When Pain Was My Normal: The Decade I Silenced My Symptoms

For years, I thought I was just being dramatic.

Everyone said cramps were normal. Periods were painful. “Suck it up.”

So I did.

From high school to adulthood, I popped pain pills like candy and put on a smile. Birth control masked it for a while, but when I stopped taking it in my early 20s, the pain came back louder than ever—and still, I silenced it. Even when I was curled in bed, calling out of work, missing events, hiding from life. I gaslit myself into thinking it was in my head.

Then one day, someone commented on my photo and asked if I was pregnant.

That’s when it clicked.

I wasn’t being dramatic. I was being dismissed.

By doctors, by the system, and worst of all—by myself.

Getting diagnosed with endometriosis was a turning point, but the real healing didn’t start until I gave myself permission to believe my pain. And now, I’m on a mission to make sure no other girl goes ten years thinking her body’s cries are just whispers.

Think you’re just “bad at periods”? You’re not.

Check out our post 7 Signs You May Have Endometriosis and learn what to look for. Early intervention saves lives and sanity.