Everyone who has ever menstruated has a first period story. The cramps. The blood. The tears. The cheers. In Lena Dunham's case, the supportive dad offering tampon insertion trips through the bathroom door.
The Girls star, whose has been vocal about her ongoing battle with endometriosis, opened up about her first visit from "Aunt Flo" on Instagram yesterday — and the story is hilarious, heartwarming, and so, so relatable.
As it happens, a 14-year-old Dunham was out hiking with her dad, artist Carroll Dunham, when her period started for the first time.
"When I got my period I was 14 and still totally boobless, sure that it would arrive when I was approximately 24," the 31-year-old writer and actress wrote. "I've told this story before but it just makes me laugh too hard: It was late August and I was hiking at sunset with my father when I felt something trickling down my leg.
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"My first reaction was, naturally, that I had peed myself a whole bunch. When I realized it was blood I shrieked wildly — my first suspicion is always fatal injury — as my father looked at me, misty-eyed.
'This, this mountain, is where we were the moment you became a woman. In many cultures you'd have to start birthing children now.' I was like, 'can we please get home right fucking now and off this mountain?' We booked it home — never moved that fast before or since — and he handed me a tampon that was older than I was (my mom was already menopausal at this point) and tried to explain it to me through a crack in the door.
'Up and...back?' I wept and shrieked and called all of my aunts AND my friend Harris' mom on the cordless phone."
She eventually recovered from that initial shock, of course, and now supports the organic tampon delivery service, Lola, to help others who don't have (or don't necessarily want) a dad cheering them on and supplying them with old Tampax.
It's not lost on Dunham that her pops handled the situation like a champ. She turned to the words of Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue to sum up her feelings.
Does this count as #dadgoals?
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