Hi, my name’s Alix (“Hi, Alix”) and I have endometriosis.

I was diagnosed about 2 years ago but I’ve been experiencing symptoms since I was a freshman in high school. This is a tale not for the faint of heart about a war between my body and me.

Endometriosis is a condition where the lining of the uterus (the endometrium, the stuff that makes you bleed during a period) decides it isn’t content with doing its job properly and starts to grow places it shouldn’t. It can be found in your bowels, ovaries, bladder or any tissue in the pelvic area. It does, however, act as an endometrium should by shedding and bleeding all at once like having a period. Endometriosis doesn’t typically manifest until a woman is in her late 20s or early 30s.

Oh, and it’s really frickin’ painful.

Endometriosis has taken away a lot from me. I have an extremely high pain tolerance (my rib tattoo felt ticklish and my nose piercing made me sneeze), but endometriosis is so painful for me that I’ve had to miss class, work, family events, social outings, and holidays because I cannot get out of bed. I had to sacrifice a summer of working and making money for surgery. I’ve tried several birth control and hormone regimens to try to tame my wild uterus. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on medications, herbal remedies, and healers.

I’ve had to explain to guys I genuinely wanted to be with that intimacy and a physical relationship isn’t an option, which, sadly, turns them away.

I had always been very comfortable with my female sexuality. I loved my body. I loved looking in the mirror. I loved knowing that I was happy and healthy. I felt very connected with my physical sex and gender. My body was a reflection of my identity, not just a sack of skin and bones I live in. I was the definition of cisgender. Learning that one of my most integral parts of physically being a woman was failing felt like I was letting myself down.

My body was saying to me “Yeah it’s great that you feel connected to me and I make you feel like a woman, but that’s going to end." I was losing my femininity.

I started dressing less feminine. I still wore makeup comfortably, but I switched from tight tank tops to baggy men’s t-shirts. My leggings and yoga pants turned into athletic shorts. I stopped doing my hair and decided to cut it off. I stopped wearing dresses. I stopped talking to guys. I stopped trying to make myself feel like a woman outside because I couldn’t feel anything but further from it inside. I stopped being friends with girls. I’ve always been into sports, whiskey and beer rather than shopping, wine, and sleepovers, but I pushed myself away from the people who balanced me out.

It took me about a year to come to terms with the fact that I may never have children and will be on hormone supplements until I decide to medically induce menopause. I’ll need to be on pain medication to engage in any intimate activities, most likely. I’ll never have a regular menstrual cycle.

I can cope with all of that, but the hardest part has been my womanhood. It’s hard not to feel like a lesser woman when you feel so physically connected to the biological parts of yourself.

If my hips and butt make me feel beautiful, then why does what’s in between them make me feel so ugly?

Why can’t I do the one thing that my body is engineered to do: bring a life into the world?

Why do I wake up every morning with excruciating pain because my body is rejecting itself?

After some counseling, a great support system, a year of attending the best university (GO NOLES) and learning to find myself, I started to realize that endometriosis can’t define me.

I can still be as feminine or masculine as I want with or without a functioning uterus. I’ve had procedures come up negative with no signs of endometriosis and I’ve had physicians take pictures of the tissue because it is a medical phenomenon that at only 10, I’ve conjured up such a mess.

Regardless of what has and hasn’t been found, I’m still me. I can be beautiful inside and out no matter what. I’m still a young woman with ambition and drive. I have great taste in music, dance moves, and tequila. I’m a macaroni and cheese connoisseur and a professional political debater. I make a hell of an Irish car bomb and chug it like it’s my day job (only in countries where it is legal, of course, shout out to The Bahamas, Canada and France).

I am a woman because I want to be, not because I have an organ inside of me. I don’t give a frickle frack of what endometriosis wants to do to me because it cannot get in the way of my dreams.

Sorry, endo, you’re going to lose this one.