I started noticing within the last few months my menstrual cycle is become lighter and a few days shorter. I use to have longer and heavier cycles. Is it normal to have a gradual change in your menstrual cycle sometime in your life?

I'm pretty sure it's normal. Especially if you work around or are around other women a lot.

I work with all women...lucky me haha! Well a few guys here and there, but mostly women.

Yeah, thats why. I had asked my Doctor this just yesterday cos my period was whacked out these last couple months, and I'm on the pill too..... but it's cos I'm around my girlfriend 24/7 ...perfectly normal. It happens.

Im not sure but the same thing is happening to me.. My period use to be 7 days long[heavy at times] and now my period is like 5 days long & light.

@fearless♥love that is pretty much how mine is now too. Totally weird!

Thats soo weird!

I'm sorry, i'm trying so hard not to troll this topic, but i just.........i really just didn't expect to log onto bloop and see an entire forum topic dedicated to barking red hoohaw issues. I can't stop laughing. So, fifty shades, thank you for making my night. i'm not even being sarcastic, seriously, this made me laugh so hard.

Honestly, this isn't something I expected to see either. I think this is stuff one should post in a diary entry that isn't viewable by the entire Bloop population. Your crotch lava isn't something any of us need to know about.

then don't look at it? it's not like i put a misleading title to the forum. :)

have to agree with fifty shades - then don't read it. The first post in the thread made it clear what it was about. it's a part of life. It's a part of being a woman and at some point living with a woman

I agree with Meghan and fiftyshades.
It's nice to be able to talk about your period with other women, especially if you have concerns over whether what's happening is normal!

My period has gotten shorter in the past couple years as well, though I've also been gaining weight :-/ and I assumed that was the reason.

@Aubrey; i guess it's just not okay to want to talk to other women about women health ha. :) oh well.

But, like, some people are happy to have a female body, and to talk about all the bodily paraphanalia that goes with it. Not everyone's the same, but gosh, no need to knock those that are different from you! The idea that female bits and female bodily functions are terribly embarrassing, private things to be hidden away is a remnant of less enlightened times, like when gay people were shut into mental institutions. Crotch lava pride FTW!

also don't forget that as you get older your cycle will change. There are also many other factors that can affect it such as diet, starting or stopping a new medication, exercise, amount of sleep you get (or don't get) weight change, stress and So much more

I wonder - is Bloop in need of a new community diary for chronicling the visits of Auntie Flo?

Bloop is in need of people who can pick up on social cues. It's not about whether or not I'm happy or unhappy about being female-bodied, and I resent the implication that I'm not allowed to maybe point out that these sorts of things belong in YOUR OWN diary and not slathered all over Bloop. It's triggering for me as someone who is FtM, female-bodied and not at all pleased about that to see it on a Forum. Being insensitive isn't cool, it makes you look like a raging asshole. Just sayin'. You can have pride about crotch lava in your own diary where it isn't triggering for other diarists.

Wow, the insensitivity is mind-boggling. Grow up, all of you.

Bloop is in need of people who can pick up on social cues. It's not about whether or not I'm happy or unhappy about being female-bodied, and I resent the implication that I'm not allowed to maybe point out that these sorts of things belong in YOUR OWN diary and not slathered all over Bloop. It's triggering for me as someone who is FtM, female-bodied and not at all pleased about that to see it on a Forum. Being insensitive isn't cool, it makes you look like a raging asshole. Just sayin'. You can have pride about crotch lava in your own diary where it isn't triggering for other diarists.

Wow, the insensitivity is mind-boggling. Grow up, all of you.

Hmm... I thought maybe your post was a parody of people who complain about being offended by some of the stuff you and others post about - people who claim to be horribly offended by people who post about, say, queer issues. You know, how people claim it makes them feel sick and all that ridiculous stuff. I thought you were mocking them by turning it round and showing how it looks if you do it to females.

Several people had found your post incredibly insensitive to females, you see, and I actually thought they'd misjudged you and that you were just being ironic, and making a clever point. Apparently not. Yes, I misjudged whatever social cue you were giving - as you apparently also missed mine.

