My First Painful Period: Intrusive Thoughts, Diary Clues, and the Hidden Grief of Childhood

My diary doesn’t report when I started my first ever period, but it does report when I started my second. This is because the pain was horrendous and lasted for 6 days in a row. It started on 2 May 1977 and ended on 7 May. I was 11. I had yet to learn these pains were not normal and that something in my past was causing them.

My First Painful Period

From these dates, I could work out when I had started my first ever period - the menarche, which would have been around 2 April 1977. As I recall it was a week before Easter. I lost a little blood but don’t recall much pain. I told Mum about it, worried there was something wrong with me. Mum got cagey, unsure of how to explain about the 'birds and the bees'. I would later learn everything I needed from biology lessons and library books.

My second ever period was a rude awakening! What a whopper of a pain! I remember thinking, ‘Will I have to put up with this every month until I’m about 50?’ I thought it was ‘normal.’ I would suffer agonizing cramps for years to come. Little did I realize that an uncle who lived with us throughout 1968  took my virginity when I was three.

Diary Entries: 2–9 May 1977

My diary entries in 1977 were concise compared to how they would become. This is what I reported on my first ever painful period in my diary.

My Diary Entries 2 May – 9 May 1977

2 May: Horrid. Hated it as usual. Had a bad pain (period).
3 May: Horrid. Bad pain again.
4 May: Horrid. Mr. Ashby (my teacher) took me home because of bad pain.
5 May: Great. No school but pain. Horrid.
6 May: Rotten school. Pain. Started story called Mystery at Hornfield.
7 May: Had pain again. Wished it would stop. Hated it. Did story again.
8 May: Not much pain as I used to. But still rotten. Finished story.
9 May: Pain gone. Great but the rotten school. Night time had a wash. Read story to Eve (my twin).

2-9 May: a 6-day period pain and I'm writing Mystery at Hornfield. My early children's mysteries are analysed in my book, Tales from Daler Cottage

As can be seen from the images, I used the term ‘smelly’ or 'rotten' to describe something I didn’t like, most often, this would be school. I was bullied.

Intrusive Thoughts Before the Pain Began

The lead-up to this troublesome period is interesting. On 19 April 1977, Mum took me to the village doctor because of a bout of intrusive thoughts I'd been suffering. I refused to sleep in my bed and I kept getting Mum to strip the sheets to check for something horrible in there. Mum obviously had enough.

I spoke to the doctor as Mum sat in the corner hardly saying a word. This was unlike her, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I was unable to describe what was actually tormenting me but I was pleased at the doctor’s assurance that my overactive imagination was the cause and that I would grow out of it.

I didn’t.

I reasoned later that Mum’s silence came from her fear that I would mention Dad’s mental illness. His moods had been terrible lately and Mum thought we would be taken into care. Now, I am unsure of why she was silent. She has now passed away and I will never know.

19 April: I see the doctor for depression & have a few days off school

The image shows my diary entry of 19 April 1977. It reads: "Bored. The same. Went to doctor's. Had depression." I then have some days off with "swollen glands." This is disturbing as I know I had become ill after an incident in our family pool (explained in a separate article).

In the meantime, my diary reports of doing up our playhouse, drawing pictures, doing a nature project and going on a bike ride. Things seemed ‘normal.’ However, I was forever diverting myself in order to escape something without a name.

The Boy at the Window

On 29 April, a boy whose garden backs onto ours, flashed at us from his bedroom window. I had believed this had been my first ever sighting of a penis. Mum told us to stay indoors until he was done. I learned later that the boy’s dad had recently died. This might explain his behavior.

I believe the boy’s flashing triggered me into writing a children’s story entitled Mystery at Hornfield on 6 May. Similar triggering behavior is evident throughout my diaries. This worryingly-titled story is sadly missing. But I am horrified and confused after what I have uncovered about my toddlerhood. I had no idea that ‘horn’ was a term used in the 70s.

The Story: Mystery at Hornfield

Throughout my early teens, I wrote dozens of children's mysteries and read them to my twin Eve and my youngest sister Mazie. I have since discovered disturbing undercurrents to these 'innocent' children’s mysteries. The other titles too are troubling within the context of my discovery. My first diary-mention of a story had been called Solomy’s Treasure. Later ones bore the titles, Hollow Hill and Windswept High. All have shown to hold clues to my uncle and the horrors of my toddlerhood.

My children’s stories are analysed in my book, Tales from Daler Cottage.

Trying to Feel Normal

Troublingly, I am still writing Mystery at Hornfield whilst I was menstruating. I am suffering crippling period pains, writing a story bearing hidden themes on loss of innocence and a crushing grief leaves a big hole in my heart. These grief episodes, like the intrusive thoughts, have afflicted me since my deepest childhood and I didn’t understand where they came from.

On the third day of my period, my teacher had to drive me home because I had become so ill. I gazed at the fireplace in the living room and I could have cried a reservoir.

Crippling Grief Without a Cause

My mother has now passed, but the grief I felt for her does not match the intensity I had felt on that day. I now know it was due to my brutalized toddlerhood.

Sadly, I wouldn’t learn the truth about my 3-year old self until I had turned 51. How I learned the truth about my toddlerhood is explained in m book, Mirror Image Shattered.
 

Relevant Posts

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The secret message of the barn
Hidden message behind the railway tunnel