Words by Sadeen Jalal // photo by Karolina Grabowska
I remember sitting in a lecture hall during my second year of university, pretending to take notes while my body was screaming. The cramps hit like waves, sharp, then dull, then sharp again, making it impossible to focus on the professor’s voice. Around me, everyone seemed fine, so I sat up straighter, gripped my pen tighter, and smiled through it. That’s the silent work so many of us do: showing up for life while our bodies remind us we’re so much more than what’s visible.
For me, periods have always been both magical and messy. There’s something powerful about them, the way my intuition sharpens before they start, how ideas flow when I’m nesting in my dorm room, the quiet awe of my body’s ability to create and release. But some months, that magic comes wrapped in real pain, and university doesn’t pause for it.
My Body, My Lecture Halls, My Reality
I’ve learned to navigate my cycles around my uni schedule. During my luteal phase, I’m a creativity machine, perfect for late-night essay brainstorming or group project planning. But when the bleeding starts, it’s different. Some months, I feel alive, powerful, ready to take on tutorials. Others, I’m fighting nausea, back pain that radiates down my legs, and exhaustion that makes 9 AM lectures feel impossible.
I’d sit through three-hour seminars, shifting in my seat, counting the minutes until I could escape to the bathroom. Once, during a group presentation, I felt a cramp so intense I had to pause mid-sentence, smile, and say, “Just gathering my thoughts.” No one knew I was fighting not to double over. We’re taught periods are private, something to hide, so we don’t make others uncomfortable. But that silence comes at a cost.
When Even Women Don’t See Each Other
The hardest moments were with other women who should’ve understood. I’ve had friends roll their eyes when I’d cancel coffee plans, saying, “It’s just cramps, you’ll be fine.” I’ve had female group mates sigh when I asked to take breaks during study marathons, muttering, “We all deal with it.” It hurt because I knew they’d felt this too. But somewhere along the way, many of us learn to minimise our pain to fit in, to prove we can “handle” university just like everyone else.
I’ve done it myself, powered through painful mornings to make it to my 8 AM classes, then expected others to do the same. It’s like we’ve swallowed the message that struggling makes us weak. But what if we remembered our own hardest days? What if we offered each other gentleness instead?
The University Rhythm That Ignores Our Rhythms
University life moves at one speed: fast. Deadlines don’t care if you’re bleeding. Group projects don’t pause for fatigue. Professors expect full participation even when you can barely sit still. We celebrate “hustle culture” but rarely the women hustling through invisible pain, showing up to seminars while managing bloating, headaches, the constant bathroom dance.
Society has whispered for generations that periods are shameful, something to medicate away silently. Universities amplify this: wellness emails that never mention menstrual reality, study spaces with no comfortable corners for when you need to curl up. But periods aren’t the enemy. They’re magic, life-giving, transformative, powerful. And the pain that sometimes comes with them? It deserves space, not erasure.
Grace for the Magic and the Mess
Here’s what I wish I’d known as a 3rd year student: my period isn’t something to apologise for. The creativity, the intuition, the renewal, that’s magic worth celebrating. The cramps, the fatigue, the days I can barely move, those are real too, and they don’t make me less capable. They make me human.
Imagine lecture halls where someone notices you wincing and whispers, “You okay?” Imagine group chats where we say, “I’m hurting today, can we reschedule?” without shame. Imagine choosing each other, messy, cycling, beautiful bodies and all.
To every woman reading who’s smiled through cramps in a lecture hall: your pain matters. Your magic matters. Your humanity matters. Let’s stop hiding from each other. Let’s start seeing the full truth of who we are and making space for it.
