I remember when I was younger, just a freshman in college, when I ran into an old high school friend. She had recently had a baby and we began discussing her recovery. She told me about the excessive bleeding that occurs after pregnancy and that she had been on her “period” for about two weeks. My jaw hit the floor. What the hell?
I became very concerned, and told her to see her doctor, at which time she informed me that this nonsense was normal. Again, I say WHAT THE HELL!
No one ever told me this. I remember the videos they sat us down to watch in 5th grade about reproduction and our bodies changing and all that crap. But nowhere in that video did they tell me I would bleed like a stuck pig for weeks on end after popping out a human!
That seems like something we should know. And it made me wonder, what else don’t I know. But this was the 90’s. No TikTok, or YouTube or Google to run to for information. And I was young, healthy and quickly lost interest. Personally, I hadn’t planned to have any kids anyway, so I wasn’t worried.
Now fast forward, 30+ years and here I am experiencing things that NO ONE warned me about. Yes, we’ve all heard of menopause as the end of our birthing years, as if that’s the only thing that matters. But what about all of the other effects it has on our bodies? There is no wonder that back in the 18th century women were committed to institutions with something called “histeria” because our bodies, emotions, hormones are seeming to turn against us.
At least now, in the age of instant gratification and information, we have the option of searching out people who are experiencing the same things, enough at least to know that we are NOT going insane and that what we are experiencing is “normal”.