Am I sick because I’m a woman?

Dec 09, 2024

It would have been my mums birthday at the end of November. She died when I was 12 years old, of bowel cancer, over 20 years ago now. I think a lot about her at this time of year. I wonder what she would have looked like, what our relationship would have been like and how different my life would have been if she was still here.

Recently, I have also been wondering what she would have thought about the state of the world right now.

I idolised my mum. I still do. I have such fond memories of her. She was nurturing, kind, funny, and sassy when she needed to be. She was a great listener, a hard worker and the glue that held our family together. Even when she was dying she was making sure that we we’re all ok. She was incredibly brave. She was a great mum and a great female role model to me. I miss her every day.

I miss her more at times like this, when the world feels like it’s gone (more) chaotic and unsafe. I would love to be able to turn to her and ask for her advice; mum to daughter, woman to woman. Sometimes you just need the perspective of someone you love and trust, someone who gets what it’s like to be a woman, who has your best interests at heart. Someone to remind you of your worth as a woman, especially when this is being questioned again and again by those in power.

When she died, it completely blew up our world. On the outside, it probably looked like we were all coping ok (ish). My brother and I eventually went back to school, my dad back to work. But on the inside, we were all desperately trying to figure out how to cope going forwards. Our family dynamic shifted overnight. We had to relearn our roles and how we fitted together as a family. We each had to take up the slack of the many things mum had done for us, all whilst deeply grieving her loss.

The house got a bit messier, there were less sit down family meals together, less laughter. Christmases and birthdays became hard and full of grief instead of festive cheer. Things didn’t feel as straight forward anymore. It felt unsettled. We were confronted with all the things mum had done for us. It was a shock. She had made it all look so easy. She never complained.

The magic of childhood was now replaced with grown up problems to deal with. This was at no fault to my father. He tried his absolute best to shelter us, but losing your wife and losing your mum changes things, no matter how hard you try to stop it.

I lost my mum at an age of great change. I was just starting to go through puberty. I was growing boobs and needed to buy my first bra. Periods were just around the corner. I was starting to notice bodily changes; hair in weird places, hormones were flying all over the place, curves appearing. I started to notice boys and how they noticed me. Peer pressure, body image and trying to fit in became a huge threat to my very existence. People start to treat you differently. You aren’t just a kid anymore, you are becoming a woman.

Ultimately you are desperately trying to figure out ‘What does it mean to be a woman?’

I suddenly had all these questions and no one to ask. I had lost my mum, my guide, the biggest female role model I was ever going to have in my life. I had no clue what to do.

Again, my dad tried his best bless him, he really did. No one exactly handed him a manual titled ‘How to deal with your highly sensitive grieving teenage daughter, whilst simultaneously dealing with your own horrendous grief and loss of the love of your life, whilst holding down a job and keeping enough money coming in to keep everyone fed and a roof over your head’.

When my periods started at 13, my dad brought me hot water bottles and chocolate in bed. He tried to soothe me as best he could when the painful cramps started. He even asked women in the supermarkets ‘Which pads do I buy my teenage daughter?’. He was a bit clueless, but at least he tried to understand.

However, it’s just not the same as having your own mum or a woman to talk to. Someone who had been through it. I avoided tampons for years because I had no bloody clue (no pun intended) on how to use them properly. I was too ashamed to ask anyone. Even at that age, I felt shame about my body. I had seen the way girls in class hid their pads and tampons up their sleeves and ran off to the bathroom. Boys pointing and laughing saying ‘She’s on the blob’. Male teachers blushing when you said you had to miss gym class because of painful cramps. You learn from a young age that women's bodies are to be mocked and ashamed of. Even scared of at times.

When my hormones waxed and waned each month, my family often looked at me like I was from another planet. I don’t blame them. I was scared too with all the ups and downs. One minute I was happy, the next I was kicking the kitchen bin across the room. The issue was, I had no one to compare myself to, or any one to reassure me that this was all (mostly) normal for a teenage girl, who was also going through a lot of grief. I didn't know it happened to everyone else, as it happened behind closed doors. You learn that emotions like anger are not allowed to be expressed by young girls. Only the ‘naughty’ and ‘disruptive’ girls at school did that. So I held a lot inside.

You turn to other female role models in your life. Desperate for answers. Desperate for some clues on how you should be as a woman. You look to aunties, grandmothers, your friends, your best mates mum and sisters. They all helped massively, but again, it’s just not the same as having your mum by your side.

Sometimes being around them would make things harder. It reminded me what I was missing. My best friends would tell me conversations they had with their mums, shopping trips they went on, trips to the hairdressers together. I felt like they were all getting these secret clues, all these instructions on how to be a woman and I was missing out on vital pieces of information. I would get second hand information, hand me down scraps of advice. Again, it was helpful, but just not quite the same as hearing it straight from your mum.

A few years passed by and in that time both my grandmothers and my dad’s sister died. I admired them all so much. More female role models lost.

I didn’t realise it then, but I also lost a huge part of my own identity when they died. We are social creatures, we look to those close to us on how to act, what to say, what to think, how to feel. We mirror each other. The question of ‘What does it mean to be a woman’ became even more cryptic the older I got, and with the more women I trusted that were lost from my life.

