Cramps, Clamps & Chaos

If a woman’s life were a video game, it wouldn’t be a cozy puzzler or some chill farming sim. It’d be a relentless, permadeath-enabled survival horror RPG with crafting mechanics, NPCs who gaslight you, and boss fights where the arena is your uterus. And the tutorial? That’s forty years long. On the other hand, you need those years, because you have GOT to toughen up.

🩸 Tutorial Level: Menstrual Madness (Beginner Difficulty, My Ass)

MINI BOSS: The Gym Teacher Who Made You Swim Anyway
Armed with a whistle, zero empathy, and a deep distrust of “excuses,” she insists tampons solve everything—including your soul-crushing embarrassment and fear of springboard dives.

MINI BOSS: Health Class Chad
Knows absolutely nothing about periods but won’t shut up about them. Thinks you can “hold it in” like pee. Bonus points if he fake-gags when someone mentions a pad.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 🎶 "This Blood is Your Blood. This Blood is My Blood...”

This is your intro to blood, hormones, and psychological warfare. Between ages 10 and 50, you’re saddled with the monthly mystery box of cramps, primal inexplicable rage, cravings, surprise leaks, and enough blood loss to alarm a vampire.

One month, it's gentle spotting, and you think, "Oh, this isn't so bad. I can still wear my white jeans." The next month, there's a crime scene in your pants, and you don't know who died.

And just to keep things spicy, society tosses in a boss-level side quest: look hot while you bleed. We’re handed Barbie as a role model — tiny waist, perfect skin, no visible nipples or internal organs — and told this is what we should be striving toward. Never mind that you’re hunched over a heating pad 5-7 days a month snarfing chocolate like it’s your only hope for tomorrow. Be sexy, dammit!

Bonus myth: women are naturally graceful. Lies. I’ve personally walked face-first into a glass door, spilled soup on my own foot, and once fell off a shoe. Not a pair. One shoe.

And speaking of mixed messages: welcome to the Insert Tab A into Slot V part of the tutorial. You’re told your vagina is sacred, private, and should only be approached with reverence... while simultaneously being expected to shove cotton wads, plastic applicators, and half the feminine hygiene aisle up there without flinching. You’re not supposed to let anyone else near it, but sure — you go ahead and wrangle a poorly designed tampon in a public restroom stall during a school field trip. That’s character building.

This is Plug and Pray™ mode. Good luck.

🍼 Level 1: Pregnancy & Parenting (Normal Difficulty)

MINI BOSS: The Birth Plan Doula
Tells you pain is beautiful and you don’t need an epidural. Vanishes the moment you start screaming that you want drugs and a priest.

MINI BOSS: Facebook SanctiMommy
Posts daily about her essential oil birth, her toddler reading Tolstoy, and how screen time is a crime against nature. You're just trying to microwave a burrito and survive.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 🐛 "That's not an easter egg. That's parasitic cohabitation!”

And just when you master the logistics of adult diaper-level menstruation? Congratulations! You’re promoted to host. You now carry a tiny parasite that consumes your nutrients, rearranges your organs, occasionally kicks you in the bladder, and then insists on being forcibly ejected through a very narrow opening after it's grown a head that's ENORMOUS.

Bonus round: You’ll probably have to do this while naked, screaming, and being told to “relax.”

And just to keep things spicy, there's every chance you might tear from stem to stern and get stitched up like a broken puppet. Don’t worry. They’ll probably tell you "it's normal."

Let’s not forget the postpartum depression, hemorrhoids, the spontaneous lactation, the chapped raw nipples, and the joy of leaking breastmilk during meetings. Because nothing says “professional” like leaking a bodily fluid you didn’t know you could produce while presenting quarterly KPIs.

And you’re probably doing all this while holding down a full-time job, raising other small humans, feeding a husband who thinks emptying the dishwasher is foreplay, and letting the dog out at 2am.

And then — just when your body should be getting hazard pay — you get to raise the parasite until it demands car keys and freedom. Just in time for their second parasitic form.

Now take that foundation of pain and instability. And then we start the real game.

🥵 Level 2: Perimenopause (Veteran Difficulty)

MINI BOSS: The Frigid Speculum
Emerges from shadowy drawers with a metallic clink and a soul-chilling glare. Known for icy invasions and surprise scheduling, this foe specializes in discomfort, vulnerability, and cheerful reassurances that “you might feel a little pressure.”

MINI BOSS: The Doctor Who Says It’s All In Your Head
Dismisses everything from night sweats to emotional nuclear meltdowns with, “Well, you are getting older...” Is also usually an older male who clearly knows far more about your body than you ever will.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 🍳 “Eggs Over Hard. Or maybe just over.”

Objective: Survive your day without:

Yelling at a paper towel commercial
Crying because your hoodie feels emotionally manipulative
Googling whether a heating pad can be used as a murder weapon

Hormones? Ha! You have those in theory, but in practice they’ve unionized, gone on strike, and left you locked in a biochemical escape room.

