Things we should not speak of

Something we don’t and shouldn’t speak of.

Period.

Literally… periods.

Like how dare women bleed for six days straight and then complain about the backache, the stomachache, the headache, and every other symptom that comes with it. How dare women talk about something so natural, yet so painful when it’s neither chosen nor controlled.

Imagine someone unleashing cockroaches into your stomach, their tiny bodies devouring you from the inside. Imagine burning coals lodged in your intestines, scorching everything they touch. Imagine an elephant pressing all its weight onto your abdomen. That is what period pain can feel like. It is bad; unbearably bad.

It is not just the cramps alone that are the issue. It’s the diarrhea, constipation, bloating, weird cravings, nausea, vomiting, breakouts, mood swings, sore breasts, and back pain, just to name a few.

And yet we are expected to show no signs of it, because men feel uncomfortable. Their ignorance is treated as more important than our health, our pain, and our comfort. Because how dare we speak about bleeding from a part of the body God Himself created? The outrage. The indecency. The supposed profanity.

For me, the hardest part was not always the pain. Sometimes, it was not having sanitary products at all, or having to smuggle them around as if they were contraband.

I remember hiding pads under my shirt or burying them in my pockets because I could not let my brothers know it was that time of the month. Now, I pull one out like a shield, as if it is something meant to protect me instead of something I was once taught to hide.

Or the fact that I have to pretend to fast during Ramadan, because no male family member is supposed to know I am bleeding from the very place they themselves came from. Now I eat freely, not worrying about having to explain myself. Of course, I respect them and would never eat in front of them, but I don’t have to hide or be ashamed of it.

When we lived in Pakistan, we spent nearly every weekend in our village visiting my grandparents. One time, my period started while we were there, and I had no sanitary products. My mother tore a piece from an old cloth and told me to place it in my underwear as a substitute for a pad. She said it was the best she could do until she found a way to get me proper pads. It was not the first time I had to manage like that.

When I went to Pakistan at the beginning of 2020, I needed sanitary products. My brother took me to the nearest store, and when I asked the man at the counter for pads, he hesitated before pointing me toward a corner. I picked them up and continued walking through the store. A moment later, the man came after me, holding a brown bag and told me to hide the pads inside it, as though they were weapons of mass destruction.

I do not understand why something so natural is treated as something that must remain unspoken. Why do we have to hide the very thing tied to the reason each and every one of us is here, our uteruses? Maybe instead of turning these realities into taboos, we should bring them into the light. Because this is not only about women’s comfort, but also about women’s health. So many women suffer and even die from preventable conditions simply because these topics are silenced. It is time to take these matters seriously instead of shying away from them.