I was twelve years old when I had my first period. Generally speaking, I was somewhere right in the middle of maturity; I wasn’t an early-bloomer nor was I “late” to the woman party. What I do remember is that I was utterly terrified and confused by the concept of tampons, but that’s another story for another time (spoiler alert: I figured it out on the bathroom floor of my dad’s house, twenty minutes before a friend’s pool party). Shortly after my welcoming to womanhood, I began experiencing what only could be best described as premature death each time my period began.

I remember it well; I was sitting in my 7th grade political science class, swaying in and out of consciousness (or perhaps it was the delirium of pain), and physically feeling the color drain from my face. I asked to go to the bathroom, but the pain was so crippling that I only made it to the hallway before collapsing. Within seconds, I was covered in sweat and in a ball on the floor.

I was taken to the nurse’s office and began throwing up profusely. It was the first day of my period.

Over the next few years, I spent multiple “first days” at either the doctor’s office (pediatrician—I was a child, after all) or home sick from school. What concerns me is that during these violently ill episodes at my doctor’s office, where I would receive a shot in each thigh and wait a few minutes for the pain to subside, it was never once suggested for me to look further into what was going on with a gynecologist. I suffered through this cycle (pun intended) for another year before being suggested to begin birth control.

I was thirteen.

Naturally, my very conservative mother was uncomfortable with the idea of me taking a contraceptive, but she quickly caved as I tried my best to convince her I was only after wanted relief and not sexual freedom.

I wavered in my consistency with taking the pill over the next few years with my best excuse being that I was simply an unreliable teenager. Can we all take a moment to be thankful for the advances made in safe birth control methods these days? Because remembering to take a pill each day at the same minute of the same hour just is not in my DNA. It’s not who I am. It’s not who I ever will be. The inconsistencies led to an even more imbalanced hormonal level and some really sporadic cycles.

At this time, my only real diagnosis was dysmenorrhea which is really just a fancy (see also: grotesque) word for a painful period. Another shot to the leg and ibuprofen prescription in tow, I was released back into the world to “deal with the pain” accordingly.

It wasn’t until I was nineteen that I was finally taken seriously about my symptoms. I was sexually active and paying my due diligence to myself by maintaining my yearly check-ins with my gynecologist. This was the first time that anyone had addressed with me the possibility of having endometriosis, and my only option to getting definitive answers was surgery.

I was nervous because at that time my biggest medical woe in life had been a broken toe or two from my gymnastics days. But nerves aside, I was eager to go through with the procedure because I needed to know if this debilitating pain that had plagued my youth was as real as I had believed it to be; I needed to feel validated in my process.

There is no true diagnosis until surgery is performed, and once I had awoken from what I like to refer to as “my ovarian makeover”, the validation I needed finally came. With the diagnosis came some very heavy realizations regarding my reproductive system and its uncertainty of functionality.

With those heavy realizations came an even heavier one: a month and a half later, I was pregnant with my (now) 8-year-old daughter.

In 2013, I had my second surgery to address the endometriosis and the tissue that continues to grow outside of my uterus. I REPEAT—there is rogue and rebellious tissue growing where it damn well pleases and causing lesions and inflammation.

As I’ve grown as a woman and mother, I’ve become more diligent in listening to my body and its and symptoms and simultaneously becoming more of an advocate for this disorder. Some of its symptoms include extremely painful periods and pain during intercourse, heavy and/or long periods, fatigue, and in many cases, infertility.

The stigma that surrounds this disorder carries a hurtful suggestion that our response to our body is an overreaction, and its time shut that shit all the way down. Endometriosis is referred to as the “invisible illness”, which creates so many layers of disbelief among people who do not suffer from this illness.

It’s time we acknowledge women for who and what they are, what they go through, and taking their word at face value. I stand in solidarity with my endo sisters around the world.

The more you know, ya know?