Not my only rock-bottom secret, but definitely my most disgusting

I'm about 4 months sober after a 2 year long relapse/bender. Finally in the headspace to start coming to terms with the worst of my addiction-driven actions and just how terrifyingly out of control they were. I have many shameful stories from this time, some of which I've shared with close friends/family/therapists, but there's one that no one other than a specific nurse practitioner will ever know:

My second week in an inpatient rehab, I discovered a moldy tampon inside me.

My last period had been at least 3 weeks ago. I'd noticed a weird, bad smell coming from down there for a while, but had assumed it was just my kidneys shutting down or something (oh, the terrifying things you normalize as an alcoholic). Even worse, I'd definitely drunkenly masturbated multiple times since my last period ended, and still somehow didn't notice it.

Sitting on the rehab toilet, staring at this thing I'd just pulled out of me, was one of the most harrowing moments of my life. The smell was one of the most rancid I've ever experienced. It was covered in a gray, slimy mold. It took another week (and the unfortunate reality that the smell still wasn't going away) for me to work up the courage to tell an on-staff NP what had happened and start a round of antibiotics.

I know I'm not the only person this is happened to, and even sober people sometimes forget/lose stuff up there. But not me -- normally, TSS is a top 10 fear of mine and I refuse to go more than 7 hours without changing a tampon. It's less the fact that this happened and more the proof of how completely checked out I was from my life, body, and the passage of time.