Raising awareness through art

[little-m]

Hello ladies

I know that March is awareness month and it is likely to be upon us very very soon. As a budding illustrator I was wondering if you've got a wee moment to reply with a quote that you find inspiring, or perhaps the best way you could describe your pain to another person, i.e. "It feels like....." and at some point when I have collected from various women in a range of locations my plan is to document these analogies and quotes,ideas etc in some form of art. Any names given will not be used, don't worry about that. At the moment this is starting as more of a private project but depending on response and how well I am doing with it I may try to get it out in the open.

Anyway, any inspirational input is much appreciated, a project on my own situation alone would be pretty dull and not make much noise for endo!

Best wishes x

[Amb43]

Fantastic idea!! I have one word at the moment - despair

Good luck with your project, keep us in the loop xx

[jojo777]

Great!...

It feels like....a never ending battle

Keep us informed xx

[jojo777 in reply to jojo777]

or it feels like a bad dream..and no one is there to wake me up! :/

[little-m]

Thanks so far ladies, so helpful! Any metaphors? I've just read a post by endo-writer, who says "[It is like] and invisible leopard.. tearing out strips of flesh" and "two large millstones slowly grinding my stomach between them". Can anyone suggest any more?x

[jojo777 in reply to little-m]

Cant think of something right now, except that is like a tasmanian devil, destroying everything inside and the outside still looks ok! lol xx

[Duckybun]

Hey there, I first time my husband actually asked what it felt like, the only way I could describe it was that it felt like some one had carved my insides up and then was stirring my guts with a huge wooden spoon really slowly

X

[Nikki4]

I haven't a pain related quote at the min but something

That really gets to me is when people say to me " but you don't look I'll"........ Never fails to get to me xxxx

[maydog]

I once was dreaming I was in a lift and knives were coming at me through the walls . The pain was excruciating. I thought I was dying. I woke up and realised the pain was real and my period had started. That terror of the dream has never left me.

[memyselfi]

I haven't got a coherent quote for you, but if I get my pain meds wrong or run out and then have a period then I experience the pain as colours.

It's hard to describe but as it gets worse and worse the real world recedes and there is nothing but me and the pain and then I feel that I lose me as well and there is only pain. The world is pain, the universe is pain, I am the pain and the pain is me and we just flow and recede and swell and crash and it is all in pulsing colours. Hot reds and oranges and intense deep dark purpleblueblack and stabby acid yellow.

Sometimes I try to find a bit that doesn't hurt, my left elbow perhaps, and hang on to that as a little cool green island but it's impossible to stay there, I just get carried away again. Each breath hurts, but you have to breathe; each movement hurts but you have to rock and twist with the pain, there's no rest, no respite.

Don't think that's the sort of thing you were after, but it is interesting how we perceive pain isn't it? When the docs ask me to rate it from one to ten I could scream. They clearly don't understand how complex pain is. It isn't tidy and linear, it can't be counted.

How can I possibly put on a scale of one to ten the grinding grey of everyday endo which flattens everything and puts an old, thick, cobwebby veil between me and everyone else in the world?

For example, there is a social group I go to and someone there said I was creating an atmosphere when my pain was bad and that I shouldn't go along if I am not well enough to be cheerful. How can you rate the impact of that kind of reaction to your pain on a scale of one to ten?

Endo isolates me from my husband (can't bear to be touched) from my friends (don't feel well enough to meet up today. Again.) from my family ("It's just period pain, every woman has to cope with it. I don't have time to be ill like you do, I've got kids to look after unlike you...")

There. Glad I got that off my chest. Good luck with the project, sounds like a great idea.

[Duckybun in reply to memyselfi]

Me myselfi,

Your said so much better what I just have never been able to express, I'm sending your response to my husband as I've just never been able to let him in to what it's really like and how it really affects me. Thankyou so muh for sharing your words

Hugs xx

[memyselfi in reply to Duckybun]

It's so hard, isn't it? The nearest I think a man would experience would be the pain of really bad diarrhoea and how it feels when you bang a funny bone, mix the two up inside and then have it last for days. Oh and be expected to go to work, do the shopping, do the cleaning and everything else without even mentioning it.

[missteal]

This is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago.....

I am not supposed to be here,

I don't know why I am,

I didn't mean to hurt you,

Get help, the best you can.

You think of me, in bed at night,

As you fall to sleep,

I'm with you in the morning too,

To get you on your feet.

I made you need the doctors help,

At first they didn't listen,

They sent you for all sorts of tests,

And you, I'd really bitten.

They operated and gave you drugs,

To try to make me leave,

Don't worry girlie, I'll be back

You and I, we interweave.

It's me again, it's been a while,

I know you didn't miss me,

I am Endometriosis

Lets begin again shall we??

Kat x

[Juleyanne]

Endometriosis ' A prison with no door' - a life wrecker with no cure - a cry for help that goes unanswered - Living with this pain is terrifying and lonely - a cruel gremlin that manifests, intensifies and stubbornly refuses to leave you be - Only sufferers understand.