Living with Endometriosis

CONVERSATIONS With Friends – the new Sally Rooney BBC adaptation – has certainly got people talking. It’s central character Frances, played by Alison Oliver, has endometriosis – and depictions of the condition in literary fiction and TV dramas are rare. In fact, despite being relatively common, affecting around 10-15% of women of reproductive age and 30-50% of women in general, endometriosis suffers from a severe lack of awareness in general.

AWARENESS IS VITAL

Many women wait years to get a diagnosis and help for endometriosis, with symptoms often dismissed as ‘just bad periods’. It causes tissue similar to the lining of the womb to develop outside the uterus, which grows and bleeds with each menstrual cycle – leading to scarring, adhesions, ‘chocolate’ blood-filled cysts, and symptoms including pelvic pain, heavy periods, pain during sex, infertility, plus bowel and urinary problems.

In Conversations With Friends, the producers have opted to show Frances’ experiences with a notable lack of squeamishness – we see her crouch on the floor with painkillers, faint in the street, be rushed to hospital with a suspected miscarriage, and struggle with how endometriosis could impact her long-term fertility – which even leads her to end a relationship she values.

A REALISTIC DEPICTION

The pain Frances experiences is etched onto her face; we see her discomfort when her partner, Nick, tells her how much he wants a child, and her panic as she calls to her mother whilst bleeding and vomiting in the bathroom. None of it is minimised.

As with many gynaecological health issues, it can feel difficult to openly discuss how endometriosis affects you, which is why depictions like this are so important.

Often, endometriosis is only picked up when women are struggling to conceive, and keyhole surgery is currently the only means of a definitive diagnosis.

HIDDEN STRUGGLES

Chloe Smith, a 25-year-old SEO manager from Reading, who also has endometriosis, says seeing Frances grapple with the condition is “empowering, because symptoms like that are ones we often hide, even from people we are closest with.

“Seeing Frances on the floor in the bathroom in episode one, even before endometriosis is mentioned, resonated with me, because I’ve been in that situation so many times,” Smith adds.

Speaking up can sometimes feel like oversharing, or even shameful. Having these conversations may be uncomfortable, but they also help to destigmatise the condition, and ultimately show that help is out there.