My Menstrual Cup Flipped Upside Down Inside Me 💀

“Well, it couldn’t possibly get worse,” I said ten minutes into trying to remove my menstrual cup.

I was on my meal break, in the downstairs bathroom of my cousin’s house. Forty minutes to clock-in.

It should have been an easy task — just grab the stem, yeah?

But alas…no.

It was suctioned up in there, and my fingers only go so far. And I cut the stem to the hilt of the Lunette cup.

Just when I thought I had it, THUMP!

If you’ve ever inserted a menstrual cup using a fold that sort of has to pop a little bit inside you, you know the feeling. Fold it in too much, and the pop is like POP!

I imagine it was because I tried to use the “C” fold to remove it, since I couldn’t just inch it down and out slowly.

I thought I had it!

And then it flipped upside down.

My eyes matched like Bryan Kohberger’s in those court photos where his lips are pressed together.

Blood spilled all over my hands. I used toilet paper to wipe my hands enough to rinse them in the sink to my left, because the last thing I needed was blood-stained hands walking into work.

Not because of the hygiene perspective — but because it’s rather sus, no? Also, explaining the why behind menstrual blood-stained hands was not on my “Conversations I Want to Have Before as Social Experiments” wishlist.

I rinsed my hands in the sink next to me and dried my hands on a towel, then did what any non-traumatized person would do under the pressure of a work timeline: keel over on the toilet and whimper for a minute.

At one point, I considered the repercussions of leaving it in there for four more hours.

Could I do it?

Ugh, but I’d have to wear a pad! and I didn’t want to do that. Minky gets hot — fast — and my autistic self chose to build a cloth pads stash of the softest fabric. And it was the first full day of my cycle, which is best left to the menstrual cups to handle.

One deep breath later, and I was back to work — attempting to remove the cup, that is. I managed to slip my finger between the vaginal wall and the silicone Lunette; from here, I sought to flatten the cup so it would lose suction and lay flat against the other side of the wall.

It worked, but now it was much too big to come out, so I used another finger to fold it in half, then tugged it out.

Although there is a lot of lubrication during a menstrual cycle, it still hurt and my canal is generally small. I have this condition where it tenses up when something is inside, thanks to certain trauma.

I rinsed the cup and attempted to reinsert it, but it was painful AF. Fetch was not going to happen.

I spent 15 minutes messaging Charlise to bring me a disposable menstrual disc (Softdisc), to no avail.

Apparently the kids had been attempting to use this restroom, and they thought I was one of the teens, so she eventually came to the door and knocked on it and said to hurry up, and I said, “I’m literally trying, I’ve been texting you for like 30 MINUTES!”

She said, “Oh,” asked what I needed, and slid a packaged disc under the door.

I had 15 minutes to insert, clean up, get dressed again, take the rinsed menstrual cup up to my room to clean later, eat lunch, and get back to work.

In the end…

• I ate, like, three soft-baked BelVita banana bread biscuits.
• Yes, I continue to wear menstrual cups to this day.
• This actually wasn’t my scariest/worst menstrual cup disaster and is much, much better than when I was younger and thought tampon applicators were supposed to stay inside because no one bothered to explain to me otherwise.
• I was definitely late to work.