Our #wombstories are never simple. But all of them – the weird and the wonderful; the happy and the sad – need to be heard. Trigger warning: images of needles and portrayal of baby loss. Learn more: https://www.bodyform.co.uk/wombstories.
We tell girls a simple story:
Get your period around twelve.
Repeat every twenty-eight days.
Deal with some pain.
Have some babies.
Then more periods.
And then around fifty, your body is meant to politely retire.
But it’s never that simple.
And when we pretend that it is, we make every other experience feels less normal, less valid, less real.
Women's confidence and wellbeing suffer. Pain goes undiagnosed. Shame and embarrassment build. The silence about our bodies and experiences goes on.
Now more than ever, we need to tell all the unseen, unspoken stories of our periods, vulvas and wombs – our #wombstories - because none of them have gone
away.
They are real stories of love and hate,
Of pleasure and pain and pain so severe it’s a disease with a name, endometriosis,
It’s stories of longing and trying for babies.
And of never wanting children. Ever.
The joy of birth. The pain of birth.
And the silent devastation of miscarriage.
Stories of clockwork periods. And haywire ones.
Of awkward beginnings and roller-coaster peri-menopausal endings.
Good stories. Bad stories.
Mundane ones. Profound ones.
The bitter. And the sweet.
All our #wombstories need to be heard.
To know each other.
To help each other.
To see each other.
Thank you to all the women who shared their #wombstories with us and made this film possible.
Learn more: https://www.bodyform.co.uk/wombstories
? Directed by: @nisha.ganatra (on Instagram)
? Artist contributors (on Instagram): @laurajaneyh, @carinekhalife, @sallalehmus, @kateisobelscott, @oook_bai, @stopmotionroos, @headexplodie, @nellaphnt, @mollygracelawton, @aylinohri, @__mephoto, @georgiewileman, @_mephoto
? Artist: Pumarosa - Priestess (Shura Remix)