What getting your period is like, according to stock photography

You can always count on stock photography to completely skew your view of the world. Unless, of course, you DO happen to live in a universe where the pressure of your corporate job causes you to jump into giant bowls of spaghetti or all your best friends are scary clowns.

We decided to see what stock photos had to say about the experience of getting your period. Here’s what we found after typing “menstruation” into Shutterstock, and, well, let’s just take a look, shall we?

First off, a few days before your period begins, you leave Post-Its for all your friends, co-workers, and causal acquaintances alerting them to the fact that you will soon be bleeding. “Respect my PMS!” you tell them. “RESPECT IT!!!!”

The day has come. Aunt Flo has arrived. Before taking care of the situation down there, you spend some time eyeing your tampon suspiciously, possibly questioning its motives. Once you decide said tampon is worthy of your vagina, you smirk and chuckle softly together. Hehehehehehehe.

Now that you’ve had a successful meeting with your absorbent friend, you of course decide to marvel in its beauty for a bit, arranging several tampons into pretty designs. Perhaps you create a heart out of two tampon strings and post it to Instagram. #blessed.

Time to get dressed. Grab your period panties. Yes, exactly, these pretty lace ones.

Oof. Those cramps are starting to set in. Time to make a heart shape over your tummy. This is universal code for “female pain.”

Ugh, work. It’s just. So. Hard. Doing. Work. Things. Because, you know, your period really sets you back in life.

Because you’ve alerted all your co-workers to your situation a few days prior, you’re accosted in the break room by Jim in accounting, who desperately needs an explanation of the female reproductive system. He has so many questions and he never quite gets it.

Time for a tampon change. What, yours don’t look like Firecracker popsicles?

Maybe you decide to switch it up with a pad. But gosh darn, these things are hard to work! It goes like this, right?

You realize that you and all your friends are on your period at the same time! Weirdly, you’re all wearing the same thing! And this is what you totally look like when you’re all in pain:

Oh oh oh! The pain. You’re doubled over all day long and constantly making this face.

Despite being very vocal about your PMS, you have no idea how to handle/ask for help once you are on your period, so you just resort to an SOS message written in Skittles.

Eventually, someone gets you to the doctor for an assessment of this serious situation. There, this medical professional mansplains periods to you and you find this to be very informative.

Perhaps he prescribes a blood-colored tea to lessen your pain??? It only works if you drink it half-naked and hold it in front of your vagina, though.

Phew! What an eventful day. Of course you’d NEVER want to have sex while you’re on your period, and instead of just communicating with your partner, you hand him this passive aggressive “red card” and pass out while he sits there, confused, and wondering if he even knows you at all.

Sweet dreams!

(Images via Shutterstock)