Periods suck. No one likes waking up with bleeding, cramping and feeling nauseous, which is exactly what I do the majority of days I’m on my period.

However even through the pain I find myself in every month, the worst part is the people who want to comment on how periods work or want to tell me how I should feel.

Every period is different, so unless you’re offering up useful advice, no I do not want to hear any comments from you.

This includes but is not limited to PMS jokes, minimizing the pain I’m in, shark week jokes and your weird period horror story from middle school.

Something I found helpful when I was younger and just starting to get my period was the Vaginazilla poem by Sierra Demulder.

If I do anything well, it’s deal with things with humor, and that’s exactly what this poem did for me. It’s full of jokes and some surprisingly interesting fun facts.

Although it is full of great quotes, one of my favorites is, “I understand you might already know the vagina’s basic evolutionary functions, i.e. peeing, bleeding and Woody Allen impressions, but there is so much more danger, amigo! Cramps are actually caused by tiny, ovary gnomes strangling the balls off your fallopian tubes. Bears aren’t attracted to menstrual blood, menstrual blood is attracted to bears. The only way to protect your daughter is to lock her in the closet for five days like a bleeding Harry Potter. Lord knows there is nothing more terrifying than periods. There is nothing more terrifying than the natural, bodily function of a woman.”

A.) That’s never fails to make me laugh and B.) It shows how absolutely ridiculous people are about period.

For some reason we have this stigma against periods. That they’re taboo or something, but I’m here to tell you as a member of the monthly bleeders club, it’s time we stop making periods out to be this mysterious and scary thing and start treating them as what they are: natural bodily functions.

Whether you’re a girl, guy, or a nonbinary person going through this monthly pain-in-the-you-know-where, just know it’s normal and nothing to be ashamed of. Also, dark chocolate helps with cramps.

Corryn Brock is a freshman journalism major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or cebrock@eiu.edu.