I am a scientist and a poet. And when I am either or neither depends on the weather. However, I am aware that many are not scientists and care more about the soul than the body. Whereas I value both. So as I talk both scientifically and poetically about the duration of a woman’s period (not a very romanticized topic, I will admit), I promise to keep my science both succinct and understandable.
Let us begin.
My key science points are:
Menstrual flow is classified by light, normal, and heavy, but none of these threshold are classified and are generally impractical for clinical use.
Heavy menstrual bleeding is subjective, and often without a formal diagnosis. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) defines it as excessive menstrual bleeding that interferes with a person's physical, social, emotional, and/or material quality of life. But 2 patients with the same amount of bleeding may have very different ideas of their flow volume.
We hear about the four main phases menstruation, follicular, ovulation, and luteal, but these are all handled by different parts of the reproductive system and often overlap. There are many many more increments of phases within these main four, depending on hormones and medication and lots of different miniscule shifts.
The onset of bleeding is due to a drop in certain hormone levels, and then the shedding begins because the lining cannot be sustained without these hormones.
One of the main “ingredients” of your menstrual blood is the products of fibrinolysis. This is a process that breaks down fibrin clots. Fibrin clots help stop bleeding and start the healing process of a wound.
Ok, I’m finished with the science part now. I promise.
The main things I got from that are: 1. everybody’s perception of their pain and flow is different 2. there a no set thresholds for flow 3. there are phases within phases 4. our period comes when something becomes absent and our lining just gives up 5. part of our blood is fibrin clots that help us heal.
And is this not the way with everything? Our joy, our sadness, and our pain?
Everybody’s perception of their pain and flow is different.
One of my favourite quotes, not even an official one, just a sentiment really is:
People drown. In 50 and 500m of water, they drown the same.
Because it’s true, my perception and your perception of my pain are going to be completely different. We feel different things, different ways, and that’s ok.
That’s not me saying complaining is ok. Sometimes people just need to get their shit together. And that’s a fact. But at the same time, we’re all suffering, be kind, help each other. You’re pain is not greater than another’s.
There are no set thresholds for flow.
You can’t measure emotions. I actually looked it up. I was curious, and there is no “recommended” period of time for grieving. I can’t measure my joy or sorrow. And sometimes that’s a good thing. Because if I had a certain amount of ml for how I felt, it would make me feel worse. Every moment would be measured against another and I would never be able to bask in the sunshine. Or wallow in the pain and throw a pity-party, because let’s be real, we all need that sometimes. You can’t clinically define how you feel, you just feel that way.
There are phases within the phases.
Because joy, or healing looks different every day. Somedays I want to bound out of bed, do Pilates, and eat avocado, and others I burrow into the cocoon of my bed sheets, read sad-girl books and eat a doughnut, or ten. But no matter the mindset, there is still growth there, it just presents itself differently. Sometimes something miniscule, a text, a song, a thought can set us back, if only by a day, and we don’t even know it. Phases within phases.
Our period comes when something is absent and our lining just gives up.
And that’s ok.
Because I often need to give up. I need to lay in bed (or just on my floor to be honest). I need to cry and silently scream, and figure out was wrong and what was right. I wallow in my anguish (yes, I’m dramatic), and then I romanticise the stress or the mundane, and then I drag myself up and get on with it. And sometimes it gets better or I end up back on the floor. But either way, I learn to function without that thing, whether it be a friend or motivation or something else. And sometimes that thing returns, and fills the slightly healed hole it left, and other times it doesn’t and the gaping hole it left slowly closes, until there is only a scar.
Part of our blood is fibrin clots that help us heal.
Even as we bleed, our body is already healing. We’ve already started that process. And that process takes time. A period can last up to 8 days. But even as we suffer, out body is working to make us better, to prepare us for the next phase so we can be happy again. The second you get that text, or that person walks away, the wounds are already starting to heal. Sometimes the process is slower than other times. But it’s happening, you’re already healing.
A/N: This post was heavily inspired by a conversation with Jaide in a school bathroom that looked a little like this,
“Why can’t we have our periods in one big, bloody poo?” (This was me, btw)
“I wonder the same thing almost every month when I am doubled over the toilet because it’s the only position that relieves the cramps.”
So keep that in mind.
Also, after re-reading this post, I don’t like it. At all. It’s no where near as poetic as it was in my head. But it’s all I have for this week. So please try to read this in the most poetic way you can imagine.