Cup & I.
Ch. 2 Running Out Of Excuses
Picking up right from where I left in Chapter 1 — around the beginning of 2016 when I started understanding that the silence around menstruation was not only a social problem but fundamentally environmental. I had already read up on environment friendly menstrual hygiene products. The internet that I was connected to every second of the day was populated with these products, positive reviews and step-by-step guidelines. I could afford these products. Then what kept me from making the switch?
I’ll say it again, the lives we lead demand convenience. There’s little room to experiment. Lifestyles that keep the environment in focus are called alternative. That in itself sounds romanticized, daunting and hard to adopt. On the other hand the mainstream has mastered the art of subliminal messaging. Sanitary pad ads seducing us with their white pants, blue jelly wielding, happy, cramp-free, secretive and giggly troops. What is the subtext here? Skin care products, hair products, weight loss products, our fashion icons. The image of what is female. The unrealistic standards we are constantly holding our bodies up to. Alternative lifestyles promise us none of this. In fact a slight misalignment of a menstrual cup or cloth pad is the stuff of our worst nightmares. Also because we are told that an overflow or stain IS our worst, unforgivable nightmare.
Still, I started weighing the menstrual cup / cloth pads against my convenience. What would be the smoothest transition because periods are painful enough without added pressure?
Cloth Pads: need a lot of washing. Once I change out of one at work, I can’t image carrying it till the end of the day till I find time to wash it. They need to dry in direct sunlight and my apartment is a vampire’s lair with rare UV exposure. I’m afraid any residual blood somewhere in the folds of it can become breeding ground for bacteria.
Menstrual Cups: uh… Need to be inserted.
Let’s admit it, that’s a major one. It looks like a largish object that needs to be folded skillfully and pushed into the vagina. It might go too far in or not far enough. It could just tip over and leak. It says that the thing creates a suction and that sounds PAINFUL. What if it gets stuck? O_O
I kind of broke into a sweat around here but there was more. It takes some resources to use the cup— access to water to flush and rinse and very importantly privacy when doing so. I spend a considerable amount of my day sharing a unisex washroom at work with my colleagues. What if the flush didn’t work that day? What if someone saw a trace of blood? What if I was careless? I couldn’t believe that after all that life was throwing at me, I would put myself through another panic-driven situation.
I’ll tell you another thing. Self-pity is more addictive than any drug. Some theories we repeat to ourselves become facts only because we’re at the center of it. But outside this self-important brain of mine, were minds opening to these innovations by the day. You don’t hear of behaviour change all at once, it kind of seeps into communication and in the habits of people around you. You read about it on someone’s social media page, you hear about someone doing it and how it changed their life. It builds like a cloud right next to you and then one day, Boom. It gets you. You’re the only one not doing it and you can’t wait to start.
That’s exactly what happened. I heard about someone at my workplace who switched to cloth pads. It felt good to hear that. All the RSS feeds at the bottom of news websites led me to menstrual cup and cloth pad reviews. I knew the names of 3–4 different cup brands. A few months later, I found that Tanvee, a very special senior and friend from college had posted her review about the Boondh cup. That really nudged me forward. I felt a little more convinced about using the menstrual cup and I made a choice, I preferred it over the cloth pads. I looked up their website and picked a colour I might want someday. Yet it just sat there in the cart. For a long, long time.
Life goes on. Month after month, pad after pad. I knew I was going to buy the menstrual cup eventually. It never happened. There were other mounting priorities. It was the onset of the summer of 2017, I was chatting with Manju, a female work friend about swimming and that’s when she told me how convenient it was for her to swim even on her period thanks to the menstrual cup. I stopped short. WHAT?!
Here was a girl, in the same workplace as me, the same floor, sharing the same work timings and the aforementioned washroom. And she had been comfortably using the cup all these days! More importantly, here was a cup user in the flesh! I almost cried. I had SO many questions, which she answered with enthusiasm and reassurance. Here was a girl just like me. So there. I had run out of excuses.
Manju, someone I knew personally and could always go to, who didn’t judge or preach and someone who looked so at ease while wearing the cup, was the force that finally led me to go home, do my final bit of research and in a matter of days place the order for my menstrual cup.
What’s keeping you from making the switch — is it the fear that it might get stuck or leak? Are you afraid of contracting TSS? Are you short of time to wash, rinse and sterlise? Is it your hymen? Because all these reasons are legit.
If you still want to make the switch, don’t make a sudden transition. You can start with cotton pads for the spotting days. Gauge your comfort with those. Wear your cup during the time you’re home or in a comfortable space where you have a bathroom and pads to your rescue. Try the cup on a day you feel brave, not through the rush and dizziness of Day 1 of period. Try reducing your dependence on sanitary pads and tampons by a small percentage first. It still counts. And it might just work for you!
I can tell you more about how I got around to using the cup, but that’s for the next post. This one is to thank the women who brought me closer to making this shift in lifestyle. Who make you realise that you don’t have to go very far to look for a role model. For this reason and many others the mid 20’s has made my faith in women’s networks stronger than ever. We all have seen the power of what happens when women break the silence and share their lived truths, when they turn to another and say “Me Too”. I’m grateful and amazed by the women, young & old that surround me and how they deal with their own pushes and pulls. It has taught me to appreciate this and that the image of what is female changes constantly with what I see right before me, in the women I know.
What was the last step to acquiring this cup? Owning it. So when my friend who is a content manager, Nikhita, texted me one day, asking if I know anyone who uses a menstrual cup, I told her I did. Only when she asked me to talk about it in a 100 words for this article, did I realize how much I had to process and write for myself. And when she asked me if I knew of anyone else, you can imagine my pride as I walked over to Manju’s desk among the other iOS developers and told her that someone wanted to hear from her.
