Endometriosis and Your Mental Health
Living with endometriosis is challenging. This disease affects a woman’s daily functioning and interferes with almost every area of her life.
Endometriosis is chronic and often those who have it suffer from chronic pelvic pain. It affects your mental health and reduces your quality of life. Many women dealing with endometriosis must also deal with the depression, anxiety, and powerlessness caused by it.
Endometriosis can cause deep frustration for the person suffering with it. You feel like your body is not under your control, and like it is working against you. When endometriosis causes infertility, these issues can become more complex (see our blog on the trauma of infertility here).
How Does Endometriosis Make You Feel?
It is hard to explain endometriosis to someone. How can anyone understand the breadth and depth of the effects of it on your life? The symptoms are so many, affect so many aspects of your body, and the experience of them varies from person to person. It can be arduous to frequently inform your place of work or school why you cannot come, or why you need to leave early. People often do not see why you cannot just ‘take something for the pain’ and carry on.
Additionally, talking about your endometriosis would also involve some mention of your reproductive system, cramps, and pelvic pain. This is not something that all of us are comfortable with or open enough to talk about. There is also a slight fear that this behemoth that we struggle with daily will be written off as ‘typical women’s issues.’
Physical symptoms of endometriosis include (but are not limited to):
Endometriosis affects digestion. People with endometriosis can have food sensitivities, like gluten, as well as indigestion, bloating and gas. It also causes trouble with bowel movements, constipation, and diarrhea.
Allergies and other autoimmune issues can also present in women who have endometriosis.
It causes fatigue, headaches, nausea and body aches.
The chronic pelvic pain gets worse every month when you menstruate.
Back pain, which can radiate down through the legs.
Bleeding between periods, which is uncomfortable, inconvenient, and worrisome.
Mental Symptoms Caused by Endometriosis Include:
This list is not exhaustive. Endometriosis presents in different ways in different people. It is an unpredictable disease, which rarely allows the sufferer a day free from symptoms.
Mood swings and severe premenstrual syndrome.
Dealing with a chronic illness like endometriosis results in stress, irritability, and disturbed sleep. You are constantly worrying about what additional ways it will manifest in your body. You feel uncertainty around socializing, travel, and commitments. It can also lead to feelings of isolation as you are less able to socialize.
As a chronic, life-altering condition, endometriosis may result in medical trauma. The prolonged stress of living with pain, various medical treatments, and the impact of the condition on overall quality of life (e.g., work, social life, finances) can all contribute to medical trauma. [1]
The treatment of endometriosis can be painful and frightening. It can involve invasive surgery, hormone injections, or medication. Treating endometriosis can be a hit and miss experience as certain modes of treatment may not work on you. Different mixes of hormones, medications, or a combination of these things and surgery may be required. You may feel like you are not getting anywhere with symptom management. Everything seems like a temporary fix, but nothing helps in a sustained way. You may spend years being misdiagnosed by doctors. Your symptoms are often dismissed, as is your pain.
The frustrations of repeatedly asking for help from your medical team and being denied, shamed, and sometimes blamed for pain can lead to depression, self-doubt, and shame. The delay in diagnosing endometriosis often results in people suffering without explanation of their pain. They are told that their pain is “in their head,” or that endometriosis doesn’t cause the symptoms they are experiencing. On average, it still takes more than 7 years to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis. This does not include the time it takes obtain a consult with an expert and receive treatment. [2]
Endometriosis and Your Sex Life
If you are in a relationship, endometriosis can impact it and negatively affect the level of intimacy you have as a couple.
Due to the nature of this disease, sexual intercourse can be a rather painful and unpleasant experience. It can also cause you to have decreased libido. When you anticipate pain and discomfort, sexual arousal becomes difficult to achieve. You may have increased anxiety before and during intercourse. Some women feel less and less interested in sex because of the fatigue, pain, and depression that is caused by endometriosis.
Endometriosis related weight gain can contribute to anxiety around sex. Other impediments to intimacy are body images issues. Along with weight gain, these can also develop due to bloating, bladder and bowel problems, and the general unease caused by endometriosis.