Your body’s internal thermostat is now controlled by a sadistic gremlin. One minute you’re freezing, the next you’re a human furnace who would gladly commit homicide for a ceiling fan.

Also? The monthly rhythm you finally got used to? It’s drunk now. What used to be fairly regular starts showing up whenever it damn well feels like it, with timing and flow so unpredictable you’re afraid to leave the house without two pairs of Depends, three jumbo tampons, and a rabbit’s foot.

Now's when you might be lucky enough that someone will be willing to remove your uterus (even though if you're me you started asking at age 24). "No more periods!" you think joyfully. What they don't tell you could fill one of those jumbo tampon boxes.

If they took your ovaries, your hormones are about to go insane.
If they didn't take your ovaries, your hormones are about to go insane.
Either way, you're about to enter full menopause... Be afraid. Be very afraid.
How you've always peed? You don't pee like that anymore. I mean, presumably you're still sitting down, but otherwise it's anybody's guess how that will play out.
Your emotions are now WMDs you do not control.

And just to spice things up? You’re still expected to lie back, feet in stirrups, and make polite small talk while a stranger named Debbie inserts a speculum forged in the icy mines of Mt. Misogyny. Annual pelvic exams: because nothing says “preventive care” like surrendering your dignity on a paper sheet

🔥🧊 Level 3: Menopause (Hardcore Difficulty)

MINI BOSS: Karen from Accounting
“I never had any menopause symptoms. Maybe you’re just stressed.” Casts passive-aggressive pity spells and judgment shields. Must be defeated with sarcasm and an air horn.

MINI BOSS: Mammogram Machine from Hell
Ambushes unsuspecting players with cold plates, crushing pressure, and zero sense of personal space. This beast delights in awkward silences and forced small talk while your dignity seeps out one compressed inch at a time.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 💤 “Who needs sleep? Or comfort? Or sanity?”

Your skin’s flaking or more oily than it's been since the teen years (or both!), your hair's dry, and your libido ghosted you harder than your college ex. Sleep is a unicorn; you’ve heard of it, maybe even thought you glimpsed it once, but you’re starting to believe it’s a myth. You are a hormonal cocktail of murder and despair with no end in sight, but your doctor says it’s “normal for your age” and some rando at the grocery store tells you to smile. You fight the urge to tell them to die in a fire. Twice.

Here's the irony... tampons are still your only fallback, wads of chemically treated cotton invented by a man with all the foresight of a drunk raccoon, because clearly nothing says 'feminine care' like stuffing bleach into one of your most absorbent organs.

Let’s be real: if men bled out their dicks every month, they’d have government-funded IV hormone therapy and a week off for “Testicular Wellness.” Or someone would've invented a cure.

You? You’re holding the line with nothing but herbal tea, an ice pack, a heating pad and unrelenting spite.

🤖 Level 4: Endgame (Insanity Difficulty)

MINI BOSS: The Bra That Fit Yesterday
Mysteriously shrinks, shifts, or stabs you in the ribs. Immune to logic and physics. Will betray you at work, in public, while doing yoga, or for no reason at all.

MINI BOSS: The Hot Flash That Hits Mid-Zoom Call
Strikes without warning at the worst possible time, leaving you flushed, flustered, and fighting the urge to Hulk out of your blouse on camera. Your slides may be coherent, but you are not.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: 🛑 “The end is nigh. But not nigh enough...”

You’ve beaten the main campaign, but now you’re stuck in the DLC nobody asked for. Your bones are playing Jenga, your hairline’s retreating like Napoleon in winter, and your body’s distribution of fat is just doing its own thing. You were replaced in the last society patch, because unless you’re Helen Mirren or Meryl Streep, you’re basically expired yogurt in a cardigan.

Your body has decided it's not yours anymore. Clothes that used to fit suddenly don't, even though you haven't gained or lost weight. It's even possible your nipples touched your belly button when you weren't looking, and now your greatest joy is getting to babysit the grandkids!

There’s no final cutscene, no fanfare — just quiet rage, a heating pad, and the ongoing battle with your thermostat.

Welcome to womanhood. You won!

And what do you win for surviving all this? A subscription to chocolate lovers' monthly, a handful of vitamins, and the right to be ignored by your doctor.

Game over, man. Game over. Or is it? Maybe you're the final boss now. And your enemies better bring snacks. 🍟🍟🍟

⚠️ Disclaimer:

Take only as directed—meaning with a grain of salt, a dash of sarcasm, and ideally a glass of wine. Results may vary. If laughter lasts more than 3 hours, consult current news headlines. It’ll stop. If symptoms of outrage persist beyond 30 seconds, please step away from your soapbox, take a deep breath, and pet a puppy. Side effects may include snorting, aggressively nodding in public, and reevaluating the tampon aisle. Not responsible for spontaneous truth recognition or inconvenient epiphanies.