I wake up to pain radiating from my lower stomach. White lights pop in front of my eyes and I start to lose my vision. Sweating through my clothes, I writhe on the ground, the world spinning.

“Help!” I call out weakly, even though I live alone in a small apartment.

I can tell I’m bleeding heavily. I reach for my cell phone, but it clatters to the floor. As I bend to pick it up, something feels like it rips inside me, and that is when I decide to go to the ER.

Nobody I know would be up at this hour except possibly the boy I’ve been dating for a few weeks.

“Are you free right now?” I write. It’s 1 AM.

Him, “I’m with friends. Whatcha up to?”

I put my phone down to spare myself the embarrassment of trying to explain.

I shake and cry in the ER, even though this is a drill I know very well. As always, my exams show nothing. “Probably endometriosis,” I hear for the millionth time.

And so it goes, for years and years.

I become so anaemic I sometimes have trouble standing. I pass out at work or, at a movie theatre. I stop wanting to leave the house because I can’t trust my body to get me from point A to point B. No matter what I do, each month I am stuck writhing on my floor like clockwork.

I endure the awkwardness of explaining to my male boss why I miss so much work. I try to find the words to explain to friends why I can’t go to a party because I have my period. I stop making plans because I don’t trust that I won’t have to cancel last minute. I can almost hear the judgments I imagine people make of me – she’s faking it, she’s being overdramatic, it’s all in her head.

My stomach swells each month, so I buy a new wardrobe of loose clothing. I hold my head high as someone makes a passing comment on my weight fluctuations. I try to fight through the heaviness I feel in my body all the time. I feel the exhaustion of trying to hide it, knowing I risk grossing people out if I don't. I lose friends, watch peers pass me by, and stay quiet, because how could I ever begin to explain? How could they ever begin to understand? You aren’t supposed to talk about periods, and you aren’t supposed to complain about pain. You are just supposed to carry on.

Everyone is fighting some battle we never see. Endometriosis is common, and we don’t talk about it enough. By not sharing our stories, women end up isolated and uninformed.

Time to change that.

Woman looking out over balcony

 

Everyone is fighting some battle we never see