Hi all,
Haven't posted here in over 4 years but things have taken a turn for the worse recently. I was diagnosed with endometriosis in July and during the talk with the doctor who diagnosed me, I realised my first symptoms started when I was fifteen years old. I had been trying to get a diagnosis since 2019, but due to medical gaslighting it took me a really long time to find a doctor who was qualified and able to diagnose me properly. Thankfully the endometriosis lesions haven't hit my digestive system, so at least I don't have to deal with IBS on top of the chronic pain, chronic fatigue, loss of fertility and possible nerve damage. But since I got diagnosed, I've been reckoning with over a decade of unaddressed pain. I keep thinking back to my teenage years and my twenties and I'm horrified by the amount of medical neglect. I feel awful that I've been seeing myself as lazy and incompetent all these years, when in reality I was ill. It's hard not to feel cheated out of the life I could have had, so I'm feeling a lot of grief.
I'm on my third estroprogestative that isn't working and is hitting me hard with side effects. It's difficult to stay optimistic about treatment options and the future. It seems to me like I'm going to be stuck living half a life, constantly being held back by pain, until I hit menopause, and then I'll only have like, ten or fifteen years of good health tops before old age steps in and I'm sick / in pain again. Mental health issues have already made me feel nothing but regret over my twenties, so I can't face the idea of another decade of my life spent being ill.
I've applied for disability status, but it's going to take several months before my application goes through. Similarly, I'm stuck waiting around for doctors appointments, experts in endometriosis have several months waiting list. It feels frustrating, especially since I'd like to do acupuncture sessions for the chronic pain but I can't find the time for it - I've needed to take on more work to make more money because I'm going to need to pay for a large expense in April.
The combination of grief, frustration, anxiety about the future, hormonal mood swings, pain and fatigue are grinding down on my resolve. I'm struggling to find reasons to stay alive because the future is going to be pretty bleak for at least the next six months, more realistically the next two or three years. I don't know whether I'll eventually find a hormone treatment that won't destroy my ability to function, I don't know if I should be looking into a hysterectomy, and medical care is frustratingly slow to access. I need to find it in me to stay strong and keep going if I want things to get better, but it's really hard.
Anyways it's also been eight years since I started needing mental health care and I feel like I've exhausted the patience of everyone around me for my depression talk. My family is not being very supportive, they're mostly making it about themselves or ignoring the issue. They're mostly being tactless and callous when I needed compassion. My girlfriend is being very supportive, but she's only one person. I'm too exhausted at the end of the work day to see my friends more than two or three times a month, so there's that added sense of isolation. So it's a relief that I can express how heavy things are for me on here. I need to talk about how much this diagnosis has depleted my will to stay alive. Admittedly a hurtful conversation to have with loved ones, but I need to talk about it in order to move forwards and elaborate some kind of plan in which I can see myself living a life worth being there for.
Haven't posted here in over 4 years but things have taken a turn for the worse recently. I was diagnosed with endometriosis in July and during the talk with the doctor who diagnosed me, I realised my first symptoms started when I was fifteen years old. I had been trying to get a diagnosis since 2019, but due to medical gaslighting it took me a really long time to find a doctor who was qualified and able to diagnose me properly. Thankfully the endometriosis lesions haven't hit my digestive system, so at least I don't have to deal with IBS on top of the chronic pain, chronic fatigue, loss of fertility and possible nerve damage. But since I got diagnosed, I've been reckoning with over a decade of unaddressed pain. I keep thinking back to my teenage years and my twenties and I'm horrified by the amount of medical neglect. I feel awful that I've been seeing myself as lazy and incompetent all these years, when in reality I was ill. It's hard not to feel cheated out of the life I could have had, so I'm feeling a lot of grief.
I'm on my third estroprogestative that isn't working and is hitting me hard with side effects. It's difficult to stay optimistic about treatment options and the future. It seems to me like I'm going to be stuck living half a life, constantly being held back by pain, until I hit menopause, and then I'll only have like, ten or fifteen years of good health tops before old age steps in and I'm sick / in pain again. Mental health issues have already made me feel nothing but regret over my twenties, so I can't face the idea of another decade of my life spent being ill.
I've applied for disability status, but it's going to take several months before my application goes through. Similarly, I'm stuck waiting around for doctors appointments, experts in endometriosis have several months waiting list. It feels frustrating, especially since I'd like to do acupuncture sessions for the chronic pain but I can't find the time for it - I've needed to take on more work to make more money because I'm going to need to pay for a large expense in April.
The combination of grief, frustration, anxiety about the future, hormonal mood swings, pain and fatigue are grinding down on my resolve. I'm struggling to find reasons to stay alive because the future is going to be pretty bleak for at least the next six months, more realistically the next two or three years. I don't know whether I'll eventually find a hormone treatment that won't destroy my ability to function, I don't know if I should be looking into a hysterectomy, and medical care is frustratingly slow to access. I need to find it in me to stay strong and keep going if I want things to get better, but it's really hard.
Anyways it's also been eight years since I started needing mental health care and I feel like I've exhausted the patience of everyone around me for my depression talk. My family is not being very supportive, they're mostly making it about themselves or ignoring the issue. They're mostly being tactless and callous when I needed compassion. My girlfriend is being very supportive, but she's only one person. I'm too exhausted at the end of the work day to see my friends more than two or three times a month, so there's that added sense of isolation. So it's a relief that I can express how heavy things are for me on here. I need to talk about how much this diagnosis has depleted my will to stay alive. Admittedly a hurtful conversation to have with loved ones, but I need to talk about it in order to move forwards and elaborate some kind of plan in which I can see myself living a life worth being there for.
