What it's Like Living with Endometriosis

What it’s Like Living with Endometriosis

When living with a chronic illness it’s nearly impossible to believe you’re surrounded by love an light.

It’s easier to lean in toward the notion that you’re in the dark alone because this, of course, is what the disease wants you to feel. 

Then you see the dim glimmer of light, it’s sparkling.

Your eyes focus on it as it grows bigger and bigger until you can feel it’s warmth.

You want to bask in it, this safe warm space that makes you feel lighter, if only for a second.

The light fills your heart and body and you begin to gain the focus to see the people and things in your life that truly make you whole.

And that is where you aim to keep your focus, this happy space you’ve discovered that was there the whole time.

Only you couldn’t see it before, because you were caught thrashing in the pain like a rough wave navigating a stormy night.

That’s the only way I can describe what living with Endometriosis is like. Most days I wake up in the darkness feeling defeated and alone, and the only person that can save me is me. I open my eyes and a wave of pain crashes over my body – and it is in that moment I can choose to let the wave take me under or fight back against it. I bend my body to rise and feel the pressure trying to push me back down. A pull in the depth of my abdomen that feels like a series of strings snapping and breaking. I push back and roll out of bed to touch my toes to the cold wooden floor and start the day – because if I stay laying down I’ll remain there the whole day. 

I wish people could see how debilitating Endometriosis is. I wish they could see how it can change a life. It’s a thief in the night taking things away before you even have a chance to claim them as yours. I was brought into the world with everything I needed to develop into a woman, but now without my uterus and ovaries, I feel empty. I sweat all of the time, usually in the most embarrassing public displays of what I refer to as melting. This disease still continues to ravish my body, leaving me feeling weaker and weaker as time goes on but the sympathy period has worn off. Because those who don’t have it can’t truly begin to understand what it feels like. They lose interest because the disease has the power, not them, and there is only so much they can do to attempt to bring comfort. It’s no one’s job to make me feel better 24/7, that’s too much of a burden for anyone besides me to carry.

Another surgery? Another treatment?

My hormones are out of control, I have hot flashes and night sweats every day.

The more estrogen I take the more my endometriosis continues to grow. It’s the cruelest version of a double-edged sword. It puts you in the hardest situations, it makes you make the hardest decisions, and it drains you both mentally and physically.

But it’s not the end of my story, and it shouldn’t be the end of yours either.

I take comfort in knowing that I hold the key to my happiness, not my Endometriosis.

And as much as it fights me, it’s me that ultimately has the power to choose to be slipped into an envelope of darkness or break free like a bright firework exploding in the sky.

I’ll always fight to be the firework.

 

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What it's Like Living with Endometriosis