periods

At age 9
Mom said: Do you know what a period is?
Me said: *looking very proud* A dot at the end of a sentance!

Usagi Ohkami

When I was little, I saw some commercials for tampons and it showed how they expand when they are inside the vagina....
well I thought that a tampon was a way to lose weight and that you had to swallow it and it expanded in your stomach to make you feel full so you would not have to eat!

*Belle

My mother told me when i first started my period, that I should not go out into the woods while I was in this condition. She told me that male deer (bucks) would smell me and try to attack me!!

Tavia

when i was younger i had believed that you only got your period when you wanted to have a baby...so can't you imagine my reaction when i was 11 and got mine!...i was so scared to tell my mom cause i knew she would be mad that i wanted to have a baby at that age

oopss

when i was little i thought a period would consist of a very small droplet of blood.. looking like a punctuation mark. i wanted to be more 'grown up' so i would take a red marker and make a dot on my panties .. assuming that my mother would see it and realize i had started getting my period. she never said a word, and i'm sure she probably never even noticed it was there.
if only i'd been right

Anon

I used to believe your period came out your nose. I remember I got my first nose bleed when I was about 5. I yelled "OH MY GOD! MOMMY! MY PERIOD IS HAPPENING!"

Katrina

I used to think my mom's non-applicator tampons were some kind of a bullet - and that she might use them if she got mad.

Anon

I didnt start my period until i was almost fifteen... around the age of 13 or so I heard a story about twin girls who after never getting their period found out they had been born boys but things didnt develop right. I lived the next two years in terror that I would never get my period and end up having to be a guy for the rest of my life....

Athelas

When I was in 5th grade I thought that the equivalent of a girl having her period for boys was when they got an erection

Anon

I was about 8 and found tampons in my moms cabinet. I ignored them for a while.......but along came a nose bleed. I thought they were this great new thing- NOSE BLEED STOPPERS! I stuck them up my nose and was running around the house claiming I was the first to find these "nose bleed stoppers." It was the next day I found out what they were after I got in trouble.

stupid one

When i was younger- thanks to the tampax and tampon commercials on the media, being television, i was always under the impression that women discharged a blue liquid during their periods.

Ajax

After the horrifying conversation and book-readings that explained getting your period, I became paranoid until I started at age 12. When I started, I was staying with my father for the weekend, and had to call my mom on the phone to tell her. She then instructed my father to go buy me some pads. Dad, not knowing any better, bought pantyliners (those lil' flimsy things), which did okay on the first occasion, as I didn't bleed much. Problem was, pads and tampons had been explained to me, but nobody had explained that you could STOP using them after you were done for the months. So I wore the stupid pantyliners for a month solid! I then informed my mother that I needed more. At which point, she told me that I didn't need to wear them for eternity, just when I needed them. (Big Relief!) However, having only seen the panyliners (mom used tampons, no pads), I was HORRIFIED when she bought me the real deal pads and they were, naturally, much larger.

Amy

When I was about ten, people were always talking about how fast I was growing up. Around Christmas, I was looking at all the wrapped presents, trying to figure out what they were. One was slightly round, about 6x3 inches, and I knew exactly what it was. It couldn't be anything else, I decided. It was a tampon.
I wasn't sure what a tampon was, but I knew it was part of growing up. I stressed about it for days, trying to figure out what to tell my parents. What if they didn't know what a tampon was? What would I tell them?
Finally, Christmas morning came, and I put off opening that gift for as long as possible. I finally got up the nerve to open it, and... it was a bottle of shampoo.

Who gives tampons as Christmas gifts, anyway?

When my mother first explained to me what periods were (after I asked her what tampons were for), I misunderstood, and for years, until about age 7 or 8, I thought women had their periods constantly, not just one week a month. I was so scared of growing up because I didn't want to bleed all the time! (Thankfully I didn't know about period cramps either, or my fear would have been much worse, haha).

Emilyn

when i was really young, i used to believe that rhubarb came from women's periods.

(i was really young and remember hearing only whispered comments about women's periods and bleeding; therefore, when my great grandma would disappear outside and come back in w/a long, blood red thing and told us to eat it, i was horrified, thinking she had pulled it out of her vagina.)

i never did try rhubarb.

leesuh

When I first got my period, I thought it happened because I drank too much black coffee the day before and it leaked out of my body *to me the color looked black*!

Anon

When I was in 3rd grade my friend (also in 3rd grade) Valerie told me that you could'nt were the "Stick" kind of tampons things until you had a baby, so there would be a hole for the thing. Then I went to my cousins house she's was 16 and I was looking for hand soap and I found a box of "The Stick" kind with my cousins name written on it I thought she was STUPID and had sex before she was married and then hid the baby in her room so then I went and turned her whole room upside down then she walked in and said "What the heck are you doing?" "Looking for your baby" I responded. She was SOOO confused.

Kandi

once when i was about 9 or 10 i found my moms pads i went to her and asked why are there napkins in her drawer and she said they were for a special occassion. so on my dads birthday my mom made this huge dinner and she told me to set the table. and of course, i went and got the pads and used them for napkins! they all laughed and finally told me what they really were...lol

Anon

When I saw the commercial for pads&tampons, I used to think that when you got older(30+) that you went to the bathroom in your underwear because you couldn't make it to a toilet. Especially since they say "No leaks"

Sailorlove90

When I was in grade 5 a friend of mine had overheard the boys discussing what colour girls period blood was. They concluded that it was black since boys sprem was white and of course boys and girls are opposites!

Courtney