clapifyoulikeme:

*I put it that way because even “male-bodied” doesn’t cover it: I just learned that some intersexed “boys” don’t find out about their insides until they hit puberty and start menstruating—through their penises. I recommend not thinking about it too much.

Anyway. So, here’s the thing. You know how we women bitch about our periods? This is one reason why:

I was just woken up by cramps. This is far from the first time it’s happened. I woke up and found myself doubling over in pain. I managed to get to the Aleeve (gyno-recommended for cramps, works better than other painkillers), and grab a heating pad. I’m now back in bed, praying for the drugs to kick in and the pad to work without also burning my stomach.

Every other period issue aside, cramps are often so mind-bogglingly painful that not only should we be allowed to complain, we should be allowed to skip work and school and leaving the bed.

What do they feel like? Like nothing else. It’s tempting to say like gas, because it’s the same general abdominal area, but it’s not really like that. It feels like your uterus is contracting, violently, I guess. Sometimes it hurts so much it makes you feel like you’re going to vomit. Sometimes you do vomit. Sometimes massive doses of painkillers and heating pads and orgasms galore (the hormones released in orgasm can help) do nothing and you’re still paralyzed in the fetal position, shivering and hot both at once.

It’s not always like that, of course, and some people never have a single cramp. Some, like me, get put on birth control at 12 in hopes of stabilizing it enough to make getting up and going to school an option. For some it gets better with age. For some diet changes can help. For something, not much can.

I’m not going to talk about the other side effects of menstruation—the mood swings, the bloating, the cravings, the gas, the swollen and tender (read: so sore wearing a bra can hurt) breasts, the stained panties, the acne, the fatigue, the constipation, the diarrhea, the headaches, the vague sense that you smell like blood, that surely everyone can tell that you are bleeding, the sheer ickiness of the blood and tissue pouring out.

Right now, I just wanted you to know about the cramps, probably the single most painful thing the average woman experiences on a regular basis, so that next time you hear a woman complaining, or see her popping an alarming number of painkillers, or notice that she’s having trouble focusing on anything but breathing through the pain, you won’t roll your eyes, or try not to think about woman problems, or get frustrated. Because if someone were kicking you in the gut repeatedly and almost constantly for five to seven days, you wouldn’t be very happy either.