*THIS IS PSEUDOSCIENCE*
I signed up for a womens health class, got this as the textbook, and found a section in it about endometriosis. I live with this illness and out of curiosity, decided to read this section. The misinformation astounded me. I am incredibly disappointed that this is full of myths about endometriosis, and I wanted to share my insight on this section as someone living with this illness.
In the third paragraph, it says, "Endometriosis is an illness of competition. It comes about when a woman’s emotional needs are competing with her functioning in the outside world. When a woman feels that her innermost emotional needs are in direct conflict with what the world is demanding of her, endometriosis is one of the ways in which her body tries to draw her attention to the problem.”
When I clicked on the source, it cited “Information from Caroline Myss.” I looked her up and found that she’s received much criticism for her work being unsubstantiated and pseudoscientific. Others have agreed she has no evidence or backing for her claims. Her wikipedia page explains that her work is “widely regarded as pseudoscientific.”
No one knows the actual cause of endometriosis. There are theories, but none have been proven accurate. For Christiane Northrup to have shared this unreliable source, she is continuing to perpetuate the massive issue of misinformation regarding endometriosis. Endometriosis is already far from understood. There are so many who claim they know the cause, like Myss, and Northrup has taken her misinformation as true.
There are multiple reasons why I am passionate about the correct information being spread about endometriosis. If regular gynecologists were properly and thoroughly taught about endometriosis in school, not given a 30-minute brief and incorrect summary, there would be far less cases of them not believing their patients. When women see their gyno due to suffering from endometriosis pain, they are so often told it’s in their heads, they’re making it up, it’s their fault, pain is normal, or to see a psychiatrist. We are gaslighted by the very doctors meant to help us. Many of us with endometriosis have also had to go through medical trauma. There is so much victim-blaming prevalent with endometriosis. The misinformation that Northrup repeats—that the cause is from a conflict with a woman’s emotional needs and her needs in the outside world—adds even further to victim-blaming. As though it is her fault she has endo. It’s unfortunately common for people to say they’ve heard this diet, this herb, these essential oils, yoga, or special smoothie blends cure endometriosis. With all this misinformation going around, there’s no wonder it takes so long to get diagnosed. It should not take an average of 7 years to get diagnosed with an illness that 1 in 10 women have.
The fourth paragraph goes on further, “A great many of the women I’ve seen who have endometriosis drive themselves relentlessly in the outer world, rarely resting, rarely tuning in to their innermost needs and deepest desires. It makes perfect sense that so many women would have this disease at this time in our history." Northrup continues victim-blaming without any evidence that this is the cause. She blames the high number of women with endo on the working, busy lives many women lead. In saying this, she implies a woman brings endometriosis onto herself by having such a lifestyle. Nothing is cited. Nothing proves her claim. She keeps blaming the ones suffering.
The fourth paragraph continues, "One Jungian analyst has referred to endometriosis as ‘a blood sacrifice to the Goddess.’ It is our bodies trying not to let us forget our feminine nature, our need for self-nurturance, and our connection with other women.”
As someone who's been in so much pain that I cannot move my body from the floor, where each breath is agonizing, where nerve pain is so intense that I cannot walk or stand, where nausea plagued me daily for countless months as a result from the pain, where endometriosis lesions were found in my left pelvic wall pressing down on my nerve plexus, where my friends have vomited each period and passed blood clots the size of their fists—I can confidently say that endometriosis is no blood sacrifice to the goddess. It is nothing divine. It is nothing sacred. Endometriosis is not how our bodies tell us to remember feminine nature, self-nurturance, or to connect with other women. It is agony, torture, and endless suffering. It is nothing feminine. It is nothing to twist and celebrate. Endometriosis is something to take seriously, to promote further research, and find an actual cure to give women their lives back.
Northrup wrote as a response to why so many women have endometriosis, "Another factor in the apparent increase in incidence of endometriosis is that women today are delaying childbearing. When they do have children, they are having fewer of them—which means they have a greater number of menstrual cycles than women did in the past. Since endometriosis is a hormone-dependent disorder, when the body has relatively high circulating estrogen levels without the break that occurs during pregnancy and nursing, endometriosis becomes more likely."
Endometriosis changes independently from the menstrual cycle, and the estrogen receptors remain unchanged. Since it creates its own O estrogen, the lesions are independent from ovarian estrogen production. It is false to say that estrogen circulating at high levels in the body causes endometriosis, because it creates its own estrogen. It is not dependent on the estrogen released from the ovaries, which is what circulates through the body. It creates the lifeline it is dependent on. Again, Northrup makes a claim she cannot back or prove, without citing a source for evidence. She continues to victim-blame by saying women who delay childbearing have a higher chance of getting endo. Nothing a woman does can change whether or not she has endo. She either has it or does not. Her decision when to have children, and how many, has nothing to do with the presence of endometriosis in her body.
When searching for Christiane Northrup online, her wikipedia page introduction paragraph reads, "Christiane Northrup is a former obstetrics and gynaecology physician and author who has embraced pseudoscientific alternative medicine."
Don't waste your time on this.