Blog by Kathrine Lily Mae Harris
I’ll never forget starting my period for the first time. 8th grade. #Science class. Talking about it to a classmate, then going to the bathroom and starting for the first time. I wasn’t excited about it. It sort of ruined my life. I was really #athletic. I loved #sports and work. I loved #running. Then, you’re bleeding and wearing a pad all the time, praying it doesn’t slip out of your clothing and embarrass you.
I didn’t tell my family for months and wouldn’t have, if my dad hadn’t lectured my sisters about using my mom’s pads and not adding them to the list, in which I quietly, but assertively mentioned that was me. I’m sorry.
I don’t let people take the blame for things I’ve done.
My dad said, ‘when did you start?’ I gave him a ‘I don’t want to discuss this’ look, and that was that.
Period.
Ruined my life.
If you want to know what it’s like for a woman, just go get some hamburger meat, and get a few teaspoons of that, with some ketchup, pack it onto a cloth and now put it in your underwear, add one of those period cramp simulators. There. Now go do life. Fun? Exciting? Easy?
Don’t you feel great?!
Yeah, and you dont even have the hormonal changes.
It didn’t take long after getting my period to be passed around and raped by men who drugged me. It’s called #trafficking by the way, what I survived and was put through, even though people involved don’t like to acknowledge that.
Wonder why?
Thankfully we had family planning. Where I could get tested and get my #birthcontrol.
Few years later, further puberty hits and all of a sudden your breasts are larger and people start treating you like your stupid. Everything #intelligent you have ever said and done, is evidently replaced with this idea that your a ditz…….its really annoying and makes you want to go back to before you started bleeding, waxed your thick eyebrows or went through puberty and breasts just amplified on your body, without your permission.
I’ve spoken enough about the hell I survived as a woman, so I’ll keep this focused on the topic at hand.
#Period.
You go through #life with this understanding that having your period, (unless you have birth control like the iud and get to skip some of them) is some sort of #gift. You are a bringer forth of life and someday, when you have a child or children, it will all be worth it.
But what if you get #crippled by a man and never let anyone near you again, like has happened to me? It just means that it was a bloody curse for decades, that I experienced for no reason other than to be tormented by the opposite sex, with the help of my own.
Period.
Now with a t7-10 #spine injury I have to monitor autonomic dysreflexia not just for bowels, bladder and skin, but also for my period. Because now, I can’t feel into my body the same as before. Great, right?! Wrong.
It’s more dangerous and I have to be even more delicate with myself.
I always worked through my periods even though most of my youth they were about 7-9 days.
After having my iud birth control for 7 years, my period was rough after that. Taking out the iud back to those long periods. So intense. And no, as the joke goes, not fun, like camping.
I finally re-adapted to life and a spine hit was my gift for my 34th year, from the psychopath I was in a relationship with for four years. What a Mother’s Day present. Sarcasm implied.
So now, I have to be extra careful when I’m having my ‘lady time.’ My ‘#moon cycle.’ My ‘period.’
I wanted to go to the therapy pool today, but with this injury I always push too hard anyways, so I have to be extra careful right now.
Today, at 40. I turned 40 last Monday. Alone. It was #peaceful. My first period as a #40 year old woman…..I did something I’ve never done before. I had genuine compassion for my body. I actually let myself rest an extra few hours without judgement. Period. How nice of me is that.
Rest longer?
With my spine injury, don’t I rest enough?
I certainly do much less activity than ever before, but I keep a strict schedule with myself because it’s all I have right now.
I’ve been mostly deleted from our world because a man crippled me and society was too busy to care or they believed the lies.
Oh well, stack that on to the other betrayal trauma I have to cope with, I’ll handle it like a boss, like I always have. Hamsa 
Each time I get my period now, I have to say, I get a little pissy, a little #sad and realize, I won’t ever be a #mother now, more than likely.
Add that to the list of major life changes this injury, caused by a man, has added to.
I haven’t let anyone near me since getting away from my ex and given the lax attitude of medical professionals, whose lives and family future, haven’t changed because of this injury, it’s likely not going to happen.
Going into pregnancy with an injury like this is dangerous and add how cavalier everyone has been about it (fearing lawsuit if they are honorable, but I don’t sue, it’s not my flow.) So let’s face it, the likelihood of me having a family of my own now, are pretty much done.
Period.
The likelihood of letting anyone near me again.
Real low.
How can I take a chance at letting another person near me?
Then add the loss of all my #dreams and goals…..everything I could have accomplished if I had just managed to not end up with that psychopath.
Or, here’s a great one……
If that psychopath hadn’t crippled me and kept his hands to himself.
Or……
Instead of conniving society, an honorable one, had been in its place.
Period.
What a great day to have your period.
Or have compassion.
Or just not be a horrible person.
Period.
Til the blog next week.
Have a good one.
I’m going to have whatever is possible.
Period.