The Day There Was a Before and an After
There have been many new chapters in my life. The one when I first left home at 18 to study in a different city. The one when I moved to the UK, thinking I'd do an internship for a couple of months, and ended up staying three years. The one when I came back to my hometown. The one when I quit my job to start my own business. The one when I got my dog. The one when I met my partner. The one when I moved again to another country.
But there's only one that split my life into a real before and after : one where there is no going back to who I was before. That was the day I got diagnosed with endometriosis.
Before the diagnosis
I cannot say I have a complicated history of pain during my periods, because for many years I was on the pill. When I switched to a coil, the week before my period had become rough: lower back pain, digestion issues — symptoms I thought were related to the coil. I never once thought about endometriosis.
Yet, at the end of 2025, I knew something wasn't sitting right in my body. Some kind of intuition told me it was time to understand what was going on, and to actually listen to what my body was telling me.
Having just moved to Germany that summer, I was still finding my way around a new healthcare system, still looking for the right professionals to follow my health. So I did what felt safest first: I booked an appointment with my gynecologist back in France and raised my concerns.
And like so many women who have tried to explain their pain to a doctor, I was ignored. I was told it was normal to be in pain, and that I shouldn't assume I had endometriosis just because it had become a "fashionable" health topic.
I didn't want to give up. I booked another appointment, this time in Strasbourg. On February 17th, the diagnosis came almost quietly, after an ultrasound. Endometriosis, with ovarian endometriomas.
The moment everything shifted
In a strange way, it was a relief : I finally had a logical explanation for the pain I'd been carrying. But mostly, I remember walking out of that appointment feeling lonely, lost, and confused. The doctor was kind, took the time to explain things, but I still had a hundred questions circling in my head. Why me? Why my body? Why now?
Whether it's a chronic illness, cancer, a disability, or any condition that changes your body, there's a before and an after, a breach. And this breach reaches into your identity, the relationship you have with yourself, and with your body image.
Where I am now
Receiving this diagnosis brought a second layer of understanding, one that settled in more slowly. First came the shock of endometriosis itself. Then came the quieter, heavier realization: this is a chronic illness. This is something I will live with.
Like so many people, I had been misinformed: I thought it was simply "period-related." It took time to understand that so many symptoms I'd never explained were actually connected to it. And with that understanding came a new truth: my day-to-day life would now be shaped, at least in part, by whatever symptoms I was going through.
I'm still learning to live inside this after. And I think that's exactly what I want this space to be honest about: not a story of having it all figured out, but of learning, one day at a time, how to live with a body that changed without asking permission.
