Stressed Over First Period, Teen Dies By Suicide: When Will Menstrual Stigma End?

In a tragic incident, a 14-year-old girl died by suicide as she was stressed over her pain due to her first period. The incident happened on March 26 in Lakshmi Chawls, Malwani. She hung herself in her room in the evening when there was no one in the house. The police said that the girl was experiencing tremendous pain due to her periods and her unawareness about the menstrual cycle took her life. 

As per the reports, the girl's parents rushed her to the hospital in Kandivali where the doctors declared that she was dead. “During the preliminary inquiry, her relatives said the girl had a painful experience recently after having her first menstrual period. She was disturbed and was under mental stress over it. Hence, she may have ended her life over it,” a police official told the media handle. 

Police have registered a case of accidental death

A case of accidental death has been registered. The police are investigating the incident from all angles. They will speak to the girl's friends too to know about her depression. Police officers are going to scan her online activities to know what she was going through. 

Why the incident is tragic

The incident is tragic not only because it added to the increasing cases of teenage suicides but also because it revealed the stigma around periods existing even today. Periods are still not talked about openly and are hushed as something scandalous. Getting the first period is a turning point in a woman's life. Moreover, the throbbing pain in the body and the mental stress caused by hormonal disbalance disorients women. They haven't faced anything like that before in life. It is natural for any woman to freak out. 

The intensity of the stress over the first period can be reduced if women are educated about their menstrual cycle. Parents play a vital role in teaching their daughters about periods, preferably before they get their first period. Some reports claim that the deceased girl had told her parents about the pain she was suffering from. But why didn't that help her deal with the suffering? Did parents refuse to talk about periods? Did they undermine the pain that she was facing? 

How period stigma still prevails and kills women

Although we cannot be sure of the answers to these questions as far as this case is concerned. However, we can definitely say that many parents still stay away from talking about periods. They don't educate their daughters about the menstrual cycle and just hand over a  pad when they start bleeding. Moreover, the stigma sometimes is so deep-rooted that parents start alienating their daughters by banning them from entering kitchens and sacred places and asking them to stay quiet about the blood. Do you even know how this sudden change in parents' behaviour affects women? They start feeling abandoned. They ingrain the idea that because of bleeding they are impure. 

In fact, a case made headlines in which a brother killed his sister when she got her first period because he thought that she lost her virginity. The silence around periods is considered to be the norm. But little do families and society know that it is killing women, metaphorically and literally. 

So rather than losing women to period stigmas, normalise period talks. Parents need to educate not only their daughters but sons too about women's menstrual and reproductive cycles. They must also talk about the pain that women suffer from before and during periods. Moreover, menstrual health should also be talked about so that women don't pick up unhealthy menstrual habits. Parents are the source of knowledge for kids. They are responsible to teach them how to walk, eat and survive. Then why can't they teach about periods too? Is it not a part of survival?   

Break the silence around periods before women break down due to unresolved stress and unbearable pain. 

Views expressed are the author's own.