I cried when my period started.

Instead of being excited about the fact that I was a healthy and functioning woman, I wept at the sight of blood. When I first leaked onto a male friend’s bedsheets whilst doing homework, I pretended that I had cut my toe.

Even before I got my period at thirteen, I was told to be ashamed of it. Our group of eleven girls would openly discuss the matching days of our cycles on the back of the bus on the ride home from netball matches, but as soon as we stepped on our school’s campus (and god forbid were around the opposite sex) the conversation abruptly switched to history tests or the hot maths teacher.

Nothing has changed in the last seven years. I’m still encouraged to be embarrassed. I am told to fear my cramps, I told by Mother Nature in advertisements to stay in bed. I’m told that it’s easier to just go on the pill and skip it all together. Oh, and if you’re close to starting your cycle, please don’t even think of ever wearing white jeans.

In offices, work out studios and nightclubs, we are provided with free hair ties, hand cream and deodorant. Yet, what if I began to bleed during an exec meeting? What if, just as I just got into an EDM rendition of "Despacito" at a club, I felt it trickle down my leg? What if, just as I stood up during my spin class, the warning sign cramps began? How helpful would a hair tie and a spritz of deodorant be then?

This deconstructive rhetoric isn’t new. In fact, it seems reminiscent of how many people treat mental illness. We tend not to tell people we are on antidepressants or when have our weekly therapy sessions.

But the thing is, it’s the therapy, the emotional ups and the downs, and yes, the cramps and leaks that make us human; that make us women.

For the last five Mental Health Awareness Weeks, I have focused on eating disorders, having battled anorexia six years ago. However, I also realised that this year marks my ninth year of having periods.

In those nine years, the societal culture of quietness surrounding periods has made some behaviours of mine seem all too normal. I’ve tried to hide my period from my brother and father by wearing two pads at once and then hiding the used pads in a plastic bag, shoved in the corner of my room. I’ve felt disgusting on my period, and instead of finding gratitude in the fucking brilliance of my healthy-working body, I kept quiet and continued to self-shame.

We women too often ask to be excused from classes and from the workplace, running out of the room blushing. Most would hesitate before asking a male colleague to pick up a pack of tampons if he was off to the store. The famous poet Rupi Kaur had a photo of herself sitting on a period-stained bed removed by social media platforms not once, but twice.

Worldwide, young girls are told they are not allowed at school if they bleed. Millions of potential CEOs and aerospace engineers and teachers miss out on their education. In Nepal, women are sentenced to temporary exile or chhaupadi when menstruating due to the notion that during this time, they are considered too impure to be around other family members.

However, it isn’t just women who are hurt by this culture of quietness. This inhibition of women’s full potential damages society on a major level. We already live in a sexist society where only 5% of the world’s top 500 companies are led by women. Imagine just how productive we could be if the 1 in 10 girls in Africa who miss school because of their periods could get an education. Imagine how nice it would feel to have access to tampons wherever you went. Imagine a world where women could focus their energy and money on career building rather than on menstrual products and rubbing stains out of their jeans in the bathroom.

Menstruation far predates the toxic language our society has directed towards it, and menstrual stigma is just another form of misogyny. This Mental Health Awareness Week, I have a few things to admit. Six years ago, I had Anorexia Nervosa. I still get periodic anxiety and body dysmorphia. I’ve had two years of insomnia, and for the last nine years, I’ve bled on my bedsheets at least thirty times.

All of these things no longer shame me. I have come to the understanding that my body and mind are built separately from these taboos that society imposes on me. Eight hundred million women are menstruating as I’m writing this, and most of those with access will go through at least 15,000 period products in a lifetime.

While scouring Google Images a couple of days ago, I found this quote:

“They say pain is weakness leaving the body. I say menstruation is the expectations of former generations leaving my body too.”

My grandma gets uncomfortable when I speak openly about periods, but she also used to get uncomfortable when my dad would talk to her about same sex marriage twenty years ago. Like my dad did twenty years ago, I refuse to be quiet. Women who bleed are women of health. Women should celebrate their cycles, not mourn them.  This Menstrual Hygiene Day, Freda and our Coven ask you to commit to casting away the stigma and work towards universal access to period products.

By Sophia Parvizi-Wayne

Duke Student, leader of national campaign on mental health, Cross Country All-ACC, fashion alchemist, Huffington Post writer, and all-around world-runner

Photography by Holley Valdez

Graphic Design by Priyanka Purohit

Enter the code COVEN on the the Freda website to get 25% off your Freda box of organic period-care products. A proportion of your purchase will be donated to initiatives tackling period poverty amongst refugees, homeless women and school girls in need.