Period Pain: Why every man must read this on menstruation

You just know it when it’s ‘that time of the month’ — aka when you're getting your period.

Women across the board go through heavy symptoms that alter their lifestyle and productivity. Yet, they are made to come to work, often cannot discuss it with their male bosses, lie about what’s wrong with them and are frequently unable to cope.

I’m not saying it happens to all women — but it does, to many women. So, before you go on a rant in your head about how it’s easily manageable...stop. No, it isn’t for many who have PCOD, fibroids, endometriosis or hemorrhagic ovarian cysts or PMDD.

Shehla Rashid, a JNU student-turned-political debutante, recently put out a Twitter post on how she wanted to end her life. I immediately picked up the phone and eventually met her. I wondered what caused such a brave, intelligent, sensible woman to have an urge to end her life? We later discovered she had a PMDD. A pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder — a severe form of PMS. When she recounted that incident to me, she explained how she wanted to end her life — and then did not feel the same once she got her period.

Okay, so, I've decided to share a deeply personal story on Twitter, even though I know that Twitter isn't kind at all. But I'm sharing this personal story in public interest, hoping it might reach someone who needs to hear this. (1/n)

— Shehla Rashid شہلا رشید (@Shehla_Rashid) September 23, 2018

I then recounted to her the days I used to be a morning news anchor and used to wake up at 4 am, pop a heavy pain killer, be down with a migraine that could kill a hundred men, have stomach cramps that would not go away despite pain medication — and still manage to hold it and be on air, with a smile on my face, when I was dying inside.

I could never discuss it with my male bosses.

That’s never been the culture in India. And I felt awkward discussing it. But it should be discussed. It can’t be the norm. We have to stop behaving like this and make it a normal conversation that garners a conducive response, so that the woman concerned doesn’t feel like she can’t compete with a man just because her natural predisposition is such.

My friend, a very popular communications professional, insists there should be a work from home policy. She says she’s moody, irritable, angry and gets crying spells. She, of course, called me later and said please don’t mention my name in the article.

That’s the problem — the fear of being judged by the organisation she works in — for the inability to cope with menstruation.

Many women from different walks of life, whether on medication or not, go through pain and more pain — physical, mental and emotional.

My housekeeper is bold enough to tell me every month that she has her periods and she won’t be able to do physical work — and I make sure she does that with all the houses she visits to offer her housekeeping services. She’s made her work-life sustainable and it feels nice to see her do that.

The other day, I told one of my male friends I couldn’t attend a party as I’ve got my periods. He told me it was too much information. No, it isn’t. It’s something I should be able to say, like I have a headache or I have a fever. I’ve noticed I’m usually extremely vulnerable emotionally a day before my periods. And many women have told me I’m not alone. When men joke about a woman ‘PMS-ing’, the joke really comes from a real condition called PMS. And guys, it’s just not a fun condition. Not a ‘ha-ha’ moment. Sometimes, unmanaged PMS can cost us our careers!

Yes, exercise, yoga, medication, better lifestyle can help manage — but the thing is, our menstruation cycles don’t adjust around important professional commitments. It doesn’t have a brain of its own and reporting heads need to hone in to understand this.

Sometimes, women also turn into the biggest enemies of women — even if in the position to do so, they often don’t give you an off when you just say the truth. In the past, I’ve had women telling me how they don’t find it a big deal and they make it to work despite getting their period. Hence, everyone else is expected to have no discomfort? Do I really have to fake an illness to be able to get the day off? Can I simply not be menstruating?

Menstruation is just not something that happens to our bodies physically every month — the hormonal fluctuations cause emotional trauma, fatigue, paranoia and despair, unorganised thoughts, food cravings — and the list can be elaborate.

Are we just expected to keep quiet and bear it all because, as a society, we have not come of age where we can openly discuss it?

I’ve been brought up in a progressive home where my cycles are discussed, my needs attended to, where the word 'period' is not a taboo. But I have seen plenty of homes where the women quietly brave it all.

Are most women able to call up the male members of their families, like their fathers, brothers or their fathers in-law, and ask them to pick up tampons or sanitary napkins? But they do so when they need paracetamol or first aid or anything that’s not a product of stigma. Have we ever questioned how weird that is? Are we really in this kind of denial to reality? And what is up with medical stores who insist on wrapping these products with brown paper or in black plastic — as if they’re selling crack across the counter?

Conditions like endometriosis, PMS and PMDD have altered careers for women who have bosses to report to who just don’t understand what these women are going through. They label them perpetually sick — no, they are not.

Let’s accept there are many perfectly healthy women whose mental and emotional state goes for a complete toss when they're around their periods. A woman's absence from work is sometimes a must for her. And yet, women continue to amend their career choices around the inability to manage their pain, because of a slew of conditions that lead to unmanageable periods.

What does it take for a society to be slightly more empathetic?

What does it take for men to reach out to women colleagues and ask if they’d like a little help or be open to the idea of them saying, “Hey I’m down with painful periods and can you help me with this or that or fill in for me?”

Why is it that after being so educated, we are unable to break this one barrier?

As news anchors, we have to be energetic, loud, composed, full of energy and alert when there’s a volcano of physical and emotional trauma going on inside us. I can only imagine the plight of nurses working at odd hours, fellow journalists standing in the sun all day, female police officers, women from different walks of life, including politicians, lawyers, surgeons, etc., who have to be at their professional best and cannot afford to miss a professional commitment.

I wish both male and female colleagues stepped in for us on days we felt our periods are unbearable. I’d like to see more talk around it too, so that it makes the whole issue normal.

I’m sure as an educated, progressive society, we can really make conversations around period problems normal. It would really help women cope with everyday stresses and empower them at the workplace too. If a woman doesn’t feel empowered enough to talk about it, she will keep suppressing her pain and the entire condition.

Do we really want to put our women through all of this when all we can really do is hear them out, understand their plight and cooperate? Can we just for once consider having a first-day of period leave as a policy? Can we please have proper dispensers for sanitary napkins, tampons at workplaces? Can workplaces and educational institutions start having workshops sensitising men around this?

These are some simple solutions. How are we a ‘New India’ that boasts of progress, development and being one of the fastest growing economies — when we still haven't come around this?

It beats me.

Also read: Endometriosis: A disease which needs cure and empathy. Not ignorance and callousness