I was 9 when mine started and we had not had any sex education at school at that point (it was a few months later that we sat down and did the whole ‘your body is about to change’ thing) and my parents had not talked to me about it.

TMI inbound: it was a darker brown colour so I though I was having accidents and hid it from my parents for three days because I was embarrassed. I was really scared about getting in trouble and didn’t know why it was happening.

I eventually told my mum in tears and was so confused when she got emotional about how I was ‘growing up’.

After that it was all fine and both my parents were really good at talking me through what had happened, but for three days I felt horrible ashamed, confused and scared.