My period started when I was 11. By the age of 14 I was put on the birth control pill. My high school years, besides going to classes, I spent a lot of time in the nurse’s office, writhing in pain.

This Black History Month, we reflect on how history has shaped the way women’s pain is understood — and why improving awareness, diagnosis, and care for endometriosis remains so important today.

Endometriosis pain doesn’t arrive gently. Sometimes it comes like a wave—sudden, violent, and impossible to escape. It pulls you under, releases you just long enough to breathe, and then crashes over you again. This is what many Endo warriors live through every month, in a cycle that breaks more than just the body.

What was supposed to be medical care nearly cost me my life. After being dismissed, misdiagnosed, and subjected to the wrong procedure.

For anyone who’s watched Stranger Things , you’ll remember that monstrous, creeping force—the one that reaches into every corner, every shadow, every part of a person’s life.

Endo is more than just "bad periods." I wish someone had told me how much it would affect my whole body, mind, and daily life.