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Which as a recovering people-pleaser, I will agree to, attend, and then smash my head into the hard surface of the table while she attempts to cure my chronic illness through the power of suggestion.
He’s a former fixer, but he’s finally accepted that my chronic illness is, well . . . chronic. Which is more than I can say about most people I interact with.
Most of the time, people are too uncomfortable with negativity and pain for honest answers. Wanting to fix it, fix me, they offer positivity and solutions, which become toxic in their frequency. I’m an optimistic person in my own way, but there’s a danger in forceful optimism and not recognizing reality. I exist in a state of perpetual pain, and I’ve had to accept that to survive—it’d be nice if others acknowledged
and were okay with it. Otherwise, the guilt and anxiety of being “a downer” are put on me too.
“You just retched into a trashcan.” “That happens with great frequency, actually. I’m going to need more proof for a substantiated claim.”
Yeah, endometriosis and my uterine fibroids put me at a higher risk for complications with my fertility. Sure, it meant it would probably be more challenging for me, the odds were lower, and I considered the possibility of infertility more than a person without these conditions would. And yes, the actual act of procreating was rather unpleasant for me. But still, nothing would be certain until the future became the present, so why worry now?
None of this gets easier. I just have to get tougher. Hell, I am so tired of having to be tougher.
One moment changes everything. Validates everything. Doctors who have told you your whole life you’re mentally unstable or have a low pain tolerance, that it’s just painful periods (that one’s hard to swallow when you’re very aware it happens almost every day) suddenly tell you you’re one in ten, ushering you into a forced kinship nobody wants to be a part of.
Endo warrior. That’s the nickname they give us. Sure, I would prefer a cure, but there’s no time for that when you have an erectile dysfunction crisis looming. Stodgy old cis men must be able to get it up at all costs!
“Life sucks hard most of the time. Let me escape into a promised land where everything works out in the end.”
I’d love to pretend I built up a wall after the debutante fiasco or some other negative experience turned me away, but it didn’t. I was still a wide-eyed optimist up until the end. The end. What a pathetically depressive term I’ve given it.
My diagnosis. The line of demarcation where my past life ended and a new one began. One where I let love die without noticing it. Without properly mourning it. Until now. I never have time to notice anything.
“Evie, seriously, you’re gorgeous, brilliant, funny—sure, sometimes I don’t get your jokes, but hey, you try! You love your people fiercely, and you’re one of the toughest, strongest women I’ve ever met—who has a shitty thing and handles it with so many of the adverbs I know you don’t like me using. But dammit, I’m going to because you are. You are strong and handle this with so much grace every day. I thought you didn’t want to get hurt—but this—nope, consider this me putting my foot down.”
The endo was present but manageable, and I could hide and drag through the pain without letting anyone in on the reality of living with the disease. As the endo became a more prominent player in my life, though, Harmony’s role as the main character in my story diminished, my disease demanding the title, and her interest in me waned.
I’m flaring harder than Tom Hanks on a deserted island.
My round ligament convulses on my left side, pulling my ovary with it since endo bound them in an unholy union. I uncrunch my middle, stretching as lightning-like pains streak through my ass and down my thigh, radiating to my calf. Endo is hardcore bullying my bowel today. Honestly, total crap.
Endo is exhausting. But it’s a part of my reality. We’re a package deal.
I was going to tell you in bed before my uterus decided to go all exploding shattered glass on my insides.
“I’m sorry if I’m a bit slower on the street. I just need a little extra help tonight.” His dimple pricks his cheek. “You don’t need to apologize for that.”
I smile tight. I firmly believe I shouldn’t judge another person’s pain or pain tolerance because I don’t want to diminish anyone’s plight. It’s all valid. But sometimes, I wish that in validating other people’s pain, I didn’t feel like I was diminishing my own. I understand sciatic pain is something that pregnant people experience. I understand it’s incredibly painful. I even understand that my pain cannot eradicate theirs; they both exist. But when Clare says she knows exactly how I feel, I can’t help but get the sense that it’s misplaced empathy. People don’t have to connect or commiserate
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The shitty thoughts I’ve been learning to tell myself are just thoughts, not reality, nettle my conscience again. I’ll make things complicated. He’s going to have to deal with my endo too. A lot of life blessings people often take for granted become frustrated, complicated hell fires with me. I shake my head. I’m done letting this thing take more of me than it already has. I’m done sacrificing my dreams.
