Rustle Free Sanitary Pads?

[wrenna.livejournal.com]

VP'ers, I need your help!  Especially the ladies in the UK!
My friend's daughter has just got her period for the first time, and is absolutely paranoid that people will hear her opening her sanitary pads when she is in the bathroom at school.    Her Mom has tried to explain to her that most people will understand, because in a High School girls' bathroom everyone will either have already started their periods, or will start their periods soon.
However, she's so anxious that her Mom has kept her off school today.

I've been using the cup for some years, so I'm out of touch with pads, but I remember seeing an advertisement on the TV a while back for pads with "rustle free" packaging... I even think I bought some myself... but I can't think for the life of me which brand it was!   I know it was one of the big brands, and if I remember correctly, the individual packages were white papery-cottony type, and I think they had red flowers on them.
Does anyone know what the heck I'm talking about, or have I dreamed this up??

Comments

[in-a-safety-net.livejournal.com]

I also think that it's bad for her mother to keep her out of school for this reason. I have a lot of experience with anxiety (in myself, and others), and the way you overcome it is by facing your fears and therefore lessening the power that they have over you. By allowing her daughter to avoid this situation, she is indirectly validating the fear and allowing her daughter to hide from it... which basically just makes her a day out of touch with school while simultaneously letting her procrastinate putting herself in this situation.

Maybe I am over-analyzing here, but it is a very bad idea for her mother to allow her to miss any more school because of this. The daughter should simply be told that a bathroom has lots of stalls... the other people are also girls who also get periods and would not be likely to make fun of her for having hers... if they even noticed. Odds are they probably wouldn't even notice the rustling or if they did, they wouldn't even know what stall it came from. And if THAT's not enough to assuage her fear, she could always flush the toilet while she's unwrapping the pad.

I agree with the first person who commented, that maybe she needs training in anxiety management if she has anxiety issues over other minor things like this and they prevent her from attending school.

[wrenna.livejournal.com]

I can see your point... her Mother does over-protect her, but I understand the kid's anxieties too. She's 11, the first amongst her group to get her period, and the bathrooms are the hangout for all the year 11 (16 year old) girls.
I think she's just a little intimidated to be around them.
I was the same way at 11 too... I think it's a fairly normal, and common anxiety to be wary of the "big kids" at school.

[silentxsarecool.livejournal.com]

I just feel like there's way too much individual variation in things like this for you to be making the judgment that a.) she has an anxiety problem and b.) that her mom is enabling her. (Also, it kind of annoys me when people psychoanalyze over the internet - probably something to do with my psychologist sister.)

Personally, as a very anxious person myself, if my mom had just sent me to school with an explanation like yours and said "it'll be fine - nobody will notice", and then the other girls *did* tease me (which they would at my middle school), I'd have gotten immensely frightened and depressed, not to mention upset at my mother. Which would have made me much more anxious and much less able to comfortably navigate the social circles at my school. Taking things slow always worked well for me - not jumping out there and facing things head on (which has obviously worked well for you.) Everyone is different. There isn't one way to deal with anything.