the agony that menstruation brings
Content warning: mentions of blood, adenomyosis/endometriosis, pelvic and abdominal pains, PMDD and menstruation will reoccur, please avoid reading if these themes cause distress or dysphoria
I know, I know, I promised a post about orientalism in my previous post. But as I'm dealing with yet again another wave of pain, I cannot help but feel I have to speak about my experience.
Let's get this out of the way: the topic of menstruation can cause so much discomfort, particularly in conservative circles. However, as someone who 1) experienced much of this pain but was neglected for almost two decades, 2) almost went to medical school, I feel like it needs to be talked about. No, I do not have the medical experience as a doctor or an OBGYN, but I can at least speak from the perspective of someone who has a medical condition related to the uterus.
I come from what is considered a conservative community. Conservative to the point that contraceptives are believed to only be for family planning and are highly discouraged from being taken because "what if people think you're having extramarital sex?" (being the very reason why my health was neglected as a teenager). Even as an adult, I was discouraged from taking contraceptive pills because it would "reduce my ability to conceive".
I have always had agonisingly painful menses. I was turning 11, and was on a flight to Africa when my menarche arrived. My puberty involved having to move across the world from my friends, experience culture shock of being in an English-speaking school, and becoming a "woman". What helped was that "Puberty" itself was a significant part of the curriculum, which included sex education. It meant that I learned about the many ways to deal with menstruation, contraceptives, and well, the changes experienced by the body during puberty at the time I was also experiencing major transitions of my life. Needless to say, my time in Africa were my formative years.
Though I learned so much, it wasn't that I could do anything. We were stuck in an expatriate compound, and for that while, no one suggested I should go to the clinic. My pain was considered "normal" as a part of someone who menstruates, and I simply had to "deal with it".
But my experience was so unbearable, I couldn't tell if I passed out because I fell asleep after enduring the pain, or that I simply passed out from the pain itself. It made me so terribly moody. And it didn't help that I was bleeding all over everything, no matter how I layered my pads, no matter how thick or long my pads were. I was making a mess out of everything I slept on.
This happened for many years, leading to various embarrassing situations: having to loan a shirt from school to tie around my waist, washing a senior's mattress because I fainted on her bed or my roommates witnessing a blood clot slip out of my pants on my way to the bathroom. All of these, I thought, were simply my personal failure of being unable to contain my menstruation symptoms.
I was told I needed to get married and then get pregnant, so the pain will end. I begged my parents to get myself diagnosed for whatever the problem was, maybe get contraceptives so I could manage these symptoms, but.
When I started living alone, I took the liberty of sleeping in on days they were too bad I could not drive myself to my classes. And even when I started working, I'd take the first day of my menstruation off, and I was told by my employer that my biggest flaw is "being a woman".
It wasn't until early 2022 when it was so unbearable, after I had worn off contraceptives (from having taken it during my marriage until 2020), I was finally referred to a hospital. The doctor asked me why I hadn't been diagnosed with a condition related to the uterus, and she was surprised to find out that I had been neglected throughout the years and the only diagnosis I received throughout the years was anaemia.
Through the ultrasound I was able to see that for my size, my uterus was rather large, and thus inflamed and so was my left ovary. My doctor gave me a preliminary diagnosis of pelvic inflammation and endometriosis prior to the laparoscopic surgery.
After the deepest and best sleep of my entire life, I woke up to the answer: adenomyosis causing my pelvic inflammation syndrome. The tendrils of blood and a nest of endometrial lining formed at the bottom of my uterus, towards the cervix. Due to its delicate location, adenomyomectomy would be near impossible.
There were two treatments: hysterectomy, or simulating a perimenopause or pregnancy for my body via hormone suppression. I requested the latter, and for nine months, I did not experience menstruation, but I did experience various physical changes: hot flashes being the most prominent, to the point of waking me up in the night and finding it hard to breathe. I also experienced the lack of "gender assurance", neither here nor there, solidifying my gender identity of being fluid, though it felt more towards "non-existent" at that point in time (and has since returned to fluidity).
Following the treatment, I have been prescribed "contraceptives until trying to conceive". Finally having what I desperately begged for as a teenager.
Which brings us to today.
Though I take contraceptives regularly, the pain is still very much present, yet significantly more bearable. One can argue that the only reason why it is bearable right now is because of how much I had to endure before, and I still prefer to say indoors on these days. The blood exiting my body is still uncomfortable, but at least they aren't blood clots. I no longer bleed over everything I sit or lie on, but it happens at times when I don't expect it to.
I didn't have the time nor the thought to notice this before, but even with the assistance of contraceptives, I experience not just PMS, but the more severe sister, PMDD, which exhibits similar symptoms to BPD.
As I'm writing this I realise just how many opportunities there are to neglect a woman's health. If mine had been neglected for nearly two decades of embarrassment and pain, I can imagine how many other women have truly believed that being pregnant would help their symptoms only to suffer from other symptoms that are considered "normal". It's why I wanted to write this piece anyway, no matter how it will incriminate me as a person.
The uterus is a severely overlooked organ, especially as an organ that is considered important for birthing the population.