Embarrassing Period Stories

The Bloodiest Place On Earth

When I was 11 years old, my family took a weeklong trip to Disney World. I had weird stomach pains the entire time and spent a lot of time laying down on benches in the park while different members of my family went on rides. A few of the days, the pains were so bad thaat I stayed in bed in the hotel. I had a fever, so my mom (a nurse) just chalked it up to some kind of bug. On the last day of our trip, we were headed back home and had to drop our rental car off. The rental car company provided a shuttle from the parking lot to the airport.

I was sitting on the shuttle next to my mom when I suddenly felt this POP inside me. I looked down and I was GUSHING blood. Like, up to the WAISTBAND of my (90s little girl) jean shorts. The blood was everywhere, dripping on the floor and running down the aisle of the shuttle bus. Yes. I was completely soaked. My mom thought I might have had an explosive diarrhea or was, you know, hemorraging!!!! so as soon as we got to the airport she rushed me into the bathroom to the extreme dismay/puzzlement of my poor dad and 8 year old sister.

My mom took me into the bathroom and cleaned me up, determining that this was my period. MY FIRST PERIOD. She took some culottes and underwear out of the dirty clothes suitcase for me to wear and packed me down with THREE sanitary pads from the bathroom machine. As a nurse, she was understandably disturbed. I don't remember feeling really anything other than ok, this is what is happening just keep going...I remember really clearly what the tiles in that bathroom in the Orlando airport looked like, though. So meanwhile my dad is tasked with explaining menstruation to my little sister, who had NO IDEA what it was. My jean shorts were thrown away.

We had a little bit of time to kill before our flight, so my parents decided to take us to the TCBY in the airport. You know TCBY is all white inside, right? Or at least this one was. White chairs, white floor. So, you know what's coming. I had ANOTHER explosion while my parents were ordering the ice cream and before we could get out of the store, some custodians were MOPPING UP THE BLOOD COMING OUT OF ME AS IT WAS COMING OUT. Yes. This happened. My parents, so concerned and confused like WTF is happening to our 11 year old daughter rushed me off the bathroom so my mom could clean me up again. Another three pads.

So then we had to visit the Speedo store in the airport to get me something else to wear, as the dirty culottes were now much dirtier. My mom got me a pair of bike shorts and then decided that she was so freaked out about what was happening to me that I had to have a wheelchair. I was mortified but somehow just floating above my mortification and looking down at it. I got in the wheelchair and was wheeled onto and off of the plane. I bled pretty strongly for the next few days and when my mom asked my pediatrician about the ahem FORCE AND FURY of my first period, the pediatrician said that can happen to girls with first menstruation.

I've told this story for years, at first to other girls my age (it was a annual tradition at summer camp and was dubbed "The Florida Story" by my group of friends) and it definitely made them feel better about their first period experiences. Mine is pretty mentally and physically traumatizing in a way that middle school girls can't even process, I think. I certainly couldn't even begin to proces the total OMG-ness until I was much older. When I tell it now people are just out and out horrified.