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My doctor father bought me sanitary napkins for me from the pharmacy, but it was always my mother who handed it over to me!
Puberty is that stage where one leaves the bliss of childhood and enters into the chaos of grown-ups. It is a time when one is very unsure about everything.
What makes things difficult for women is that there is a taboo around it. So even if you as a child have some question or confusion around it, you would never have them answered.
Everyone knows of women having periods, but not many understand that the weeks leading to periods are also an integral part of a woman’s cycle, where one needs to take care of oneself.
My father was a doctor and although my family was not that orthodox, I never had an open discussion about periods with my father. It was always something that was discreet. Though bought the napkins for me from the pharmacy, it was always my mother who handed it over to me.
As a young girl, I was not aware of anything called pre-menstrual syndrome. It was quite late in my twenties that I understood that the weeks before one’s period, (it varies according to different women) when the female body prepares itself for a menstrual cycle her body goes through a lot of hormonal changes. These hormonal changes make one have mood swings, etc.
This period is known as the pre-menstrual period, where there are hormonal changes in a woman’s body.
As a young girl, I was left confused by these feelings. I did not realize it then that it is very natural. The confusion left me a lot less confident as a young girl.
I also wonder, although I do not blame, if my mother had been a gynaecologist would I have been more confident after puberty? My father was a doctor, still I got to know and understand about PMS by reading about it years later.
How would my life have been different if there was no taboo to talking about periods with my father because he is a doctor? I think of the young girl I was, and my heart breaks to think about how confused and scared I was after my puberty.
A woman does not need three days of rest while on her periods. She needs a lot more of care before the weeks that lead up to her periods. When her hormone level changes.
I hope this article would educate a few women and young girls, and assure them that they are fine.
Image source: Still from The Missing Chapter | Keep Girls In School by Whisper India, edited on CanvaPro
A Social Media Content Writer by profession. A writer by heart. A genuine foodie. Simple by nature. Love to read, create paintings and cook. Have impossible dreams. At the moment, engaged in making those dreams read more...
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