Menstruation Talk 02. - Louie
Menstruation Talks
Menstruation Talks is part of the "Let's Talk" series. It is a series that I have initiated to destigmatize taboo topics. We discuss subjects that may make us uncomfortable, ones we rarely talk about and often feel alone with. I invite people to share their experiences and feelings on these topics, accompanied by my illustrations.
The menstruation accompanies us not only for many years of our lives but also influences our concentration, hunger, physical abilities, desire, and much more. Unfortunately, there is still far too little discussion surrounding it. I still feel very alone in most of the problems and topics related to menstruation, and to change that, I invite different people to talk about and share their experiences with their periods. Although our relationship with our menstrual cycle is unique to each of us, we undoubtedly share more things we than we think which can bring us together and allow us to learn from one another.
LET’S TALK
Every month my body bleeds, and each time it feels like a betrayal. I want to scream "I don't need you to do this" and "I don't want you to do this", but I know better than that. I know that bleeding is natural. Is just part of being a woman. But there's the problem: while I was assigned female at birth, and undeniably live inside a female body, I identify as non-binary.
The discomfort I experience - not only during my period, but with the concept itself - runs deeply through me, sometimes pushing into the foreground as acute dysphoria, sometimes just hovering on the edge of my thoughts. I don't remember when exactly i started to menstruate, but it wasn't particularly early or particularly late in puberty. I remember my mother having a somewhat stilted conversation with me about what this would entail now, telling me that cramps are normal and to be expected. When my period wasn't quite as regularly as biology books would lead you to believe they should be, i was dragged to my mother's gynaecologist and prescribed a herbal remedy. The drops were to be taken orally every day and tasted so bitter and disgusting, I had a hard time keeping my gag reflex under control. I had to suck on hard candy before and after taking my medicine just to get some of the aftertaste off my tongue. Whatever I had thought about my period before, from that moment on it was clear we weren't going to be the best of friends.
So it continued into my adult life: I was quietly resentful about aching and bleeding once a month, while being reassured by the medical establishment that pain was "completely normal" and nothing to worry about. My pain was never so bad that I was truly incapacitated, but I did often have to take painkillers to curb the cramps and nausea. I kept thinking that if men experienced this on a regular basis, no one would tell them that this was "normal" and "perfectly natural". Resources would be allocated to try and ease their discomfort, campaigns would declare that they didn't have to suffer alone and in silence, awareness would be raised and research conducted. Yet as it was a "women's problem", the best we could hope for were TV ads for period products featuring sterilised blue liquids declaring that we didn't have to stop moving just because we were bleeding. But there was no real discussion about what menstruating mean to different people, how they experienced it.
Even at the times in my life when I had close female friends, I never really considered discussing my period with them. At most I would allude to vague back pain or stomach aches when asked why I wasn't feeling well. I heard girls in my school or club speaking about their periods more freely with their friends, and at once felt envious but also slightly ashamed on their behalf. After all, I had been told implicitly and explicitly all my life that periods were at best something not discussed in polite conversation, and at worst deeply shameful. I have often wondered how I might have felt about my body and its functions if my family, but also society generally, had handled such topics differently.
As I grew into adulthood and in time came to understand that I identify as non-binary, I also had to reassess my relationship with my body. Had I been feeling uncomfortable in and with my body because of my gender identity, or because it didn't perfectly conform to the standards prescribed by a patriarchal society? Did I hate my breasts because they weren't the perfectly formed and perky kind most commonly seen on TV and in ads? Or because they truly didn't feel like part of my body? Perhaps they now don't feel like they are mine and shouldn't be part of my body precisely because I spent so much time disliking them as a teenager and into my 20s. Maybe I disliked them because at some level they never truly felt like they belonged to my body.
And what about my period? I still bleed once a month. With a regularity and predictability envied by some of my friends. With varying degrees of discomfort and pain, but a consistent degree of inconvenience. While bleeding, especially during the first couple of days, I don't like to go on long bike rides or hikes without regular access to proper bathrooms. More often than not, I don't feel like doing much apart from curling up on the couch on the first day of strong bleeding, anyway. When I was younger, I told myself that bleeding was just part of being a woman, even if I knew that not all women bleed. Now, I try to tell myself that bleeding is just something my body does. Not something women do or female bodies do. Just something my specific body does. Maybe in time, I will learn to be less angry with it about that.
Something that I have learned since I was a teenager is that there is something I can do to ease the dysphoria I feel around my period: talk about it with others. Listen to how other people experience their bodies and bleeding. Speak about how my dysphorias come and go, how they ebb and flow almost like a cycle. Learn that there is strength in sharing experiences, not just in the sense of experiencing the same things, but also in the sense of talking to one another about them. After all, not all non-binary or trans people experience dysphoria about their (lack of) bleeding. But all of their experiences can help me make sense of my own. Can help me understand how I feel, and perhaps even why I feel that way. Even in writing this short text, I have journeyed from deep resentment to a hope of one day accepting or coming to terms with my body generally, and bleeding in particular. I will call that a success.
- Louie, 37 - Non Binary
