I Fight Through My Period Pain. But I’m Not Sure if I Should.

When “being strong” becomes its own toxic expectation

Growing up and through my early twenties, I was lucky to have mostly pain-free periods. There’d be occasional twinges, but nothing an Ibuprofen couldn’t solve, and a day or two of mild bloating was the most I’d face in the way of PMS.

After I turned 25, it started getting more intense, probably because my stress levels went up. I’d have debilitating cramps, ones that even Ibuprofen couldn’t do much for. My depression kicked in again, after lurking in the background since my last flare-up in 2017, which led to delays — long ones — to the point where I’d buy pregnancy tests because I mistook the nausea of anxiety for the nausea of an oopsie. And somewhere around 2020, I began bloating wildly both before and during my period and had to keep a separate collection of pants for those balloon-belly days.

Those were days of TV marathons paired with fried chicken, chocolate cake and a hundred other things that probably did me more harm than good. But those were also days when I’d eventually push aside the takeout boxes, close the TV tab on my laptop, sit up straighter against the pillows and get back to work on my freelance assignments.

I’m not married to my work by any means. I take my days off, plenty of them, and I've always asked for extra time on my projects if I’m sick or have a personal commitment. But on those four days, somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to ask for time off. It felt wrong, in some deep way, to say: “It’s my time of the month.” Part of that coyness comes from the fact that I’m from India, where menstruation taboo is keeping girls out of school and many women are still made to sleep alone outside the house during that time of the month. People — especially men — just don’t fathom that periods can enter and exit a normal conversation. I was raised by a highly progressive mom, so I don’t think periods are ‘dirty’. But I cannot forget that a vast majority of the people around me do. And that makes me feel obligated to push through and work like nothing’s wrong, or — if the pain is too much — fib and say that I have a headache or a fever.

And there’s a second, more insidious part to this.

I never thought that there was anything inherently wrong with menstruating. I was taught, though, to not make a fuss about it. “Every woman has to deal with this,” was hammered into my head early on, which is true. It doesn’t help that I see a post on LinkedIn nearly every day about women losing opportunities at work because of pregnancy and motherhood — in other words, for being women. This is paired with posts about successful women who proudly declare that they “didn’t let their pregnancy/motherhood hold them back” as they overachieved as a sort of compensation for having a uterus. What seemed called for, silently, was a sort of gender erasure — where women were achievers first, women second. I don’t have bosses to report to or corporate targets to achieve, but I was scared. I’m a career girl, a proud feminist.“It’s a man’s world anyway, you can’t let a little blood stop you!” said that feminist reprovingly.

And so I didn’t stop. And I still don’t.

As I grow older and get better acquainted with my health needs, I’m asking myself — hesitantly, but sincerely — whether I need to be quite so ‘strong’ about my period. Whether it is such a sin to just lie down and take a day or two off when my stomach is seizing up with cramps. The people I work with currently are good people, who’ve given me time off whenever I asked for it, and an extra day or so each month won’t be a problem at all. Plus, when one makes a habit out of pushing through discomfort, it’s all too easy to let that slip into other ‘gender-neutral’ types of illness. A stomachache — my own fault for eating beans when I know they don’t suit me, just take a digestive pill and get on with it. A fever — my own fault for not wearing socks at night, just make some tea and get on with it. A headache — my own fault for scrolling too much, just take an Ibuprofen and get on with it. I’ve caught myself thinking such things, and while I was able to self-correct, their happening at all disturbs me.

I’m still, admittedly, not at a point where I can fully change. And the “be strong” mantra isn’t always negative for me. I’ve used it to cheer myself on through arduous hikes while PMSing or bleeding. Some call it foolhardiness; I call it badass-ery. I believe in the power of healthy habits and exercise as a remedy for daily ailments, and the truth is, no matter how bad my period symptoms are, I have never not felt better after a workout.

But period pain is real. Period pain is severe. No one can tell anyone how to cope with it, just like no one can tell anyone not to cope with it. There is no shame, and plenty of compassion, in acknowledging that no one should have to work when there are invisible corkscrews being pushed into one’s abdomen; that pressing a pillow to the tummy and eating large bowls of pasta is as valid an act of self-care as resting a sprained muscle. To merely ‘erase’ gender is in its own way reductive and unhelpful for women — what we really need is a world where contributions are valued regardless of gender, while accommodations like menstrual leave are made for something one cannot help, the same way accessible seating and pathways are needed for those with mobility limitations.

Even in that world, there will be menstruating people who choose not to take menstrual leave. There will always be those of us who pop painkillers and surge through the day; those who show up for board meetings in elastic-waist pants and longer blazers than usual. And that’s okay. But the option should exist for all of us to “take the easy way out” — or, in other words, to take the rest we richly deserve.