The Story of My Discontent

When I was 18, my body went on strike. I became lethargic. Somehow, making it to my 11:15 A.M. Calculus class became impossible. I was just too tired. I got up around noon, made it to a course or two, took an afternoon nap, had some dinner and then played basketball in the evenings with my guy friends, outside in the Tennessee heat. Then I’d go to bed, and sleep 10 or 12 hours, waking up again exhausted.

I was constantly hungry. The bigger the meal, the sooner afterward I was starving. My middle grew mushy with extra weight that my athletic (but never petite) frame had not seen before. My acne grew worse than I had ever seen in my years in high school.

Suddenly, my periods became unpredictable. The punctuality my body had displayed since I was 11 years old (!) disappeared. My less than ample breasts stopped growing, defying my genetic heritage. I went to doctors, gynecologists, and others who told me I was likely just “stressed.” I protested. I was having the time of my life. I was pulling down A’s even if I did skip Calculus. I was just too tired to feel present.

The symptoms continued, and I noticed extra hairiness on my arms and face. And my luxurious curly hair seemed to be thinning and changing on me. Doctors dismissed me and my concerns. I failed to assert myself, being young and trusting in their care. Finally, my mother saw a special on the health channel on something called PCOS, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. A new doctor and some medical tests later, and the diagnosis was confirmed.

Since that time, my struggle with PCOS has been a struggle to hold onto my femininity, as this world has defined it. I am no hourglass, I’m an apple. Extra pounds gravitate to my body. My luxurious curly hair is no longer thick and often unattractive these days. I sweep piles of dark curly hair from my drain and the bathroom floor. Despite high quality treatment, my periods remain sporadic, and I spend many anxious moments worrying that miscarriages and infertility will delay my strong desire to carry a child, or many children. My friends have lithe bodies that they can still abuse, but my attempts to lose weight must be deliberate, slow, and frustrating.

On occasion, I am overwhelmed at the grief of the loss of my physically feminine self. I don’t get to appreciate the gentle curves of my body, the soft ringlets of my once thick hair wrapping around my face. I take two pills everyday and pay two hundred dollars a month that both remind me that I am deficient, inadequate, and possess few of the attributes of a woman as society tells me I should.

Yet, amidst all suffering, there is hope and a deepness of faith that develops. I am unbelievably grateful that medications manage my appetite, insulin, and fatigue. I have learned to slow down and to breathe. There is meaning in a disease that can make me feel a false hunger. Its metaphorical applications to my spiritual journey of discerning real spiritual needs and hungers from my own yearnings has been meaningful.

I have grown to place my identity in Christ. I have begrudgingly accepted that my worth, and value as a woman specifically, does not come from my curves, my body, or my physical appearance. Rather, I am God’s beloved, and God delights in me and in my being fully alive. My vanity has been wrenched from hands unwillingly. Yet, I have began to define my womanhood in having a voice and speaking my mind. Somehow my womanhood is tied to my gift of feeling deeply, being passionate and courageous. Being a woman is part of me because of the way in which I can love and nurture that is distinctly powerful and different from a man. I am thankful for this gift of learning about myself, but it has come painfully in grief.

When I am crying about my receding hairline, I must admit that I do not think of my newfound strength, courage, and love. Nor does it mean that I don’t repeatedly yell at God and ask him to take away this strange “syndrome” that makes me question my sanity and blame myself for being too fat, too ugly, too hairy, too bald. I shed tears, I yell, I curse, and I get unbearably angry about it all. Tomorrow I have blood work to be done. I don’t know what I hope it finds. An elevation somewhere so I can take another medication but find relief from some of my symptoms? That everything be within normal limits and I find I must accept my symptoms as they are now? I don’t really know.

I do hope desperately that my body maintains its fertility, so that this burning desire to have a child that has been so long deferred can be realized in a couple of years. I hope that I am not so desperate for it that it too must be stripped from me. These are the fears we all hold and never fully understand.

Resources on PCOS:
Celebrities with PCOS
Web MD
Support Groups Online