Ela

Brief Outline:

Ela is 16. She has period cramps, that are uncomfortable but she manages them using rest, pressure and sometimes finds heat helps. She finds that knowing more about the menstrual cycle, and what is happening in her body helps her manage the cycle, bleeding and pain. She gets mid-cycle pain, which she had not heard of, but now recognises it’s place in her cycle. Talking to friends and learning from shared experiences has been really important for her, and she would like to see continued moves towards openness in talking about periods. She thinks more education about conditions like endometriosis would be important.

Ela gets ‘mid-month’ pain. She hadn’t heard of mid-month ovulation pain before it happened to her, and was a bit worried until she learned what it was.

And I think period... a period, and I think people think that, you know, your period is just the week that you’re bleeding, but for me it’s actually a whole month experience, like it’s not just about the blood. Like I get quite bad mid-month pain, ovulation pains, and that can be really sore. Not so much in a... like I feel like period cramps, they’re sort of more of a whole-body experience, but I do get really like sharp pains during ovulation, and I can obviously feel which side the egg is coming down. But like I said, the fact that I even know it’s an egg coming down, I look at it differently, like I can almost imagine where it is, and it can be really uncomfortable, but I think people don’t talk about that as much, and I’ve never really heard, not even my friends, talk about mid-month pain. I know my Mum has ’cause she also got it when she had a period I think, so again it was quite normalised in my home, but I’ve always struggled with bad mid-month pain too.

And the first time that happened when you weren’t expecting it, can you remember what you...?

I could probably imagine I was a bit worried, like: ‘what is this random pain in my side?’ but it was sort of in my hip area and I think I must have either asked my Mum or Googled it, or something, and she... my Mum must have told me what it was. But I don’t remember ever being told in any puberty education that I would be getting mid-month pains either. And, you know, I get cramps the week before, the day before my period; I don’t just get them on my period.

Ela feels differently about her period bleeding and pain, since learning about the biology and hormone changes that happen in her body to cause the menstrual cycle.

You know, I’ve always... I always heard about period pain. And the first year of my period I don’t remember ever getting cramps. I remember other people talking about how them and I was like: ‘mm, I wonder why I don’t have them.’  I do now, and I think I did like the next year and so on, but I think I... it was probably everything that I expected it to be. You know, I think we were educated on what periods were. And then obviously in GCSE biology you go a bit more into the details of what actually causes them and the different hormones and everything, so I kind of look at it a bit differently. And now like sometimes I say to my friends as a joke: “Oh, my uterus lining is shedding.” And it’s weird ’cause I almost feel the pain differently after knowing like how it works. Like the pain doesn’t feel so much like a cramp anymore, but it... almost is like sensory in the sense I can almost imagine like my uterus lining actually shedding, which sounds weird-

No.

—but it’s how I sort of feel it now, which is weird.

And so, did that change how you felt about the pain a bit do you think? Sort of knowing how to make sense of it?

In terms of making sense of it – yes, ’cause I think I wondered before like: ‘why am I in pain, like what is this pain?’ And still... I still don’t know like why it hurts, maybe I should do some research about that, but...  I think it just makes me look at it differently to know what’s actually happening, rather than just knowing I’m bleeding and that I’m in pain.

Ela thinks the community on social media can help normalise periods and period pain, and frame them in a more positive way, which could reduce stigma about periods.

I’m not really a big Instagram user.  There’s not so much on Snapchat, because it’s quite different, but but TikTok definitely. I mean there’s... again, it’s like this sort of community, obviously not anonymous, but the fact people still talk about it on there a lot which is kind of what I was saying about people very much normalising it, and I think that’s why like a big thing is it’s normalised on social media so people kind of normalise it now, and I think if anyone was to ever say like: “Ugh, why are you talking about your period?” I think they would get a lot of hate.

Like ’cause it’s very like I wouldn’t... I don’t know how to explain it, but the sort of minor feminists of the world would be like: “Why are you trying to shut us down for talking about our bodies?” which I think is really good.

Ela has found that pressure over her stomach seems to relieve her period pain.

What's really weird that I’ve found is that period pain is sort of like a pressure on your stomach, and I kind of counteract it with more pressure. Now, I don’t know if that makes sense, but sometimes when you press, it gives relief, so how I go about that, I don’t know, whether it’s just squeezing really tight or even lying on my front with like a pillow under – I’ve found that that weirdly helps – I have no idea why… Yeah. I find if I do have a hot water bottle, I’ll lie on my back and I’ll sit it on top so you’ve got that weight and then the heat which kind of makes the pain, not spread out, but like go away a little bit, so I think a combination of the two really helps me.

Ela finds talking to female friends about periods easy. She found talking to boys in school was better than she expected.

Well, I think talking to women about some of the gross parts, or even how it like affects daily life is really because everyone experiences things quite similarly, or, you know, people help each other, like I’ll ask a friend: “Oh, do you have tampon?” Like, it’s easy to talk to my girlfriends about it. But I’ve also found that boys are not as grossed out by it as I thought they would be. There was this one time we were in a science class and my friend, [name] and I... You know, I think there’s a lot of... there’s a big lack of communication between like what boys go through and what girls go through growing up, and everyone is sort of educated in Year 5 and 6, but at that time it’s all so new and no one really remembers. So, we were actually asking each other questions, and we found that the boys were quite like... they were never grossed out, they were quite understanding, they were like: “Oh, do you prefer pads or tampons?” Like I think maybe it’s ’cause they have other female presence in their homes, but I think it was quite normalised for them too, which is good because, you know, we might assume: ‘oh, boys would think it’s weird if you talked about it,’ but I’ve never really found that.

Ela is happy talking to female teachers, because she thinks they might have their own experience and understanding of periods, but would not want to talk to a male teacher.

Female teachers, yeah. I think it’s just all about people’s experience themselves. Like I would be comfortable talking to any... you know, any woman because they’ve probably experienced really similar, and maybe worse, and everyone has sort of their own opinions and stories and experiences.  A male teacher: probably not.  I’ve seen people, you know, say to male teachers: “Oh, if you don’t let me go to the toilet, I’ll bleed all over your chair,” huh, which I don’t think I could ever do. There was one time where I did leave the classroom for a period-related issue, and I came back and I did have to say it was like it’s a woman thing, but it is just uncomfortable talking to male teachers in my opinion. But maybe not so much boys in my year because they’re still our age and they’re still changing too, so I think they sort... it’s... I don’t know exactly what it is, maybe it’s just psychological like I feel I can... can answer their questions because they don’t exactly know; whereas, you know, older people, they’ve been around long enough to know, so it’s not like they’re hearing anything new, so maybe that’s why it’s different.

Ela thinks it could be hard for young people to start talking about periods with doctors, and thinks it would help if doctors ‘took the first step and asked the questions first’.

Sometimes it’s hard maybe for younger kids especially to initiate conversations and concerns, like maybe it would help if someone took the first step and asked the questions first. ’cause I mean I can imagine it’s quite hard to go to someone that you don’t really know and tell them that you think something’s wrong. And it is a slightly... I don’t know how you would describe it, but periods are a topic that, you know, for a long time, people have thought it’s something you just don’t talk about outside of maybe with your Mum, or your family, but I think if people just normalise it as much as possible, like if a healthcare professional or a doctor, you know, started talking about their own experiences to their families. Even if it was a man talking about what they know, I think just making someone feel comfortable to... so that they could open up, I think that’s really important, because it is hard to go to someone, and it is hard to talk about it sometimes, especially probably with males, yeah.