I had a bad period this month. I had PMS symptoms a week before, diarrhea, sore breasts and that horrible tired feeling days before. On my first day I was quite sore, which I haven’t had for ages. The major symptom that appeared was the emotional stuff! Poor James had to deal with the sobbing for no reason, the getting irritable and also the “do you even love me?” emotions. It got my mind thinking as to why this was happening again.
I went into complete panic mode yesterday and today. I seized up and everything got heaps worse. I got diarrhea, headaches and that wonderful tender sore feeling in my abdomen, which honestly I haven’t felt for months now. My mind was racing about why it was so sore. I started imagining horrible things. I started picturing the Endo completely taking over my whole body and that I was almost being gobbled up by it. I started to panic about it all. I started to wonder if I would ever get better. If I was just imagining my improvements, if things were just meant to be sore and I was being unrealistic to think I could cure anything.
My mind went into a completely different place. A bad space. One of those negative spaces, which I am sure you all know well. I didn’t believe in anything. Everything was too hard and the pain was just going to be with me forever and ever. I started to think it was all just silly. The idea that I could possible beat this thing. Who do I think I am? What makes me think I am so special that I can honestly beat it?
I almost got to a point today where the panic of all of these thoughts made me lose it completely. I felt like screaming and crying all at once. Luckily, I was at work and in a temp role so that was not really an option. I tried to focus on something else for another 30 minutes and then decided I better go home. I was feeling incredibly teary and defeated by the time I got into the car. I felt numb now. I gave into it all. I let it all just be. I stopped fighting it. I just allowed all that negativity to just be. So, perhaps I should just accept that Endo will be with me forever? Fine. So, I should just accept that I will feel like crap for every month for the rest of my life? Fine. So, I should just deal with this endless battle of not really getting anywhere? Fine. As I let these defeating thoughts come over me and let them live in my mind for a little while, succumbing to them, a strange thing started to happen… I started to realize it was just the hormones talking. I started to realize that I was in fact being quite silly.
I started to see that this was just an overreactive panic emotion that was brought on through my overactive hormones. It is scary how powerful they are!
I came home, made myself a nice warm cup of tea, relaxed outside in the sunshine for a bit and allowed myself to calm down by just enjoying the nature around me. I separated myself from the emotional panic feeling and recognized just how silly it all was.
I looked back on my learning curves within myself and my healing over the last 6 months and recognized just how far I have really come. I couldn’t even do anything 6 months ago and now when I have one month that is slightly out of whack I go completely panicky!
Do you panic when you’re sore? Do you feel like the world is going to end and that Endo is this mountain you can never defeat? Do the panic emotions take over and you feel completely defeated by it all?
These hormones are so powerful and controlling! Separating ourselves from them can be a little tricky sometimes!
I feel better now. It is almost time for the sun to set and the world seems calmer now. I made myself some chamomile tea and had some Rescue Remedy to help me calm down. It is amazing how the pain is so closely linked to our emotions too… the pain is all settled down now!
Sore from emotions and emotions making you sore! The vicious circle of Endo.
This Post Has 12 Comments
Thank you Dot. I am so happy you like it and that it gives you so much! I know it is scary not having the info on line. I just want to put it all up – there is heaps out there once we start looking 🙂
Your words mean heaps to me and certainly keep me motivated to keep spreading the word!
I’m so grateful you made this website! What an incredible support for women who have truly suffered. And this article is such a true representation of what we women go through. I could totally relate as I have come a long way with the endo and this past month had a very painful relapse. Sometimes, simply eating the wrong food can create horrific pain.
10 years ago – even 5 years ago, there was nothing like this online.
I’m so glad that now I have a place to turn where there is wisdom, light and information about a disease our society doesn’t really get, but so many suffer from.
Endo has been my greatest Spiritual teacher. It has taught me faith, mind power, patience, optimism, trust, gratitude, mental clarity, proper diet and exercise, and time management to name a few. LOL.
Thank you so much for this act of service. This site is a gift! Now be good to yourself and don’t work too hard Melissa!
Sincerely,
Dot Todman
Hi Jen. You won’t and you can overcome it and it does get easier! Get onto the oils – Evening Primrose and Omega 3! They really work wonders at reducing the pain and inflammation. I used to get that too. When you work long hours on your feet all day. It is agonising. I am glad you found me. Feel free to email me personally with any questions. It will be okay. I promise 🙂
So I’m 28 and have been suffering from endo for almost 3 yrs now. The first doctor I went to thought I was making it all up but when I was bleeding for over a month he then took me seriously. I take medicine for the pain. I refuse to get anymore surgery for this at the moment. Seems Like the more surgery I have the more I fight this. Your site makes me feel like I’m not alone In this. I’m a hairstylist and when I work hard at it for hours I have “flare ups” today is one of those days. In tears I was in the internet trying to find something else about endo that I don’t already now and stubbled on this site. Thank you Melissa. Feel like I can get through this day. I wont be defeated!
How nice of your husband to rock you to sleep again through the pain. That is very sweet. I guess the hard part is to recognise that our emotions are so interlinked with it. The more we stress about it and build it up, the more it seems to get sore. Funny isn’t it? A little bit of a catch 22 really. Happy to help 🙂
Hi Melissa ,
I can so related to the panic that is so overwhelming. There were times when I had intense pain where I woke up in such pain and had to have my husband soothe me my rubbing my back or just holding me.
