"My period horror story involves me, a toilet bowl... and my sister's boyfriend."

“I have the WORST period pain. Pretty sure my uterus is about to fall out,” I text messaged my sister Katie, hunched over my knees, sitting on my decades-old couch, preparing for imminent death/uterus shedding.

“I know. Simon told me,” she replied.

A second later another text beeped through: “You left him a little present.”

I paused. Then I felt all the blood drain from my face. I read the message again. Then again. My mind whizzed through a very silent, rapid panic attack. Then I realised I hadn’t inhaled oxygen for about a minute.

“… what?”

“Lol he’s traumatised.”

I had spent the previous evening sleeping in their spare bed – they have a swanky two-bedroom townhouse on the outskirts of the city – but I was certain I didn’t leak. I checked the sheets that morning and was delighted to see I hadn’t created my own interpretation of the Japanese flag. Thank god for the ‘tampon, then pad at the back’ method. My old trusty faithful.

By ‘present’ did my sister mean Simon found a… cylindrical parcel? A soggy one wrapped in… toilet paper?

Listen: Dr Ginni shares the biggest misconceptions women have about their bodies. (Post continues…)

I mentally took myself through all my ‘waste disposal’ trips while I was staying over. I could have sworn I put all my used sanitary items in the bin. I wouldn’t just forget a used tampon while being the guest in another person’s home, would I? WOULD I?

Oh god, that must be it. I must’ve left one next to the toilet bowl. He’s picked up my used tampon. F*ck f*ck f*ck f*ck F*CK.

I dialled my sister’s number. Her boyfriend had become acquainted with the delightful gift of my menstrual blood and will probably never make eye contact with me ever again, this was too serious to discuss via text.

“What the f*ck are you talking about? I swear I didn’t leak…”

“Mon,” she stopped me. “Think about how guys use the toilet.”

“… yeah?”

“Right so they lift the lid up to pee, and your… lady stuff… was under the lid.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

And that was the moment I realised period blood doesn’t just go down the bowl and into an abyss of bodily gunk. Sometimes, somehow, it flings up and underneath the lid, for all the men in our lives to stare at while they take a whizz.

It defies physics, yet it happens.

Apparently, lots of men just wipe it away and never say a word… meaning the man you love might be confronted with your period blood on a semi-regular basis, and you had no idea.

“Simon just wipes it off,” my sister explained. “He still gets majorly grossed out by it, though.”

WELL OF COURSE HE BLOODY DOES.

The world feels very different now, right?

What’s your period horror story? Tell us in the comments below?