Which is worse: pads or pissing yourself?

I didn't start my period until I was 13 years old and in the 9th grade, my younger sister started long before me; she was in the 6th or 7th grade (I know TMI but I have to set the stage). For most young girls you learn about these things from friends and older siblings, the stuff your mother tells you goes in one ear and out the other because you cannot get out of the room fast enough--MY GOD WOMAN WHY ARE YOU SAYING THESE THINGS THAT EMBARRASS THE PISS OUT OF ME??? I learned from my friends and my little sister. My mother would only buy Day pads for her time of the month (mommy didn't have one anymore, emergency hysterectomy) and Day was fine with it, I guess. She was a major tomboy and told my parents that she just "wasn't going to have it". My mom's reply was "good luck with that". Day was either unaware of tampons or didn't want to deal with other methods. Anywaaaaayyyyyy.... when I finally started I realized that none of my friends wore pads, not to mention how uncomfortable I was while wearing them, if I started at a friends house I was SOL and had to call mommy to bring me the mature diapers. I was finally sick of wearing the things--with wings, without wings, overnight, regular, long--it didn't matter I was done. When I asked my mother to buy me tampons you would have thought I told her I just slashed the throats of our elderly neighbor. DISGUST!! "Do you know what kind of girls wear those? Loose girls, you know the EASY ones" and my all time favorite "you and your sister should probably not try tampons because when your aunt and I did it was terrible--our insides were pulled out when we removed them". WTF! Yep, I was scared and ashamed, good work mom. As I have mentioned in prior posts, one of the styles of my high school years was skin tight pants which do not cooperate with maxi/mini/liner pads. I saved up my lunch money (it wasn't too hard to do, I only needed $4 a week for smokes and $1 a day for a Pepsi---oh the life....) and bought my own damn box of tampons. My first purchase was Tampax Super, which my friend Lindi made a comment about but it wasn't because I was slutty and everything else would fall out it was because I bleed like Niagara falls!! I diligently read and followed the pictorial instructions included in the box. Everything went well, I was so much comfier. I feared the time to remove it, I was scared to death. How would I explain my internal female reproduction system now being external to my mother? I waited until that bad boy was so full the string was tinged. I sat on the toilet silently praying my mom wouldn't kill me if the inside out turn didn't, I pulled and it was difficult (nerve tension) but it came out and nothing else did. HOORAY!! I don't have to explain myself to my mother, she would not think I was a slut and I wouldn't bleed to death from my internals becoming external!! Life was good. I had to hide my boxes of tampons in my room and completely wrap in TP what didn't flush. I finally could come clean to my mother when I was 17 and graduating from high school. She didn't look as ashamed of me then, huh?
Last night I went to my cardio blast class again and wore the damn pad. I don't know which is worse: pissing yourself or wearing a pad when you don't need it? All of the above memories were brought to surface while I was attaching the wings around. We didn't do the jumping jacks--SON OF A BITCH!!! I swear, I can't win for nothing.