You begin to widen your search for surrogate female role models; teachers, girls at school, celebrities, people in the media, from movies, books and magazines.

The further you open yourself up to all those different perspectives, the more messy, chaotic, and opposing they all become. You realise too late that not everyone has your best interests at heart. Jealousy, lust, hatred, misunderstandings and outdated thinking often got tangled up with their opinions.

Your own voice starts to get drowned out along the way. You start to loose that intuition. The doubts creep in.

You begin to ask yourself ‘Am I doing this right. Am I woman enough?’

You also start to listen to people’s opinions about what is it to be a woman. Not just from fellow women, but from the men around you too; family, boyfriends, boys at school. Some of the opinions loud, harsh and different to what you feel is true in your gut. You start to notice discrepancies.

People you look up to and love would sometimes say such derogatory comments. You know they love you, so why are they saying those things about women. You still love them, but you don't like what they have said. And that's why it's so complicated. The disrespect is enmeshed so deeply, even amongst the love.

The discrepancies start off subtle at first. Jokes about crazy mothers-in-law, crappy women drivers, hysterical ex-wives. People on telly making fun of female football players, women’s bodies in magazines being torn to shreds because they have cellulite and stretch marks. Women on telly being over sexualised. Constant, subtle (and some not so subtle) digs and jabs at women.

You get irritated by these things. Your body flinches. Your heart races. Adrenaline spikes. Your stomach feels sick. However, when you try to voice it or discuss it with those around you, you are often told ‘It’s just a joke’, ‘I/They didn’t mean it’, ‘That’s just how it was back then’, ‘Boys will be boys’, ‘Lighten up’, ‘You’re being too sensitive’. It wasn’t just men saying this, it was also other women at times, which made it all the more confusing.

So you had to tell your nervous system to calm down. Ignore your instincts. Ignore that flight or fight response that hung heavy in your heart. Trust and don't question those around you in authority, even when it felt off.

Over time, these discrepancies become more sinister. Boys at school call you a slut if you don’t give them attention, but then call Sharon a slut because she slept with her boyfriend that she loves. I don't remember the boys being told off for these remarks, it was always the girls that had to change their behaviour.

Your male doctor doesn’t listen to your concerns about your painful periods and puts ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ on your records instead of endometriosis, so you live in pain for decades. No one heard your concerns after that because you're ‘just anxious’.

Your dad teaches you the best places to hit a man if you ever got attacked, handing you a rape alarm to carry in your purse ‘Just in case’. ‘Don’t wear your headphones at night, as you won't hear them coming’. I’m glad he taught me these things, but it's sad that these lessons have to be taught to young girls. They learn to be afraid.

You hear of women getting killed after a night out, and the news said it was because she was drunk and wore a short skirt and was out by herself late at night, but the next day you wore a baggy t-shirt and jeans and were still verbally harassed by the builders down the road. It was broad daylight and there were many (silent) witnesses.

This was all very confusing to teenage me.

Suddenly there were many conflicting answers to the question ‘What does it mean to be a woman?’.

That’s when you start to live in opposition within yourself. You can never win. You feel one way inside, but nearly everything and everyone else in society is telling you to feel a different way.

The underlying messages from these misogynistic comments, were basically saying ‘You are less worthy of freedom and choice’, ‘You are less intelligent’, ‘You are weaker’, ‘You are unsafe’, ‘You are vulnerable’, ‘You’re asking for it’, ‘Expressing emotions is wrong’., ‘You are the problem’, ‘You are less’.

How is our nervous system supposed to react to that? How else are we supposed to interpret those comments, other than deep stress to our very existence and worth? Especially if we are hearing it multiple times each day, week, month, over years and decades of our lives. You start to absorb it into your bones, your cells, your very being.

How do we know what to believe? Who do we trust?

As a teenager you start to question things. You start to query what people have said and why. Some return these questions with anger or distain. Some ignore you, speak over you or completely change the topic. When you really start to question things or to stick up for what feels right in your gut, you are often met with resistance, rejection or sometimes violence. You’re called a feminist, like it’s a dirty word. Some stare at you with deep confusion, totally oblivious to the damage they are perpetuating. It's that engrained into the fabric of society. It's that engrained into their bones too.

You are told you're overreacting, being aggressive and not ladylike, you're overthinking, lowering the tone, causing a scene. Know your place. So you start to hide your opinions, retreat, hold your tongue, conceal your emotions. Contort yourself. Wear a mask. When you are quiet people call you a good girl. You get conditioned and brainwashed from a young age. We all do. It becomes a culture, a way of life.

I wish I could go back to my younger self and tell her that almost all of the things you heard from the outside world about what it is to be a woman was completely wrong, sometimes dangerous, misleading, and outright false.

I wish I could tell her to listen to her instincts more. I would tell her to find more strong role models to look up to. Don’t listen to those that don’t have your best interests at heart. I would tell her that sometimes, even the people you love will say hurtful things about you, because you just happen to be a woman. But you have to ignore them, and still love yourself through it all, no matter what.

But the thing is, how do you tell a young girl that?

