Unique Muslimah

Do you remember the first day you started menstruating?

I do.

It was last week when I was reminded. I was sitting with my colleagues and we were talking about how young girls begin their periods these days. Some of them start as young as eight, still babies in my opinion.

I remember the common theme in our group was that none of us knew what we were going through at the time we started. No one had told me about it, so when I found blood one day I thought I had hurt myself. My colleagues also went through the same motions. It was only when our mothers found out that we were told the facts of life.

At first I was really happy, I thought I was finally a grown-up. I bounced up and down and even raced to my dad and told him of this latest development in my life. It was only a few hours later when the pain started to kick in when I started to cry myself to sleep. Although my mother had explained what the period was, I wasn’t aware that this was only a once in a month occurrence.

I was crying because I thought I would bleed forever and never be able to go outside and play with children my age because of it. You can’t imagine how relieved I was when I learnt that I would only get it once a month and even then it would only last a week. My colleagues told me they had also gone through the same experience.

I’ve been through a lot with my menstrual cycle. It has been many years since the day I first found out about the facts of life for women. 

Sometimes I cannot believe that I’ve been experiencing this natural phenomena for decades. It’s a mercy from God that you just learn how to get on with it. Sometimes I welcome it because of the tension I feel a few days before it (PMS) pre-menstrual syndrome. Also due to PMS, I’ll feel quite down before my period arrives and I’ll want to just clean the house for some reason. I’ll also fancy some chocolate or something sweet.

I have decided that I will tell my daughter about the period when she is around 7 or 8 years old so that if she does get it when she is 8 or 9 (some girls do start this young!) then she is not as shocked as I was. I want to have a comfortable, open relationship with my daughter and be able to talk to her about the facts of life so that she is prepared.

Isn’t this strange, that often big events in our lives start with blood? When we are born, there is blood. When we start our periods, it is obviously blood. When we marry and lose our virginity, there is usually blood. When we sacrifice lambs for Eid, there is blood. Blood seems to be a common theme. Maybe because it cleanses us. I know the period does.

I remember I was so eager to start my menopause so that this whole cramp-crazy-period-monthly-bleedin’-hell would end. But I have heard how agonising it is. And I can understand. When my period is late for a few days I feel so tense, I’m just praying it comes so that I can feel relief. Isn’t that weird? SubhanAllah. “You may hate something that is good for you.” (Qur’an)

Sometimes I’m so tense, I thank God I am not a judge because I know I’d sentence a lot of innocent men to jail, just because they don’t have to go through what I was going through.