Endometriosis: The Psychosocial and Emotional Lived Experience of College-Aged Women

Endometriosis is a condition thought to affect as many as one in ten women. It is most commonly associated with infertility, intense abdominal pain, which may affect a woman’s ability to work and maintain social relationships; and pain during sex, which may prevent or challenge her in maintaining a sexually active relationship. On top of the ways in which women’s daily lives are affected by this condition, the women who experience endometriosis are also subject to having their symptoms dismissed by their doctors as either “catastrophizing” or psychosomatic This two-part project explores the real-life experiences of women who suffer from endometriosis. In the first phase, this is achieved through in-depth research into the literature which has already been produced. Though a fair amount of work has been produced on the lived experience about women of childbearing age, there still remains a large gap in the literature for the exploration of the lived experiences of adolescent women who have only recently received an endometriosis diagnosis. The second phase involves the use of semi-structured interviewing to explore the lived experiences of college-aged women who have received an endometriosis diagnosis. Using the ideas of liminality and stigma, the psychosocial suffering that is produced as a result of this chronic illness can be clearly seen to complicate the physical pain the woman already experiences