple times on this hellsite, when it came to my period, i tried to skip at least a week each month- which gives me an equal to a month off on school time over the 10-12 week aussie school terms. i remember my fuckin year 7 and 8 homeroom teacher begging me for literally like 20 S E P E R A T E or something absentee notes in year 8 because i spent so much time off in one term. i remember giving her one that had several absentee dates explained in it, but somehow that wasn’t enough for her. i never explained the rest of the absences from that term lmao. but you can bet that most of them were the period weeks where i was off for a week to a week and a half, depending on how debilitating my period wanted to be for that particular cycle/month.

and my friends never collected or sent me the homework to do, mostly because i’d tell them not to get it for me. so i’d miss like 3 consecutive days of double maths/double geography or whatever else we had for that week. the only lessons i’d force myself to in for, sometimes, no matter how bad my periods were, were double drama classes and possibly double english, then i’d fuck off back home, without explaining why i had to leave again. but that mostly happened when i had assignments due and especially in drama when you had to do a group assignment performance and the group would hound you to come in to perform with them, which is fair enough.

but the main reason i ALWAYS tried to stay home for my period was obvs because of PE. i absolutely fucking LOATHED participating in PE/sport lessons in general bc i never got along with the teachers bc you “never participate properly bc you have no care for teamwork” or whatever the fuck they’d try to guilt me with…. but it was FAR WORSE participating with my intense period pains. like the one incident of me screaming at the top of my lungs at my whole class to FUCK OFF in one year 8 friday lesson sport lesson in a game of volleyball…. that the male teacher that was on the school sport rotation kinda forced me to participate because i was finally actually in my sport uniform for once bc it was a friday (so the whole school wore sport uniform). but i obvs resisted bc yeah my friend was sitting out, but also because my period pains had made me double over in pain onto the floor of the school hall. but what does the male teacher do??? scream at me to get off the floor and to stop being overdramatic. and there was the point that silly & rebellious teen me didn’t want to go to sick bay when she really should’ve just fucking walked her ass down there so she could lie the fuck down lmao.

but generally when i participated in PE on my period, it never went down well. for instance, if we were playing some type of racquet game like ping pong or tennis or a batting game game like baseball/t-ball or cricket; i’d aggressively throw the bat or racquet into someone’s face and yell at them to fuck off. then i’d storm of the pitch/field or whatever we were playing on in a fit of tears and then also fight with the teacher on why the fuck i should just be able to sit out, for crying out loud. obvs most of the time this ended up with me going to the office to sit in the “purple room” to get counselled by one of the teachers that was a “pastoral care coordinator”- whatever the fuck that meant lmao. like i was kind of a danger to people on period while in PE lessons. how the fuck isnt that a good reason to either sit out or to not turn up to school at all in PE days on my period???

also i hated the change rooms on my period too…. bc i was never sure if or when i was going to throw up, or going to have any period stains pointed out, so it was just much better to change in a toilet stall. i’m pretty sure there were a few times that i did throw up (i threw up nothing in particular, just bile) and my friends wanted to tell the female PE teacher, but even telling the female PE teacher that i’d been sick before the lesson, wasn’t enough for them to be like “oh maybe she should sit out”….. or for her to tell me that my periods were absolutely fucked up; which i actually would’ve appreciated from and NEEDED to hear from even a PE teacher at the time.

because i NEEDED someone to validate (other than myself, bc obvs that wasn’t enough) that my periods weren’t altogether okay, considering that they were heavily disrupting my education. i was missing large chunks of the curriculum with having my period weeks off each month (if i was lucky). like obvs i didn’t and still don’t give a fuck about missing the sport side of things… but man…. for someone who struggled with maths so much, i missed loads of essential maths skills in the lessons that i missed. and yeah obvs there was the fact that i never paid attention properly in my maths lessons anyway; even though in hindsight, i KNOW that i should have lmao. but still. the amount of work i missed in everything else like history/geography/art/english/science/drama if it wasn’t a double period or an assessment performance period/religion (RE; although who gives a shit about this other than a catholic school lmao) is now immeasurable, and insurmountable when i think about it now.

i know i know. i should’ve told my friends. but with the amount of time that i was spending off, they’d label it as “faking sick again??” or the like…. and i was afraid that none of them would believe the extent of my period pain; even though they had seen bits & pieces of it in the antics i pulled in the unlucky PE classes…. or even in the periods when i went on my period and my period decided to hit HARD so i’d walk out of the room crying; citing “stress” and “anxiety” or “not coping with my workload” and whatever the fuck else i used to cover up my period pain. like to avoid all that, it was much better to stay home blaring my fave emo/pop punk etc bands and having like 6 advil to sleep all day,

and yeah there’s the turn around in years 11/12 in 2012 and 2013, when i transferred to the public school and also did tafe/tech college…. when i had to force myself to go no matter how bad my PP was all bc i didn’t want to fail my HSC/end of high school bs exams and class work/tests etc…… and most especially i didn’t want to fail my tafe entertainment industry class since it was the closed thing i had to drama class at public school. but the amount of times i ended up going to school in a daze and having my group point out that i “didn’t look well” or just straight up tell me to go home because i’d had 4 advil just to turn up for our stupid in class ancient history assessment or whatever the fuck; was so validating. actually i’m pretty sure they straight up told me to get checked by my doctor a few times too. the amount of times i turned up to my 4 hour tafe classes and almost passed out and also threw up bile in the womens toilets bc my PP was so fucking horrendous and also had to lie on the floor in those bathrooms hoping the pain would be relieved by lying on the cold tiles….. are uncountable.

the all time low concert i went to in august 2013, where very thankfully my period had let up for the said concert….. but the day after i again was basically almost immobile from the resurgence of my PP from that week that i threw up and needed 4 advil and an all day nap (not counting the late to bed night) to get over it. was not normal. i wasn’t functioning well. that one time i visited the catholic school in like 2013 and right after it i threw up and had bleeding so bad i was dizzy as fuck when i got home and was sick again??? devastating, i guess.

just. i’m posting this again to remind my younger female followers that if your period pain is so bad that you literally can’t go to school or go to concerts or do anything normally. please. just get checked. and yes i know doctors are pretty shit at listening girls and women in general, but please try to get help. even just get on the pill like i should have. try out different birth control methods to find out what works for you. because fuck. my high school years were a fucking mess because i had no idea how to talk about my periods with my friends and was afraid that no one would believe just how bad my cycles were. getting on the pill by 2016 (yes my early 20s!!!) was the best thing that ever happened for my cycles. i can function. i can do shit. i don’t absolutely DREAD my periods each month; even though cramps suck et al.

because, overall, i honestly don’t know how on fucking earth i passed school when i skipped so much of it…. all because of my fucked up teen hormones and ovaries lmao. like obvs i’m fine now, but god. if i’d spoken up earlier, the skipping off school would’ve been mitigated lol.