Joyce’s Story

It was in a motel with my mother and father. I can't remember why we were visiting and I went to the bathroom to pee and there was blood. I have to preface this by saying that in my family nothing was ever talked about. It was just nothing talked about.

I came out of the bathroom and I said to my mother, “I'm bleeding.” 

And she looks at me and then she looks at my father and says, “Joyce just got her period.” And then she looks at me and says, “Well, I suppose you know all about it.” 

And I said, “Sure. I do.” And she told my father to go to the drugstore to get, in those days, Kotex sanitary napkins. I was born in 1940, so that was 1951. And that was that. I mean, that was my instruction. I haven't thought about it in 80 years probably, but there was a pamphlet that was put out by Kotex. You could write to the company and they would send you the pamphlet in a brown paper bag all about your period. I remember that there were diagrams in it and it explained about menstruation. And I remember getting that in the mail. 

I don't remember particular trauma at all around getting my period or having my period. I would get some cramps, but nothing that was dramatic. I remember that several days before I got my period, I would have very vivid dreams and I had trouble sleeping. Then when I was ovulating, which I always knew because I was crazy horny when I was ovulating. I could feel it, I felt my ovaries full. I mean, I felt it. And if I had sex when I was ovulating, it would hurt. It was sore. Then the cycle would continue and I had my period. 

I was in my early forties when I had menopause, and it was about three years or more of absolute sleep deprivation. It was really awful. I was sweating, I was cold, I was hot. I couldn't sleep. I was a crazy person. And then when I completed menopause, I became a different kind of crazy person. But that was very difficult. Then over the years, I found that the most liberating thing in my entire life was to stop wanting to have sex.

I was very sexually active when I was very young. Extremely promiscuous my entire life. I loved sex. I just loved it. But it was very problematic to be promiscuous, especially when I was younger. It caused me many, many problems in my life, but many great things in my life too. But one of the things that I found to be, of all of the things, liberating in my life was when I consciously decided that I was going to be celibate. And it took several years for my libido to cool down and when it did I was hardly interested in sex. It was so great. I just did what I wanted. I worked, I painted like 40 hours a day. My relationships with people were better. I recommended it, but you're all too young. But it's something to aspire to in old age.

It's very interesting to be with this group and I'm very honored to be included because there is so much separation of ages and generations in our society. Everybody lives a totally separate life, which I think is such an unhealthy thing and we all need to learn from each other. I've learned so much from listening to your stories. It's an eye-opener to me to hear what you're talking about because what I am thinking and feeling are two totally opposite things. The one is, wow, nothing changed. Women are abused and have terrible body issues, the medical system is disgusting. I mean, all of these things, nothing has changed. But the other thing that has changed is the fact that we are here talking about it openly, even though it's difficult to express it. But the fact that we are doing this now as this group where some of us really hardly know each other at all and are doing it, is a really great thing to do. But as I'm getting more involved with understanding what it's about, it's become a very meaningful experience. Extremely meaningful experience. I'm happy to be here.

-Joyce, she/her, 83