what is realistic for me?

[amnotreal]

I keep seeing the word "recovery" and I stare at it and I feel really hopeless and confused. I want recovery though. I want to want to be alive or at least be neutral. I want to be able to live and be alive. for people with chronic illness and pain what does recovery mean?

I am right now basically looking for a surgeon and going to have surgery basically as soon as whichever doctor I pick can schedule me to diagnose if I have endometriosis and do excision if I have it. I found this forum before I think I realized I had a real physical illness cuz I have had so much medical gasliughting from family and to a lesser degree from doctors in my life I was blaming it all on mental health and therapists an d my spouse and friends have all been saying for years the physical health stuff is true and i just didn't understand until i came across endometriosis and then my spouse read about it and i have had these symptoms for like 27 years i guess. filling out forms i keep having to do the math. i am really afraid. i think what i am afraid of is i am getting sicker and sicker and just in this waiting to see if a doctor can help me so that i can recover in some way and i don't even know what recovery means at this point.

before my meds kicked in all i could think about was ctb but knowing not to be impulsive and not having stuff and just thinking about here and i just keep being afraid to hope for health or improvment and being afraid to be anything but very pessimistic.

 

[Cevapcici]

Well, therapists and psychiatrists often tend to minimise the possible physical underlying causes of mental health symptoms. And doctors also spit the good old mantra of " it's all in your head, you're too stressed out" , " you're too sensitive " at literally everyone, and endometriosis is one of those illnesses that get the most undiagnosed. So props to you for reaching out and trying to get a diagnosis, having mental health issues should not be an excuse for physical issues to be minimised and swept under the rug .

 

[amnotreal]

the funny thing is my therapist has been telling me for like 4 or 5 years maybe longer that i have a real chronic health condition that needs to be diagnosed and treated. but he has seen me collapse inn therapy from pain and fatigue and stuff so he has seen how bad the symptoms are. I am autistic and have DID and C-PTSD which have made communicating with doctors really difficult and also the stuff that caused the DID and C-PTSD also kinda taught me to minimize physical pain. doctors see anxiety and focus on mental illness but then i get more anxious because i feel so bad physically a lot of the time and then they say to lower my stress and pain and fatigue are stressing me out because of how much they limit me.

i get really really afraid of surgery. i have a lot of medical anxiety. i really hope the surgeon i am going to will be able to help me. he is considered a really good surgeon and an expert and can remove endometriosis from more difficult areas.

 

[exhausted]

From what I have heard about endo, excision can really help. I feel like if you go along with that surgery and you are still experiencing symptoms associated with endometriosis but they got most of the tissue, maybe have a think then.