Going through this endo feed today and I’m almost shaking it makes me that upset. It breaks my heart reading how almost every single woman on here says that at one point on her endo journey, now or a couple of years ago or a decade ago, she has not been taken seriously. Maybe it upsets me so bad bc I’ve been there too. I started having my symptoms when I was in high school. I lived with my grandmother and she fought tooth and nail for me trying to find answers for us both. I say for us both bc endo doesn’t only affect the person living with it. It also affects the people who love them. Who can’t quite begin to understand the physical and emotional pain their loved one is going through. I would imagine that’s excruciating as well. Because of my grandmother’s unrelenting quest for answers, I had my first laparoscopic procedure at 19 and was diagnosed with endo. Flash forward 13 years later, 3 more laps, endless birth controls, hormone therapy, pain meds and now Clomid for ttc and I STILL feel like I’m not taken seriously at times. As if the pain is all in my head or is not near as bad as I believe it is. Like when I can’t even get out of bed bc it literally feels like someone is stabbing my insides with a knife. Or have put them in a blender. Or my rectum hurts so bad as if I have sat on a knife and it is being twisted inside my asshole. Yes it’s crude. Yes it’s messy. And you have to try and act collected and lady like when you try to express the degree of your symptoms to a doctor or friend or husband/partner. I try to show no shame but sometimes I’ll get looks like cmon is it really that bad or are you being dramatic? And I can NOT begin to list ALL the symptoms I go through every day. I’m sick out it. This is real. So ladies, I hear you. I see you. I am you. Don’t give up and don’t let endo win. Tell endo to F.O.A.D. bc we aren’t slowing down to levels of not being able to live our lives to the fullest capacity of what we want to do or who we want to be. And keep telling others about your journey. The shit show that is endo. Don’t be shy or embarrassed. You’re a gd warrior and you’re beautiful. 🤍