Chapter 29: Am I really in pain or am I a hypochondriac?

This post is about my experience with endometriosis, but I'm sure it can be applied to a lot of chronic illnesses. Again, I don't speak for everyone with endo, these are just my thoughts and experiences.

Last week I saw a post on Reddit that asked doctors who do autopsies what the worst thing that they have ever seen during one. One response was something along the lines of this: the autopsy was for a woman who died in her 40s. She had a history of complaints about pelvic pain, heavy and frequent periods, etc. Her doctor wrote that he suspected it was hypochondria. The doctor doing the autopsy found that her abdomen was literally full of endometriosis. That was causing her pain. It wasn't in her head. She just needed a compassionate and educated doctor to take her pain seriously and try to help. My heart breaks for this patient. I'm sure there are millions more women who are currently suffering from endo and being ignored.

One of my biggest fears going into surgery was that the pain was all in my head and I was a hypochondriac. Being dismissed by so many doctors, it was easy to believe that I was being dramatic. My paps, periods and ovulation hurt more than my friends' did. Clearly, I was being weak and dramatic. I am working on unlearning those patterns of doubting myself and my body. I think that my anxiety over doctors and nurses considering me a hypochondriac actually prevented me from advocating for myself and kept me in pain longer.

It's a super twisted and upsetting cycle when you think about it- I felt pain, went to the doctor's, my pain was dismissed repeatedly by different doctors, so I began to doubt what I was feeling, developed anxiety about being seen as a hypochondriac and being judged as a doctor shopper, so I dropped it for a few more years and dealt with the pain. Then the pain became unbearable so I started looking for new doctors. When one finally took me seriously I teared up in his office and cried the whole way home. He reassured me that it's common and most of his patients come in with a suspicion that they have endo. He said it was very likely that I had it and he was willing to do the surgery to diagnose and remove it. Yet, I still woke up from surgery anxious that I didn't have endo, anxious that I wasted time, money and took up a surgery slot someone else could have used, and most of all, anxious that I was being a hypochondriac the whole time. But I wasn't. That validation helped a lot, but it's still something I'm working through.