I’m 4 weeks post laparoscopy. This is my second laparoscopy, and my first was only 1 cyst with a 2 week recovery. I was single so my mom had to fly in to take care of me and live with me in my apartment. That was 4 years ago. I remember I was so mobile by the 15th day. Now I’m on day 29 post op and I’m in really rough shape. It’s a lot more intense of a recovery and this time I’m in a relationship.
I’m already behind on how I’m supposed to be healing and it’s been discouraging especially for my partner. It’s been hard we keep fighting since day 5 after the surgery, every few days we’ll have an argument sometimes a day or two in a row.
I’m worried because this recovery is hard. I want children. I thought I did with him. It hurts a lot physically in my pelvis from the stress I feel my insides from the surgery pull after we fight and I feel my blood pressure go up. I wish he just could take it all when I snap and kill it with kindness but he gets so reactive back. I see all these things about supportive boyfriends and jokes about girls being cranky but I feel like I can’t be cranky. He claims he’s reactive 25% of the time. I don’t even get what he’s reacting to sometimes I’m not even meaning to come across that way I’m just speaking while in pain and it comes out weird. And then when we argue I hurt. It’s like as my blood pressure goes up I feel my blood pump through whatever happened during the surgery and it hurts. I feel like I’m doing damage to myself.
I don’t know what to do anymore because I feel my incisions when we argue and he has his own pains with his own sciatica related to his disc. So I’ve brought up that I’m in pain and that’s why I’m acting how I am. Instead of that making him more empathetic, like I’ve read some couples who are both ill experience, he has less patience because he says he is in pain too. I get I don’t want to punish him for being better at being nice to me through the pain but I wish he had more patience with me. And then at some point while we were trying to discuss it he concluded I didn’t respect him.
Is this the hormones making me feel crazy? Does this happen to everyone? I even got into c-section blogs because I don’t know if it’s incompatible partner or the circumstance of recovering from a reproductive surgery in a sexual relationship with a partner you plan to build a family with? I know there are statistics out there on relationships struggling with endometriosis but if anyone anecdotally has worked through the personality changes that have come with their endometriosis diagnosis in personal relationships that would help. Because how I feel gets really dark, and crazy fast. I suddenly really hate myself yet I don’t think I’m the monster my partner is making me out to be at times. I think he has his own problems to work through from past relationships and it’s coming out but everything says hormones make you crazy and I feel crazy! I think he has his own distorted lens because he is in pain and going through a lot at work. It’s just not black and white and I feel like I’m drowning in my stress.
I’ve had depression and anxiety before. I’m off medications the past year to try to get on different hormonal birth controls, and now post op I’m going to try a new one soon I couldn’t before to treat the endometriosis harder. I’m literally off my lithium and taking Advil for the first time in 7 yrs, which is nice because it helps with a lot of the pain when I’m not moving and watching tv. But I have to be taking it around the clock and it doesn’t help when my blood pressure is up and I can’t stop myself from getting up and leaving the room because I want space and we’re arguing. Other than the change in medication, I’m going for a complete diet and exercise change too. We’re trying to start a family together in 2 years. That was the goal of this treatment plan, and fertility for us for this surgery. Now I’m worried about our future.
Before this surgery, I thought we would make it. I wanted kids for sure with him. We are engaged for 2 years already. I just didn’t have endometriosis when we got together. The first surgery cyst was just benign, no endo. Now I’m worried about having kids with him and how that recovery is going to go if there’s a crying baby involved on top of this. Is that what I want for my children based on how this recovery went? With him? Am I being too extreme? And a c section or labor delivery is to me a harder recovery as there’s 9 mo pregnancy before. I just had excision, 5 incisions, tissue, endo, and cyst but it was widespread. Can he be my caretaker then if it’s going so badly now? Has anyone else had this experience? Do I need a different partner? I still love him. This is terrible.
I need help.
He brings up he feels I don’t respect him with my tones of voice when I get upset. I feel like I’m just being moody? Is this more than the hormones?
I always thought I was a nice person. I can’t sleep at night thinking I could have hurt the ones I loved and was mean to them. I don’t want to be. I’m not trying to hurt the ones I love but I keep finding myself in arguments by accident, it feels like it’s almost never on purpose. I can’t escape the emotions that come with arguments too, the severe self hatred when I think I’ve done something wrong. There is panic and my blood rushes. Suddenly everything escalates because I’m freaking out. When I panic, he says I’m trying to make him feel bad and turn the situation around when I was the one being mean. I feel like he should just hold me and recognize I’m struggling to be rational, maybe my hormones are off, is that enabling of me to think? Is that a toxic excuse? I don’t know if I’m a bad partner now or just recovering. What’s normal?