Mental Health

Within the South Asian community the topic of mental health is considered to be taboo as it is considered to be a shameful thing for a person to have and so people are reluctant to speak up about their mental health. There were so many times I would be told not to say anything to anyone, or I would constantly be told ‘you’re just a kid, you have a great life you don’t have anything to be sad about’. In the world mental health is estimated to affect at least 10% of the population. Having mental health issues alongside endometriosis has been a struggle and continues to be a struggle. However, getting the help and support I needed has allowed me to manage and cope with my mental health disorders.

 I personally have suffered with mental health issues such as major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) throughout my teens and into my adult life. As a teenager I knew that the emotions I felt wasn’t how I should be feeling, I was hardly sleeping, I felt restless, I would cry all the time and sometimes literally at nothing, I lost all motivation for anything, I had the worst nightmares and sleep paralysis that would leave me in hysterics, I would self-harm, I had suicidal thoughts and attempted to take my own life. After all this I realised that hiding how I felt was only going to make me worse. With the support of my friends I took myself to the doctors, and that’s when I got diagnosed after opening up to them about how I felt and completing questionnaires.

The pain from endometriosis makes me feel as if my body is against me and I am having to fight it every step of the way when in reality I am so tired of fighting it. Having depression alongside endometriosis in some aspects has heightened my emotions and I guess has made my depression worse. It has been found that those with a chronic illness are 15% – 20% more likely to be depressed than those without one. As endometriosis has no cure, it mainly relies on different forms of contraception to treat the symptoms. I discovered that certain types of contraception were detrimental on my mental health, especially the progesterone only pill as it made my depression worse and led to increased suicidal thoughts. With PTSD, whenever I felt better within myself and my insomnia would improve, due to the pain from my endometriosis it would deteriorate again. The lack of sleep would trigger my general anxiety and my panic attacks would begin. Also, I experienced tremendous amounts of anxiety from all the years I did not have my endometriosis diagnosis as it was the unknown back then and doctors could not figure out why I experienced all the pain I did. However, after finding contraception and antidepressants that were right for me and attending counselling, I slowly began to feel like myself. I also set myself goals and tasks each day to support myself even if it is just something so small like actually getting out of bed. Also, taking part in general wellness like yoga and eating right has really helped and improved my mental health for the better.

I feel so grateful and thankful that endometriosis and my mental health doesn’t define who I am as person and that I have all the support needed from my family and friends.