Guts!

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  For the last five to six years, I have been living with the threat of constant debilitating pelvic pain looming over me. It has costed me jobs, friendships, and a lot of mental health. From the age of 17, suddenly every period I had was worse and worse in pain and symptoms. I’ve spent 5 years going to gynecologists trying to get a diagnosis for my pain. This summer, I had my first laparoscopic surgery in hopes of finding endometriosis tissue. I was terrified of the idea of being cut open and my stomach sifted through. I’d never had surgery before. Ultimately, they found nothing and I remain without a diagnosis. 

This piece is about my experience living with chronic pain, my fear about surgery, and also about how living with chronic pain affects the way you perceive sex, pain, and pleasure. Living with my chronic illness has completely changed the way I perceive my body, in some ways positive but in most ways, negative. So in part, this piece is also about reclaiming that.