Part 7 — When Surviving Became Easier Than Seeking Help
For most of my life, pain was the enemy.
Then one day, it wasn’t.
It became the routine.
The predictable.
The part of my life I understood better than my own reflection.
After years of bleeding, medical gaslighting, and procedures that promised relief but delivered trauma, something inside me shifted. Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like a light that burned out without anyone noticing.
I didn’t stop hurting.
I stopped fighting.
The Slow Erosion of Belief
People imagine giving up as a single moment — a slammed door, a tearful breakdown, a declaration of defeat.
But giving up doesn’t arrive in a burst.
It creeps in through:
The appointment you cancel because you “don’t have the energy”
The symptom you ignore because you’ve explained it a hundred times
The voice in your head whispering, No one will believe you anyway
Giving up wasn’t a choice I made once.
It was a thousand tiny moments where I stopped believing I was worth the trouble.
I wasn’t weak.
I was wounded.
Pain Became Predictable. Hope Didn’t.
My uterus was still a battlefield — but now it was a managed battlefield.
After the ablation failed, the only thing keeping the bleeding at bay was a combination of Nexplanon and progesterone. They didn’t heal anything. They didn’t fix anything. They simply kept the floodgates closed.
My uterus felt heavy, like it was holding its breath — waiting.
I lived with a constant, simmering fear:
If the progesterone ever stopped, my body would unleash hell.
Sometimes insurance took its sweet time approving refills. I’d call the pharmacy, pacing, checking my phone for any missed messages, watching the clock. My pain would ramp up like a warning siren:
Tick.
Tock.
Your uterus is getting ready.
If that pill didn’t arrive soon, I knew what awaited me:
Another ER trip no one would take seriously.
Another round of people shrugging at the trauma inside my body.
When the refill finally got approved — sometimes at the last second — I could almost feel my uterus sigh in relief. The pain would back down, not disappear, but return to my new “normal.”
A normal built out of fear.
A normal where survival wasn’t a life —it was a strategy.
Life Didn’t Stop — I Just Did
From the outside, I probably looked fine.
I laughed.
I worked.
I existed.
But that wasn’t living. That was surviving.
I wasn’t making choices — I was avoiding disaster. My days were dictated by insurance authorizations, pharmacy hours, and dosage schedules. My worth was measured in whether a refill came on time.
I didn’t dare hope for more.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope meant opening the door to more disappointment — another doctor, another dismissal, another scar I didn’t have room for.
Pain was terrible.
But hope hurt worse.
Looking Back Now
I didn’t understand it then, but I was grieving:
The body I should have had
The future I deserved
The belief that doctors help the wounded
Survival wasn’t resilience.
But sometimes surrender isn’t the end.
Sometimes it’s what keeps you alive long enough for the story to change.
I didn’t know it yet — but mine was about to.