Cramps! The Belief.
Waking up in the middle of the night, feeling like your stomach is wrenching in pain as you wrap your hands around your belly and look up to the ceiling praying that today is not the day of your Period. The feeling crushing down around your pelvis and the feeling of bloating and Cramps consume your every thought and it's only 3:23 am in the morning.
You realize that you think you're hungry, you think it might be something else like gas or something traditional like the evil little thing called Constipation. Ewww, I know but you know in your heart that it is none of these. You get up anyways and start trying to figure out how to relieve the pain in your belly.
You grab the Advil… Pop four 200 mg tablets into your mouth and say things will be fine, I will be okay and this is just something else, it's not a period, it couldn’t be a period, why because the doctors say that it isn’t physically possible.
Holding my belly, still in pain, hoping that the pain would go away I lay in bed starring the clock down, hoping that the Advil I took will take the pain away. Nothing seems to be working as the minutes pass by until it is nearly an hour an half later at 4:49 am and I am still hurting.
“NOTHING IS WORKING”
Complaining out loud to my wife, who is now getting used to me doing this every month practically on time, and almost never missing a day.
“Your Period started and you need to take some Midol”.
My wife replies back to me with a smirk on her face as she sees me dealing with the stomach pains.
I look back at her and smile and say “oh thanks”, but I think I am hungry and I will fix some food to settle my belly down from cramping.
I ended up getting out of bed now almost 5 am, and went to the kitchen craving some food, thinking that I am hungry and it will solve the stomach issue. I end up spending this time to fix a solid meal of Mac & Cheese as a morning breakfast to fill my belly to the rim.
I turned around and ate the entire cheesy, yummy, tasteful Kraft Mac & Cheese box after cooking it. Mmkay, this will solve it I thought, clearly underestimating the power of the Female Period.
It took a little while to fix all of this and in the meantime, I was still clenching my belly as though it was buckling in on itself. Really, I thought yet again. I filled you up, I gave you Advil, and yet you are still causing me pain. At about this time it was clearly 6:35 am and nothing has worked.
Again stuck in a situation where it should have cleared up but it didn’t, all because I believed it to be something else. Finally settling into the realization that it was a Period, I a Trans Woman was having a Period that is supposed to be physically impossible.
Giving in to the need to relieve the pain, I took some Midol, Two tablets at the suggestion of my Wifie. Within only 30 mins, I swear almost all the pain had reduced to a small tiny knot in the belly that I could manage.
I turned to my Wifie and smiled at her as she smiled back and I said:
“You were right, it's my Period”
Period Explanation
Why do I believe it’s a Period, that is because of several factors and several things that make it so. I have been told by others in a Trans Folk Discord channel that it is likely my imagination, or physiological symptoms and not a physical one. I would love to honestly believe that, to wish that it was only Physiological because at this point I would be able to overcome it, also — “I wouldn’t magically get the symptoms of cramps in the middle of the night while I was sleeping.” — So painful that it would wake me up.
I never had these before and have read that many Trans Woman doesn’t experience periods and some that do find it to goes away after a while. Not everyone is identical, and I’m not even certain that it would apply to all of us in the community. However, to those that it does, I understand where you are and feel the pain.
So like what are some of the symptoms of my particular period, well first I don’t bleed, and I don’t have the internal organs of a female, nor have I had the surgery for GCS.
- I have “Abdominal cramps” almost every period like clockwork every 23–32 days. Every once in a blue moon it changes on me but so far it has been constant.
- I believe this is followed by “Bloating” but I can’t be 100% certain on the difference, but I have trouble with controlling my belly size during my period, it looks bigger at least in my opinion.
- My “Breast becomes very tender” to the touch, especially around the nipple area, which can be painful for 3–5 days when wearing a bra and it rubs against them.
- Occasionally, but not all the time I will feel drained or tired like I am “fatigued” shortly before or during the Period. I also receive some issues with my Bowel during this time, but mostly the feeling of “Gassiness” in my belly area, and might discretely relieve it, so don’t tell anyone. :)
- I also tend to have a lot more “mood swings” during this time and can’t control my irritability, my wife likes to say that I have bit*h Mode activated during this time.
- The last thing I would have to state would be the “inability to sleep”, often dealing with finding the right position to make the stomach feel comfortable and doesn’t hurt.
So what other factors make this feel or simulate a Cis Female Woman Period?
Practically all the symptoms are the same as a woman, the only difference is I don’t have any bleeding, and I normally never have a “headache” which some woman experience. I also don’t experience any “lower back pain”, thankfully. There are often several other symptoms that women experience and I know these are by far a full list, but this is basically the things I end up experiencing.
Estrogen in the female body plays a large role in how you feel, what you feel, and can modify the way you think to some degree or another. Women are still women and do have periods that are different than a Trans Woman but it is not to say that we don’t experience them either.
I can’t experience what women go through on bleeding, but I know that I experience — “Real Periods” — because I don’t want them as much as I love being a woman. However, I am grateful to have them and acknowledge what women all over the world experience every month.
Final Words
My Period lasts for around 3–5 days every month like clockwork, well almost and goes away like it was never there in the first place. I also never experienced this until after several months on Hormones, which hit me by surprise because I didn’t believe that I could have one either.
I don’t agree that it could in any way be psychological or part of my imagination because I don’t track it, or I used to not track it and yet it still came without notice. It does what it wants when it arrives and some times it not that bad and other times it is so bad that I want to roll over and die or feel like it sometimes.
If I am psychologically affected by this and it isn’t real then it would blow my mind into the nether lands.
I know I have covered this once before, but I believe this explains it better than when I first starting writing. Also, this explains now vs when I first experienced a Period.
If you have any questions, or suggestions, or thoughts on this please let me know and I will do what I can to answer.
