The Red Scare: My first period in the Midwest

The buzz in Sister Lucille’s sixth grade class was that Laurie started her period next door, in the middle of Ms. Crowley’s lecture on the Middle Ages—and she was wearing a white skirt. I felt warm, scared, terrified. I hadn’t had my first period yet, and what if it happened to me, like that, in front of everyone? I will die. This really is the curse. I don’t ever want it to happen to me.

A year earlier, Mrs. Manuel herded the girls into her classroom and sent the boys across the hall. An hour later, I emerged, white as a ghost, with a sick twist in my stomach. Why is this happening? Why did I have to be a girl? I wish I were a boy.

The school nurse told us that we would bleed—while we were playing tag at the park, that we would get cramps, and that it would happen every month. She showed us an anatomy chart and that was it. I had the red scare. Lurking around the corner was blood and uncontrollable pain that would haunt me for one week of every 28 days for the rest of my adult life.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I didn’t understand. At 10 years old, I didn’t fully know what having a period was all about. And, growing up Catholic and in the Midwest didn’t help. My teachers and grandma called it "The Curse." How could I look forward to something with a name like that? Years later, as a freshman in high school, my overweight male-virgin religion teacher would say that women were murderers because they killed an egg every month. The torment never seemed to stop.

I raised my hand, timidly. "Does it only happen when you go to the bathroom or do you bleed all the time?" I thought it might just come out when you pee. "No, it’s all the time," the nurse answered. "Even when you are sleeping?" "Yes," she says. My palms began to sweat. While I’m sleeping?

By the end of the year, several other girls had met Laurie’s fate, running out of class or off of the playground—all of them crying, flushed— a faint rust-red ooze seeping through their plaid skirts. I made it through the year with nothing except more fear. Please god, let it not happen to me, and if it does not at school and not ever while I’m sleeping. Every night I would say that, begging God to spare me further embarrassment and an even lower social status than my home haircuts and second-hand clothes had given me.

In July my mom took me to get a bra, and I resisted, hiding in the racks at JCPenney trying to deny that I was growing up, that it would soon happen to me. She tried to give me "The Talk" that night. She held a tampon and a maxi pad in her hand, valiantly trying to explain that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, that this kind of bleeding was good. I didn't want to hear any of it.

The day after I got home from 4-H camp it happened. I had to pee. I pulled down my panties and there it was— the ooze, thick and more brown than red, soaking through to my shorts. Terrified, I ran into the bedroom I shared with my sister and I looked at her. This was the only time in our adolescent lives that she hung up the phone to pay attention to me. I hadn’t said anything, but she knew.

"Oh my God. MMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM," she yelled. Mom’s head popped through the door a minute later, and she too knew without me saying anything. She started to cry and I didn’t understand. I’m the one that’s bleeding. I’m the one that has the curse. I’m the one who has to deal with this punishment that will ruin my life. Why are you crying? My life is ruined!

I didn't know then that there would be times when I would fall down on my knees and pray that I bled, welcoming the familiar quiver of my insides. "My baby's all grown up," my mom said with tears welling in her eyes, knowing that this was only the beginning of the journey.