*** Trigger Warning – mentions sexual assault and precocious puberty as it pertains to the menstrual cycle
The Issue Of Blood
A month after my aunt died of cancer, a year after I began my first breakthrough period which lasted the span of several days, and six months after I was sexually assaulted, I began my real menstrual cycle (period). The beginning of that cycle was the beginning of my issue with blood. It would be a long journey of faith, heartache, embarrassment, pain, determination and loss.
Crippling Terror
The start of this period was far different than the breakthrough period. In fact, it was drastically different. When the cycle began, I was in fifth grade when it happened at school. I was at lunch when I began to feel a strange sensation. My body felt strange all over. There is no way for me to describe what was happening except to say that something was expelling itself from my body. So I went to the bathroom to check it out.
For the life of me, it simply did not dawn on me that I had started my period. I remember feeling disconnected from myself as if to stand from a distance watching myself while I discovered a bright red blood spot in my underwear that was only widening. Instead of informing my teacher, I went straight to the office to make a request to call home. The secretary informed me that I did not appear sick, and I will never forget responding, “Then why am I bleeding?” That line was the best line of defense as the secretary immediately dialed my home.
I remember it taking a while – lunch and an entire class period – before my mother phoned back to the school saying that I would either need to stay at school or walk home. I remember the secretary explicitly expressing to my mother the urgency of coming to pick me up – that I had bled through my pants – but my mother was unbothered by this. I knew intuitively that it was my mother’s intention to make me suffer. I told the secretary that I would walk home. She was nice enough to find me an old sweater from the lost and found box so that I could wrap it around my waste to hide the risk of my feeling shame.
The Walk Home
Home was a good distance away when walking – about 2 miles. Although it was no big deal to walk, I remember feeling as if this situation should have warranted a different response from my mother. I wondered how she could not have seen it as an emergency. Although I walked to school every morning because I hated the morning crowd and took the bus home after school because there were always five to six people for the second route, I did not want to walk home at this moment in blood soaked pants.
I remember pondering over the fact that I never seemed to be an emergency or priority for either of my parents when it came to my emotional or physical well-being. I felt that I was always fending for myself. That long walk home took me back to the past … the times I walked to escape being bullied and taunted because I was perceived as different by others. Even when groups of kids would decide to walk so they could tease me and start fights, I would always time my walks so that I avoided their drama – often walking different routes or hiding out behind trees and bushes until the threats passed me by and were long gone in the distance.
I was glad to be walking home mid-day. I knew there was no chance of me being bothered by other kids. By the time I had arrived home from the long walk, I bathed myself, changed, washed my clothing, and put myself to bed. I was home alone for a few hours until my mother and grandmother showed up. Since the secretary had explained to my mother that I started my period, I was saved the anxiety of having to tell her myself. I remained in bed as I heard my mother and grandmother hustle about in the house. I could hear that they had gone food shopping as the sound of heavy bags were placed on the table.
The Drama
It took a while for my mother to even bother to check on me. Prior to doing so, she and my grandmother were deep in conversation in hushed tones. I had an eerie feeling that they were plotting and planning something. Perhaps it was just their mere superstitions that they were planning to impart within me. I did not know, but when my mother came into my room, she took an accusatory tone with me. Again, she belabored the point that I had obviously been with boys even though I was always at home or in school. I was baffled by her response and accusation.
Instead of dealing with the fact that I was experiencing what was supposed to be a normal occurrence, my mother was turning it into something sinister. I could not believe what I was hearing; she sounded ridiculous. Before I realized it, she and my grandmother had both cornered me in my room and attempted to pull down my pants to see the changes. I was mortified by their actions, and something within me was triggered by their behavior. Because I did not understand what they were doing, I screamed out and struggled against them. I felt like there was something more than what was being expressed to me.
Both my grandmother and mother exerted great strength in trying to subdue me, but something within my brain clicked into “fight” mode, and I maneuvered myself away from them. I ran into the kitchen and cowered underneath the table holding onto one of the legs. For whatever reason, when both of them came into the kitchen and attempted to pulled me from underneath, a shrill and terrifying screamed bellowed from my gut. I screamed in panic mode hysterically until my grandmother and mother stopped in their tracks.
Both of them stared at each other. Their eyes had a sense of knowing, and intuitively I knew that there was something that I was not being told. There was something that my brain kept me in the dark about that my body surely remembered. My grandmother told my mother that I was in shock. They really did not know what to do. They did not want my father to find me in such a frantic state of mind. So my grandmother suggested my mother call “Mother”. “Mother” had been my aunt’s best friend, and she was also the woman tasked with riding the rest of the way home with me on my solo trip back home via Greyhound from the summer with my aunt.
I am not quite sure why my grandmother had suggested bringing “Mother” into this situation. I can only imagine it had a lot to do with the fact that “Mother” was a calming force – both something my grandmother and mother vehemently recognized that their presences did not bring me. Since my grandmother was a ruling and omnipotent narcissist, my mother did whatever my grandmother told her to do. I can tell, however, there was hesitation within my mother to do this, but she never backed down from her obedience to my grandmother even though she was an adult.
So, my mother called “Mother”, and “Mother” was dispatched to the rescue.
Stay tuned for the next post.
My Voice Unchained 