If not this, then what else? Tale of Period Cramps

struggles in uterus land - period cramps

“It hurt so badly, I slammed my palm onto the desk without realizing it — my notebook flipped and with it, the entire class. Their heads jerked up from notebooks and whispers.

The teacher paused mid-sentence. I couldn’t even lift my face. I kept my eyes down, breathing hard, one hand clutching my stomach under the desk.

“What happened?” the teacher asked, walking up to me.

My throat was filled with nausea, but somehow I managed to say in a soft voice: “My stomach hurts… it’s, um, I’m having the monthly kind of pain.”

She paused, as if trying to process what I meant, and said, “ Oh, you’re on your period?”

When I nodded, she added, “Well, we can’t do anything, can we? bear it”

That’s it, no concern, no advice, no help, but a sharp ‘bear it’, BEAR IT, “well, lady, I DID MY BEST”, and although I wanted to yell this out loud, all I could manage to say was a low “hmm”.

When the bell rang, most students circled me at my desk, concerned about what happened, but a few girls also said, “Why are you overreacting? It’s common and it’s not this bad.” The boys around me were confused, but they had a sympathetic look. However, the anger and discomfort within me made me want to punch everyone. Gulping all those emotions and saying nothing, I grabbed my bag and left school. I know it was rude of me, but still, it was better than them having to experience the wrath of my anger.

On my walk back to home, I stopped at a chemist shop and luckily I had money that day-Maa always gave me ₹30 on day 2 of my periods to buy sanitary pads for night, because I bleed so much that even if I changed my cloth hourly, it still usually stained everything on which I slept.

I asked the shop owner for a pad and added, “I’m also having pain, that kind.”

He didn’t ask questions. Just nodded and handed me a single pad and a medicine strip folded inside an old newspaper. I didn’t even check the name — I just wanted the pain to stop.

I reached home, gulped down the pill with water, and carried on my day. Later, my mom found the strip lying on my desk.

“What is this?” she asked, reading the bold letters on the pill pack.

‘Contraceptive pill.’

Her voice changed instantly.

I froze.“It was for the cramps,” I said quickly. “It’s for the pain, not what you’re thinking.”

But I could see the doubt in her eyes. The room felt smaller. Heavier.

After a few minutes of silence with a shiver in her voice, she said, “I never said no to you for anything, and this is how you disgrace our family.”

Before I could say anything, she snapped at me with “Tell me the boy’s name. Right now!”

I was so scared but also so angry, and all the anger I had held back the entire day surfaced, and I yelled, “CAN YOU LISTEN TO ME?”

Calming down almost instantly, I added softly: I did nothing with a boy or anyone, It was hurting so badly, so um along with a sanitary pad, I asked the chemist uncle to give me a pain medicine, and that is it, and I’m sorry for taking the medicine and for yelling at you, but you tell me, if not this, then what?”

This happens more than you think.

• A teacher who doesn’t know how to respond to period pain.

• A pharmacist who hands out the wrong medication.

• A mother who panics over a pill her daughter couldn’t even identify.

Menstrual cramps, or dysmenorrhea, affect a significant majority of menstruating adolescents. A study conducted among college-going adolescent girls in rural Haryana found that 78.3% experienced various degrees of dysmenorrhea, with 8.66% suffering from severe pain that impacted their personal and academic lives. (Yadav et al., 2021, International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology)*.

Despite the numbers, period pain remains taboo. Most girls are told to “bear it” instead of being supported. Many don’t know that their pain may signal underlying issues like endometriosis, PCOS, or iron deficiency anemia — all of which require medical attention, not silence or shame.

At Dyvigya Care Wellness Foundation, we are working to break this silence.

We believe that access to correct menstrual health education, empathetic medical care, and safe pain management isn’t optional — it’s essential.

Through our outreach in schools and villages, we:

• Educate girls and their families on the distinction between normal and abnormal menstrual cycle symptoms.

• Connect them to trusted, qualified gynecologists.

We urge communities, educators, parents, and health workers to stop asking girls to “bear it” and start listening because pain that silences a girl today can cost her health, confidence, and dignity tomorrow.

Let’s make care, not shame, the default response.

*Yadav, M., Rani, V., & Singh, S. (2021). A study of dysmenorrhea among adolescent girls in a rural area of Haryana. International Journal of Reproduction, Contraception, Obstetrics and Gynecology, 10(5), 1912–1916. https://www.ijrcog.org/index.php/ijrcog/article/view/10261