Bleeding between periods may also add to intimacy-related issues. Women may find themselves having to choose between bearing painful, uncomfortable sex and no intimacy with their partner at all.
Additionally, the partner of someone with endometriosis may become hesitant to engage in sexual intercourse. This could be due to lack of confusion about the disease, or the fear of causing their partner physical pain.
Endometriosis in Teenage Girls
Adolescent women can also develop endometriosis. A diagnosis in teenagers is delayed as the possibility of endometriosis being the problem is often overlooked. Menstrual pain in teenage girls is often attributed to just that - menstrual pain, and nothing more. Teens may be reluctant to talk about their painful menstrual symptoms. They may also not be aware that anything is wrong, and believe that what they struggle with is normal menstruation.
The disease can be as disruptive and distressing for an adolescent as it is for an adult. Young women may miss school, be less productive, have trouble motivating themselves in their academics, and be unable to perform well in sports. The mental anguish of having a disease that is unseen, misunderstood, and often undiagnosed can be considerable. They may not be able to communicate their various symptoms nor understand the connections between them.
For teenage girls, endometriosis is isolating and can also lead to withdrawal, depression, anxiety, and social anxiety. If a diagnosis of endometriosis is made, processing the life-altering nature of a chronic disease can be very challenging. Having to consider the possible consequence of infertility is something that many teenage women find difficult.
Teenage girls would benefit from the support of mental health counseling to guide and help them.
What is Living with Endometriosis Like?
Here are some responses received on a survey the Citizen Endo group conducted about what living with endometriosis is like: [3]
“It has ruled (and ruined) my life since I was 13. I’m 30 now and feel like I’ve had no life.”
“At 32, I have exhausted the treatments available. Endo has taken my social life, sex life, and I have to struggle to work. Now it has taken my ability to have children… I feel like endo has taken my identity.”
“Although I’ve had the pains since I was 12 so severe sometimes I can’t function, I wasn’t officially diagnosed until 13 years ago. It’s been a very frustrating and long drawn out experience. Because of all the variables in symptoms from person to person as well as so little known about this it makes it very hard to manage and get someone to really listen.”
“I don’t know a lot about my disease because I don’t have a great doctor and I don’t think my family sees the severity of my condition. I feel alone and lost. I’m not sure where to even learn about the disease.”
As seen in the above quotes, endometriosis is an insidious disease. It takes away years of potential and a life well-lived from those who suffer from it. The effects of this on a women’s mental health cannot be underestimated.
Getting Support
The support of mental health services can be helpful to someone living with endometriosis. This is not only because of the associated mental health conditions, but also because of the way endometriosis interferes with every area of a woman’s life. And not only does it affect the person diagnosed with it, but it also negatively impacts their partner and/or children.
This chronic disease is also distressing because there is no definite cure. Therapy can help you cope with the frustration, challenges and possible medical trauma you face as a result of a chronic illness. Due to the fact that endometriosis can affect fertility, IVF/Fertility counseling may also help.
Trust Mental Health has therapists from diverse backgrounds that speak multiple languages. They are experienced in depression therapy, anxiety therapy, and many other treatments. If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out to us for a free 15 minute consultation.
FAQs
-
Anxiety therapy will give you the tools and skills that will enable you to cope and better manage your daily life. It will teach you to recognize what triggers your anxiety, and what to do when you are in the midst of an anxiety attack or episode. In time, you will build up your self-confidence and become more open to experiences in your life.
-
Anxiety therapy and your treatment will vary depending on your specific symptoms and their severity. Trust Mental Health therapists often use techniques such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help treat anxiety. This allows patients to recognize negative thinking patterns, challenge them, and replace them with realistic thoughts.
-
Anxiety and depression are mental health struggles that are often linked. Coping with anxiety and depression can be quite difficult. Here at Trust Mental Health, we have therapists that specialize in both anxiety therapy and depression therapy. We will ensure that you are matched with a therapist that is suited to your specific needs.
REFERENCES:
[1] https://nancysnookendo.com
[2] https://nancysnookendo.com
[3] https://citizen-endo.medium.com