My name is Mallie Mims, and I am 26 years old. However, my journey with endometriosis didn’t begin at 26—it started when I was an 18-year-old senior in high school.

The first time I went to the emergency room for pain, I knew nothing about cysts, endometriosis, or, to be quite honest, women’s healthcare in general. I spent half the school day curled up in a ball on the floor behind my favorite teacher’s desk. Eventually, I admitted to my mom that I needed to go to the ER. She picked me up, and that day I unknowingly experienced my first memory of medical gaslighting.

The male doctor who saw me did a few scans and confidently told my mom and me, “You just need to poop. Go home and eat some fiber. Maybe try some MiraLax.” I felt embarrassed, dramatic, and a little ashamed for taking up space in the ER when the solution was supposedly so simple. I remember telling him that I didn’t think that was the issue, but he sent us home anyway—even though both my mom and I had a gut feeling that he was wrong. But who were we to question a doctor? Surely, he knew best.

A few weeks later, I got sick (unrelated to the prior pain), and during that visit to my primary care doctor—who I now see as a blessing—my mom offhandedly mentioned what had happened at the ER. The doctor looked at us strangely and asked, “Explain the pain to me again. Show me where it was.” I did, and she immediately said, “It sounds to me like you had ovarian cysts that ruptured.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but that moment would change everything.

I started getting cysts more often, and they usually landed me back in the ER, often with high fevers. No doctor could really explain this except to say, “Maybe it’s just your body doing everything it can to fight back.”

I went to college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where I had access to a lot of excellent doctors. At 19, I was put on birth control in hopes of stopping the cysts. It worked, for the most part, although I had to try several types before finding one with manageable side effects.

But then I began to notice a different kind of pain—an “always there” pain. Some days it was sharper and more intense, but there was always a dull ache, no matter what I did. Eventually, my OBGYN asked if I had ever heard of endometriosis. I hadn’t. It’s funny to think about now because I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t in pain or when my life didn’t revolve around endo.

At 20, we decided to move forward with a laparoscopy. My doctor said she usually avoided operating on someone so young but told me she trusted me—I knew my body. My first surgery was in November 2019. When she spoke to my mom while I was in recovery, she said she was glad we went through with it. She had removed a lot and expected I would need another surgery in a few years, as it would likely grow back.

I woke up and immediately asked if she found anything. When I was told she had, I cried like a baby. I wasn’t crazy. My pain was real, and it had a name.

Over the next four years, my pain slowly returned—this time with constant bleeding. In March 2023, I started my period... and it never ended.

By this point, I had moved and started seeing a new OBGYN. (I’ll always be grateful for my first OB—for believing me and being determined to figure out what was wrong.) Together, my new doctor and I decided it was time for another surgery. My pain was once again unmanageable, and the nonstop bleeding made it unbearable. Almost exactly four years after my first surgery, I had my second. This time, they found that my insides were practically glued together with scar tissue, and we began to suspect adenomyosis as an additional source of pain.

Now, almost two years after that second surgery and the adenomyosis diagnosis, I live every day in pain. The bleeding still hasn’t stopped for longer than a few occasional weeks in over two and a half years. I now take iron pills because the blood loss left me borderline anemic.

I’ve since moved to Florida, where I work multiple jobs and am a full-time graduate student at the University of West Florida. I've found a supportive community here, but it’s hard to explain how much my life revolves around this invisible illness—especially to others in their twenties who are leading healthy, “normal” lives.

I am desperate for relief. I can’t keep living like this.

Some days, I mask the pain well. I show up for work, for school, for my friends, and for my niece—doing the fun things and being present. No one would know I’m bleeding constantly or that my baseline pain on a good day would be a 5 or 6 for a healthy person.

Other days, the mask is harder to keep on. The bleeding is heavier, the pain more intense, and my energy completely depleted. On those days, the pain would be a 9 or 10 for anyone else. Still, I push through.

Then there are the days when I can’t push through. I can’t lift the mask. I can't get out of bed. I have to cancel plans or let down my niece because I simply can’t function. Pain like this would send most people to the hospital—but I just lay there. I can’t keep faking my way through life like this.

Now, at 26, I’m just a month and a half away from my third surgery—my first excision. I’m nervous. What if it doesn’t help? What if they don’t find anything? What if my pain isn’t real?

But I also feel like I’m finally approaching the light at the end of the tunnel. I know excision isn’t a cure, but I’m praying it gives me more time—time with less pain, time to function, and time to live like a semi-normal person again.