As I reach another birthday each year, I always say a silent ‘thank you’. Not just for the blessing of getting older and my health, but because each year I age, my periods have become lighter.

In the past, they’ve stopped me from swimming, taking holidays, even going to events.

So, when I heard that heavy, prolonged periods and severe menstrual pain are linked with lower school attendance and poorer GCSE scores, I was hardly surprised.

The reason? Because for years in my youth I endured heavy periods that made my life hell.

I started my periods early – aged 11. I was the first girl in my class, and in my group of friends. While many of them were still playing with Barbies, I was carrying around a wodge of heavy duty sanitary towels in a bag, hoping I could get to a loo without being seen.

My periods were heavy almost immediately. There was no gentle youthful start for me, but full-on heavy flow.

For the first two days of my cycle, the pain would be so bad that I’d need a hot water bottle, and would bite my pillow in agony.

Sleep-deprived and exhausted, I usually couldn’t face school the next day and would get my mum to phone in sick for me. I’d then spend the day in bed, refilling those same hot water bottles, taking paracetamol and crying. 

I missed out on lessons and then spent the next week trying to catch up.

I think in total I missed up to 15 days of school each year because of my periods but, because I was embarrassed when other girls asked me why I’d been off, I would make up excuses, saying I’d had a cold or a dentist appointment. It seemed lame saying ‘it was my period’, as if I was attention seeking. 

What also didn’t help is that my periods would often start without warning, too.

Once as a teenager, I was outside a cinema (wearing a white skirt for good measure) when my period started randomly.

A girl in the queue discreetly told me and I sat during the rest of the film, jumper wedged under my bottom, dreading getting up again. My skirt was crimson. I was so ashamed, I went home in tears.

Sometimes it would happen after sitting on a bus, my jeans stained. Once it was at a friend’s on the sofa. But school was the worst.

As I got older and school lessons became more important, I’d have no choice but to go in – pain or no pain. 

I’d dose up on paracetamol and wear two maternity-style sanitary towels inside several pairs of pants under my skirt to ensure I didn’t bleed through and embarrass myself in class. And yet I still sometimes suffered embarrassing leaks. 

That constant fear made concentrating an effort: I was far more worried about whether I was leaking to care about fractions. And any time I had to get up in class I was filled with a sense of dread. Had I bled through my uniform? Was there blood on my leg? It was so stressful.  

I hoped it would get easier as I got older – but I was wrong.

After university and when I got my first job, I still had heavy periods. Working as a trainee journalist, my job was desk-bound and whenever I was on, I would dread getting up to the loo in case I had leaked.

I’d wear my two pairs of pants, two sanitary towels – bulky and uncomfortable – but still would leak into my trousers (always black – to hide any staining). It was awful.

I wished for so long that I could just take the first two days of my period off – to stay home where leaking and pain could be dealt with. But this was 1999 – we didn’t discuss periods in the same way we do now.

I carried on like this for years, decades, even – dreading leaks, jumpers tied around my waist, paracetamol at the ready.

I know there’ll be the naysayers who think we should just ‘get on with it’

This continued until I had my first baby, aged 31. Strangely, after my son’s birth, my periods became a lot lighter. Things got better. At last I could wear only one sanitary towel and ditch the second pair of emergency pants.

So, when I heard that 36% of girls who experienced heavy or prolonged menstrual bleeding missed an additional 1.7 days of school every year, my heart went out to them.

I thought back to the younger me, skipping school out of fear and embarrassment, writhing in pain at home when I should have been studying for GCSEs and thought: how much longer are we going to let this continue?

At least in Spain, people like me with heavy periods are being given the chance to not face work feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed, but we must do more in the UK to help support girls and women who face this reality every month.

Even having that first cycle day off would be helpful – you could deal with the heaviest flow day at home not worrying about embarrassing leaks. And post-pandemic we know there are effective ways for kids to continue their education without being physically pleasant in the classroom. It’s time we started implementing it.

I know there’ll be the naysayers who think we should just ‘get on with it’ – but they’ve obviously never suffered through the nightmare of heavy periods.

Get a teenage boy to bleed heavily once a month through his trousers at school or a man through his trousers on his way to work and see how quick a bill for menstrual leave would be passed here.

As Gemma Sharp, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Exeter, who supervised the research, says though, this is not about women and girls being less capable because of their periods – it’s because society is not set up to support people while they are menstruating.

It’s about time we gave women who experience heavy bleeding some slack both at school and in work.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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