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Our Perspective On Pain is All Wrong
Rather than something to avoid, it’s a part of life we should learn to accept and bear with grace.
In 2021, I was diagnosed with a condition that’s considered among the most painful in the world. It’s called endometriosis — a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows throughout your body. It can infiltrate other organs, or in my case, fester like burns along your abdominal walls. The cells multiply like cancer, seemingly operating with insidious independence from the rest of your body.
Pain has been part of my life for a long time. As for most people who have endometriosis, it took me many years to get a name for the mysterious symptoms that affected me. In high school, a doctor told me that I was a hypochondriac. He said the abdominal pain he couldn’t find an explanation for must simply be something I was imagining for the attention.
Who would imagine debilitating pain, I wondered? Why would anyone choose agony over the absence of it? But I left his office doubting myself, and stopped pursuing answers for years. That is, until I ended up in the emergency room with such excruciating pain I could barely comprehend it. The ER trip led to a diagnostic laparoscopy, a minimalist surgery doctors perform to explore your abdominal cavity and which…
