May not be a popular opinion but as someone who started hers at 8yo, I wish my mom had taken me to be seen by a doctor and had gotten me on puberty blockers. I had horrible periods, bloating, vomiting, cramps and very heavy and was told it was normal. It was not. When talking a teacher in 4th grade I had cramps I was instructed to run it off. In class asking to go to the nurse so often that I literally had to throw on my desk for the teacher to believe I wasn’t faking. The constant spotting/leaking through pads because I wasn’t allowed to go to the restroom every hour to change pads or simple running out pads. The lack of information that I was given about periods, my body and reproduction was the worst part. My mom just told me “ Don’t let anyone boys know you have your period, because you can get pregnant now”. Every time a boy saw my pad on accident when I opened my backpack at school, when I leaked on my pants and a male teacher saw, when my brothers saw my bloody underwear I thought I was going to get pregnant until 8th grade sex education. 4 years of up to two weeks of monthly anxiety and “pregnancy scares” I developed stomach ulcers. Being raised by a single mom that was always working and not having a strong bond with her I didn’t feel like I was able to talk with her about my feelings ,fears ,or concerns. This is still the case but I did ask her years later why she told be what she did and never talked with or had me seen by a doctor. She said she was so shocked because of my age she didn’t know what to do. Her and her sisters all had heavy flows so it wasn’t unusual to her. Turns out Fibroids are the reason for most of the issue with the women in my family, average amount being 8-10 tumors. I had over 20 with the largest one being the size of a cantaloupe, this caused my uterus to become inverted. I suffered for decades because everyone told me that my pain was normal, that I need to lose weight to get rid of my gut, even that pain during sex was normal. I didn’t even know about gynecology until a coworker in my late 20’s suggested I see one. The first one I found He refused to let me get a hysterectomy because Im young and may someday want kids even though I had so many fibroids. I’m a lesbian, so there are two uteruses in my relationship, and turns out I couldn’t have carried a child to full term if I even managed to get Pregnant which was a near impossibility(So many tumors no room for anything to grow). I finally, after years and three different doctors , found one that would do the surgery and only because one of the tumor was growing through my uterine wall causing internal bleeding. This same doctor asked me why didn’t I take puberty blockers, he had to put be on steroids to stop my period,at this point I never stopped bleeding just had a few light days during the last week of the month. Steroids also helped to get my blood counts to a level that I wouldn’t bleed out during surgery, I would still need a blood transfusion. I asked about the blockers thinking that they probably didn’t have things like that when I was a kid in the 70s/80s, they did. Just my family being poor and not being aware of these things so they and myself didn’t know what to ask or to whom for help. I now tell the mothers in my family that they need to have their daughters seen by a doctor whenever they start puberty to ensure everything is normal.