Lena Dunham is and always has been the worst, but I don’t wish ill health on anyone, so it sucks that she’s got endometriosis. The condition, in layman’s terms, basically means your uterus hurts – sometimes severely – particularly during your period, and you could also face some fertility issues. However, it’s totally treatable and manageable with hormone therapy, pain medication, or in severe cases, surgery, and most people with endometriosis live a totally normal and active life… unless you’re Lena Dunham, and then you have to not only cancel your press tour, but announce it on Facebook, complete with artsy/angsty photo.
Apparently her doctors advised her that it’s “time to rest”, which… I’m not sure what she’s been doing lately that’s been so hardcore, but fair enough. Medical issues are serious and your physical health can totally be compromised by overworking. But why do we need some lengthy explanation and bullshit picture on social media to announce it? Honestly?
Hey Beloved Pals,I just wanted to let you know that, while I am so excited for Girls to return on Feb 21, I won't be…
Posted by Lena Dunham on Monday, 8 February 2016
I’m obviously being hard on Lena because I can’t stand her, but I do feel like this is way too “special snowflake”. Shut up and deal with your health. Maybe spending less time on the Internet can count as your whole “rest” thing the doctors advised?
I loathe Lena as much as the next person but can’t help but think whoever wrote this has NO IDEA what living with chronic illness is like.
In my opinion (and experience): the way you deal with chronic illnesses is usually shaped by how much you can afford to “give in” to them. If you simply have to go to work every day to make ends meet, you cannot take a lot of time off “just” because your belly or head hurts, you have to pay bills, so you take a pill and go. Makes you sometimes wonder how much the human body can endure. Miss Dunham probably has enough money to afford giving in to her illnesses, good for her. One more point why I cannot stand that woman…
Except that in her post she totally acknowledges that she’s lucky to have the option to take time off.
To suggest that self-care is an “indulgence” or that managing a truly painful illness is “giving in” is just ignorant.
My mother had endometriosis, and it resulted in a hysterectomy. I can vouch, happily not first-hand but about as close a second-hand as you can get, that in many cases endometriosis isn’t about giving in, it’s about not giving you any choice in the matter.
I don’t particularly love Lena Dunham, but this kind of talk around her is gross, and just as human and faulty and foibled as she is and her art and her feminism are. Let’s not go pointing fingers without first doing our homework and investigating ourselves.
She can afford to rest and recover from her illness… How evil… clearly not as understanding and tolerant as yourself.
I have endometriosis and I can say that the person who wrote this article and some of the commenters definitely have no idea what this disease is and just how debilitating it can be.
During a flare up, you don’t have a choice whether to “give in”, you literally cannot move off of the bathroom floor as the disease rips you in half from the inside. Your uterus doesn’t just hurt (I’ve had normal cramps, and this is NOT it); pain meds don’t touch the pain in the slightest, so you can’t just “take a pill” and move on. It feels like hot pokers and bared wire grating inside that is also wringing your middle tightly while ripping you apart. I have broken bones in my past, and that was less painful than this is. At my worst, I could not go to work and I just didn’t get paid. It wasn’t a luxury or choice, it was that or literally pass out in public. There is NO cure, but there are ways of managing that keep it at bay for months at a time [rest can help (but I think she is probably having surgery but is not ready to share that), hormones (which mess up your natural balance and fertility, and can stop working at any time), heavy pain meds (which render you unable to work anyway), ablation or excision surgery (which I finally did – doctors say I can expect relief for 6 months), or hysterectomy (I’ve been trying to have kids for a few years now, so not an option).
I don’t really like Lena Dunham, but I for one, am glad that she has actually brought some awareness to this disease. Articles and comments like this are exactly why awareness needs to be brought to this disease so an actual cure can be found. Until you have this disease, know someone closely who does, or have educated yourself, keep your nasty opinions to yourself.
*barbed
Thank you. This post is infuriating for every reason you described. Plus the fact that women are often told that they’re imagining their pelvic pain when in actuality they have a serious health issue… so it’s actually really great for Lena to be talking about this regardless of what people don’t like about her. I’ve been to at least 5 gynecologists who didn’t diagnose me before finding someone who’s actually giving my pain the attention it needs.
Endometriosis isn’t just your “uterus hurting.” It’s when your damned uterine tissue grows outside of your uterus but still expands/bleeds/sheds and has nowhere to go, so you end up in such unbearable pain that all you can do is writhe on the floor. Sure, people can live “active” and “normal” lives, but this whole piece trivializes the illness, whereas Lena is trying to raise awareness and normalize it.
People are freaking ignorant about chronic illnesses. Some can be more debilitating than than cancer they just kill you WAY more slowly. I cannot believe someone said that you can’t “give in” to them and just push through. Chronic illnesses give you NO choice! People who have them are ALWAYS pushing through even if you can’t see it. If they say they can’t do something then maybe you should trust them to know what their body is saying since they are the ones living in it and dealing with the pain. You can’t decide how someone should deal with an illness you have no experience with.
These writers are so abelist. This whole post is garbage