I am generally a person that is in control but when the pain overwhelms me , i become incapable of thinking about anything else but the pain. And how I feel like cutting out this endo myself …how stressed I become about the thought of living with it forever.
Their have been months of no pain..But when one month comes along and reminds you of the pain , nausea , headaches..bloating …it affects you so much.
People generally do not understand the condition – so not easy to make people understand the emotional side and the physical pain which is overwhelming.
Glad you guys are here !!!
Hi Melissa and nice to see you on here again 🙂
I totally agree with that statement! It is definitely a life lesson! I also think “take it easy” is another one I have learnt from having endo. We are all rushing around like headless chickens with so many things we worry about and think about and the reality is, most of it just doesn’t really matter. It is so all consuming and yet if the world was to end in a years time, would it really make a difference?
I hope you find more healing through my site and you don’t have to make the choice of pain killer now or later in the future 🙂
Hi Barbara. The Danazol will get your hormones under control while you are on it. This means you are not experiencing symptoms as the drug has reduced the hormone imbalance in your body. This is good in a way as you are not experiencing pain during your period or from Endometriosis but unfortunately it is not natural and once you go off the Danazol your symptoms are likely to return. When I say symptoms I mean the pain associated with Endometriosis, the signals. Danazol has not made your endometriosis go away. It can’t. Your body has to do that on its own through natural means of healing. Danazol only reduces the hormones in your uterus. This isn’t the solution for long term healing of Endometriosis.
Danazol also prevents ovulation so you will not be able to conceive while you are on Danazol.
So, I guess you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do you continue using a drug that is currently making you feel heaps better? or do you go off it and try and have a baby with the likelihood that the endo pain will reappear? I can’t unfortunately make that decision for you but from my personal experience I would have to say that I would get off the Danazol and go 100% natural. I don’t know what you have been through or what you have experienced with Endo so unfortunately the decision rests in your hands.
I guess I look at it as wanting a pure body for my child to grow in. I would want my body to be super dooper healthy and right for the child to get the best nutrients and health it can. Would love to hear your decision! Please stay in touch!
Hi Melissa. Sometimes I do panic. I also feel fear. It is such a loss of control. I worry that the pain will get too big too fast and I won’t be able to handle it, or that I’ll think the big pain will be coming so I’ll take a pain pill but I will have misjudged it and won’t have needed it. Or that I’ll wait too long to take the pain pill so the pain will get bigger than the pill can impact. A good endo day is anticipating the pain and medicating it correctly with the right timing. A better endo day is not having pain, or being in a bathtub surrounded by chocolate while having a pain day. I totally understand how realizing what is happening as it happens changes the panic feelings. Maybe endo is one whopper of a life lesson about things I cannot control? I don’t know. But anyway, good luck to you!
hi melisa my case is complicated ,i under went surgery june last year and had my left ovary removed ,6 months later the endo was back and my doctor recomended Danazol treatment, but i feel like i should take a break from the medication and focus on the nutrition products,how ever i have not had my periolds for the last three month,since i started the medication in december,the good news is since i changed my diet and life style plus inspiration lessons from you and the people who are going through the same condition, i have lost weight and i dont feel pain during sex any more,i am basically a diffrent person now, does this mean i have put the endo under control, or its just my immagination,? do i still need to go on with the medication? or i should give it some rest. because i want to start trying for a baby and without my periold circle, its hard for me to tel when am ovulating
advise please
Hi Nic, I love it when people comment! Your comment is fantastic and thanks for sharing it! I can see that doing meditation would be a brilliant way to cope with pain! I can totally relate! Keep in touch and let me know when you do your course! It would be awesome to hear more about it and how it can help with Endo 🙂
It sounds like you had a horrible day and I think given your or our experiences of endo, some of them traumatic and so ongoing you had a reaction that was a normal response to the situation. This book I read “Full Catastrophe Living: How to cope with Pain and Illness using Mindfulness Mediation: By Jon Kabat-Zinn talks of the judgments we attach to pain for example and how all of the past experiences come flooding back in and take over and Mindfulness works by “noticing” feelings, body sensations etc and naming them for what they are without judgment. That is a basic outline, – you are the observer and endo is not all of what is there, things change moment to moment. It is a huge book and not all of it related to me but still very cool if you are into Meditation etc.
Lots of times when my pain decides to visit me again, I think “Is today the day I should go to the hospital to get this dealt with” and that is a little anxiety as its ongoing and who I’ve been told my GP’s to do that in the past- but I am trying super hard to look at other ways to cope with it and I hope to see a Naturopath when I start my new job and money isn’t so tight.
Anyway, there is my Mindful approach to this topic, I am a true believer in it and next year hope to study body centered psychotherapy that is largely based on Mindfulness.
Sorry to comment so much but I feel SO pleased to have found a forum to talk about endo in a new way. (And my life is rather quiet after the Earthquake, with Uni now distance learning and not much else to do, no cafes, or libraries!! So this is a good focus!)
Thanks again Melissa, : )