Sensitivity goes both ways. To act like you're the only one people need to be sensitive to, and that everything must revolve around your own personal triggers is reminiscent of the adolescent whingeing of Bloop back in the day. Interestingly, you're the only person who's actually talked about the actual bodily fluids - everyone else was simply discussing duration and timing. As period discussions go (and there have been plenty on Bloop) this is the mildest yet. Well, until you joined in with your crotch lava, that is.

I could see it being insensitive to females if I at one time hadn't dealt with the same things. It's a cumbersome issue regardless of someone's gender identity -- though, as you say, it's no one's job to be sensitive to one person. Since it's not my job to be sensitive either, then, perhaps I should start a new Forum topic about how gross people with mental illness and addiction are, since I don't have to be sensitive.

I'm horrible at detecting inflection over the Internet, and I apologize.

I think a lot of females dislike their periods and find them cumbersome. I personally detest mine. But to be prevented from talking about them, because such conversations are considered 'inappropriate', is offensive to many, because this attitude is a hangover from a male-dominated, sexist society, where female genitalia and bodily functions were automatically seen as far more inappropriate and embarrassing than male ones, because females were supposed to be sweet and pretty and pure, and no one wanted to know about any of the actual messy bits!

To me it's similar to people saying 'I don't mind if people are gay, but I don't see why they have to talk about it - they should keep it to themselves, because the rest of us don't want to know about it'. I'm not sure if there is an equivalent attitude to trans people, but I'm sure there must be. It's a hangover from the prejudices we are trying so hard to get away from.

A similar issue (since you mention mental illness) is mental illness being seen as a big taboo, and people not wanting people to talk about it publicly. Or hiding away people with disabilities because they are seen as ugly and gross. Or cancer - there's a topic people don't like to be talked about publicly, which can be very difficult for those people who actually have cancer and want to be able to talk openly about it. I believe these taboos can be really harmful.

Of course, mentally ill people talking about being mentally ill can be triggering for those who have suffered with mental illness, or who have loved one with mental illness, and that is of course difficult, but I don't believe that the solution is to stop talking about mental illness. Maybe it's more to let the person choose whether or not to witness the discussion. So, for instance, this thread being entitled 'Period talk' could be seen as fair warning as to its contents, so people can avoid it if they think they'll find it upsetting.

Definitely, to that last statement -- and really, unless a friend of mine had brought it up, I wouldn't have even known it was here. I guess the fact that I saw it was certainly triggering, but that's easily dealt with.

I don't have a problem with period talk because it's 'inappropriate' so much as it's triggering for me, but since it doesn't seem to be so for anyone else, I am the outlier. I can concede to staying away from the topic since it clearly won't go away for my sole benefit, which it shouldn't. I'd feel more comfortable arguing it further if I wasn't the only one griping about it, lol.

Well, I guess being triggered by periods is more unusual, as triggers go, so it's less likely that you'll find others here on Bloop with the same trigger (especially considering how tiny Bloop has become!). Back in the day, though, there were plenty of vocal Bloopers who thought that it was inappropriate and gross to discuss bodily functions, so they would have been happily griping with you, albeit for different reasons (although they were also the types who would likely have the same 'it's inappropriate and gross' attitude to queer and trans issues, so maybe not the ones you'd want on your side!).

Triggers are odd things. I was just thinking, there have been plenty of threads discussing various horrible instances of child abuse in the news, and you'd think that would be triggering to some, but no one has ever suggested these threads were inappropriate. Maybe if one person said it, others would speak up too - I have no idea. Personally, I don't think the threads are inappropriate, but I do find something a bit disturbing in how so many Bloopers seem to relish posting and discussing these stories so much!

I can understand why this might be triggering for you, but it's not like anyone held you down and forced you to read it. The title was a fair warning. Does the word "period" trigger you? Because the word is on the frontpage; nothing else. I don't know. I don't see this being slathered all over Bloop. It's ONE thread. I don't think it's insensitive to have a thread about this considering the majority of diarists here are female. I'm honestly not seeing the insensitivity here.

LOL well this got FUCKING STUPID pretty fast lmfao. My point was that i found it funny that anyone would actually think for half a second that anyone, ANYONE, gave even HALF a shit about SOMEONE ELSE'S vaginal discrepancies. If you have a question about the temperament of your own twat, ask your gynecologist, not a bunch of strangers on the internet, genius. I mean really, this was posted as a forum topic and you REALLY didn't expect anybody to be like "wtf why is this a forum topic?" DUMB.