Excerpts from TABOO's Podcast The Flow: "Embarassing period stories"
From false first periods, the bizarre world of tampon application, to learning what the sticky side on a pad is for…have you ever had a horrifically embarrassing period story that you think tops them all? Here are just a few stories that we have heard through our podcast The Flow available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The Peg Story
So when I was probably about 15, I was super late to get my period. Everyone else, all my other friends had theirs. And my mum had these super old wooden pegs which we used to hang clothes up on the washing line and they used to mark the clothes that we were hanging. I was super self-conscious about not getting my period because obviously everyone around me had it, all my school friends did and everyone used to comment on how strange it was that I didn't have mine. And given the lack of education around periods in school, I didn't realise that you could be quite older when you did get your period. And one day, I was taking the clothes off the line and my pegs had stained my underwear and I was like "Oh my God! Finally, I have my period” and I was so excited, I was stoked. I was like "Oh my God, finally, I'm 15, I have my period".
I was dead set that I had it. I was like, I went inside and I was like so excited and you know. I was like to my mum “Mum, Mum you have to go buy me pads and tampons because I have my period, finally”. And then I wore pads the next day, and you know, nothing came about so I was like “oh dear, maybe something’s wrong”. It wasn't until it happened again with the pegs that I realised. It also happened to my brother's underwear and I was like, “oh, that's super strange”. And then my period didn't come until like three years after that. So yeah, it was such a let down.
Sticky Side Up Story
One of my dear friends who won't be named, she had first gotten her period and her mom had given her a pack of pads. She didn't have a whole lot of clue what was going on anyway. It had been like her third period. Her mum had seen a pad in the bin and saw on the sticky side that there were heaps of pubes and blood. Then her mum approached her saying, “Darling...you're sticking the pad to your vagina instead of your underwear, you've done it all wrong”.It was literally a free wax. As a 13 year old girl. Anyway, that's why she dreaded her period. And now she loves it!
Like a Hot Dog, yeah?
So the first time I used a tampon I didnt even think that you had to put it up you. I, like, imagine a hot dog and like just like lie it down.
Put it through the flaps?
Yes, between the flaps. Like on the underwear. Like a little tampon hotdog
Half In Marathon
So I'm 21 years of age now and only just last year, at the age of 20, did I actually start to use a tampon. And so my funny story is, it was the morning of a half marathon when I got my period and I was like...well, I can't run, you know, a race with a pad in. That would be really awkward and uncomfortable. So I was like, okay my only option that I know of is to try a tampon, but I never got taught at school how to do it or my mum was too awkward about it (she's from the country) to tell me how to do it. So I tried myself, you know and only ended up putting it halfway in thinking that that was how you put a tampon in...with half of it hanging out. And I was thinking, oh, this is a bit uncomfortable and a little bit painful. Is that how it's supposed to feel? And then I ended up running the half marathon with half of the tampon sticking out of my vagina. And when I started talking to my friends about it and I'm saying this so uncomfortable, how do you do this like every day of your period? They were like, “that's not how you're supposed to do it". You’re not supposed to feel it. And I was like ‘oh okay, well lesson learned’.
Sniff Sniff
So I was at the beach and it was very, very hot. And of course I went down there to meet some friends and we bumped into some people and they had a dog. When I was in full flow mode. Anyway, I wasn't swimming that evening. It was a Friday evening and I'm just standing there and of course the dog comes over for a good old “hankering sniff sniff”. It was very embarrassing. And of course, I'm trying to push the dog away and then everyone is trying to get the dog away. So these people were sister- and brother-in-law of a friend of mine and I saw the friend and she goes "look I'm really sorry about the dog." And I said, well, I was, you know...very menstruating at that stage so he could obviously smell me.
The other story is...Tampons. So I have three children. My first born had a very massive head and I think he did me damage to my vaginal area tube thing, trying to get his fat head out. So I don't think they make tampons big enough to stop my flow so they fall out.
So I was in Greece and I couldn't swim at all in fear of animals chasing me in the sea because my tampon would fall out so I would miss out on a lot of swimming, so that's my story.
The Blob
I was in the fashionable Mecca on King William Road in my 40s, rocking a pair of jeans (when I could), and I was just about to get into my car.
They were denim, my favourite jeans with a bit of a flare to it. Sort of like the mom jean, anyway, I was trying to get back into my car and all of a sudden I felt this alien moving down the uterus coming out like this baby head size. It just went down the leg of my jean and I'm going "what now?" and I'm standing in a gutter and lo and behold...yep, clotting. A big, massive head clot came out and I'm thinking, “what do I do now? Do I pick it up? What do I do?” It was terrible.The blob had rolled down the leg of my jeans and came out in the gutter. I got in that car and luckily I had a towel from my kids swimming lessons and I sat on it. Went home devastated, threw the jeans away. And the blob stayed there. I don't know if a dog came along, I'm not sure what happened (after that).
Comments
I was 11 when I got my period, it all came out as a lot, some of it even leaked onto my bed, eeek. I was even wearing period underwear and a pad! Sometimes it can be heavy and sometimes light.
My friend once told me she cried during a cooking show on her period.
One time I had my period, and we went on holiday, and it had a roof top pool so at the time I didn’t have any way of swimming with my period so my mum got me a pair of period swimmers and they looked and fit perfectly so we went to the pool (with the white towels they gave us to use) and when I went in the water it didn’t leak but when I got out and sat on the white towel you could just see this massive red blob of blood and I didn’t notice because I was looking at the beautiful view of the beach and when I did look down I told my mum and she just got up give me her towel and wrapped it round me and I had to hold my bloody towel in the elevator back to our floor and the worst part there was another girl and her family there and when I got up all I heard was whispering and I was so scared to look back at the period puddle that I had left. This was truly the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me!!!!