How do you tell a little girl not listen to most of what they hear, especially when it could be coming from the people they love and depend on. From people they look up to, authority figures, police, teachers, healthcare professionals, peers, politicians, work colleagues, care givers, celebrities, other women….presidents of powerful countries. If I told my younger self not to listen to these people, I would have been unsafe. I would have been rejected from most of society.

So what are we supposed to do? How do we teach young girls who they can trust? How do they filter out all this false information?

It’s so fucking exhausting to constantly question everything and everyone around you. To filter your own self-worth through the lens of everyone around you, just because you are a woman.

It makes you hypervigilant. Stressed. Torn in two. Sometimes you’re aware, but often it’s more insidious. That feeling of unsafe skulks around inside of your body without your conscience awareness. Your emotions get so repressed you don't even know how to feel anymore. Instead you get tummy aches, headaches, panic attacks and tension in your shoulders.

Every time I hear a piece of information relating to being a woman, I have to filter it through years of conditioning. I have to ask myself many many questions first before I let that information take residence inside my mind and my body.

Questions such as:

Can I trust what this person is saying? Do they have an agenda? Why did they say it if they don’t really mean it? Did they just mean it as a joke? Are they trying to manipulate me? Am I being disadvantaged or disrespected by what they are saying? Is it safe for me to voice my opinion and stick up for myself in this scenario? If I don’t say anything, will that make it worse for other women around me? Are they even aware of what they said? What are the long-term consequences to my body and my health if I don’t advocate for myself right now? If I stick up for myself will I be called hysterical? Will people tell me I’m being controversial, too emotional, too feminist, being too political? Am I safe?

The list of questions goes on and on.

This questioning can happen on a near daily basis. It’s even worse now with social media. We have to be incredibly careful what information we let through our mental, emotional and physical filters.

But you know what questions I ask myself most often now?

How did that make me feel? Why is my body reacting in this way? What is my body trying to tell me? Don't forget that your body holds wisdom.

As a woman, I feel our minds and bodies are in constant opposition with our surroundings. We’ve had to hold in so much. To filter out so much. To try and cling onto our self- worth, even though the world is throwing so much hatred and distain towards us. Sometimes I feel I have been so conditioned, that I don’t even realise something has annoyed me until I notice my heart racing, or my jaw tighten. We’ve been conditioned to ignore our own feelings for too long.

But it is our bodies that are paying the price for holding everything in.

I have been reading many books and studies recently, which talk about the link between repressed emotions and conditions such as migraines, fibromyalgia, autoimmune disease and gastrointestinal disorders, to name just a few.

Those conditions have also been linked to stress and dysregulation in the autonomic nervous system (the system responsible for the flight, fight or freeze response).

Sometimes I can’t help but to wonder- would I have gotten this autoimmune disease if I was allowed to express myself more? Would I have gotten it if my nervous system wasn’t on such high alert all the time?

I know there are many different factors to autoimmune diseases e.g. genetics, infections, environmental reasons, diet etc. And of course I still champion modern medicine and all it’s done for us. But I’m shocked at how little modern medicine acknowledges the power of our emotions. Not so we can blame the person or to put the soul responsibility back onto them, but instead to use it as another resource. Another tool to use alongside modern medicine and medications.

Is there a deeper reason to why 80% of all autoimmune diseases are experienced by women?

If repressing our emotions and trauma can literally cause disease, imagine if we could harness that power for good, reverse it, and use our minds and communities to help heal and protect our bodies.

I can’t help but to think- maybe I would have been slightly less susceptible to my disease, if I hadn’t been conditioned to ignore my own feelings so much, if doctors didn't gaslight me, if we didn’t have to constantly prove our own worth or fighting against society. What would happen if we were listened to and allowed to have a stronger voice, if we didn't have to use precious energy on filtering out so much crap and lies told to us on a near daily basis from those all around us.

If I knew then what I know now, maybe I would have fought harder to get my voice heard. Maybe I would have had better self-esteem and demanded more respect from those around me. Maybe I would have protected my peace and sense of safety more.

I know these are all hypothetical and what if’s, but isn’t that yet another filter I’m having to sieve my life through?

It’s too late for me now. I have this autoimmune disease for life. But I write these blogs in the hope that change will happen. That someone else doesn’t have to be in pain for decades without anyone listening. To give people the confidence to let their voice be heard.

What really saddens me is that women (and men) are being pitted against each other more than ever now, especially with recent events. But we need a strong knit community to heal one another. To lead by example. We can't do it in isolation.

Instead, we’re conditioned to compete, to be jealous, to bitch and gossip and bully one another. To believe the lies that are being spread. That’s exactly what they want. We can’t become equals if we are divided. We can’t become equals if we live in fear. We can’t become equals if we are too ill and dependent.

It can feel hard to stick up for yourself, but there is safety in numbers. We need to band together, be in sync with one another, not tear each other down, because you never know who may be looking to you as a role model right now.

A scared and confused little girl who has lost her mum, may be looking at you to answer the question ‘what does it mean to be a woman?’.

What do you want your voice, your body language, your actions and your self-worth to say to them in return? What do you wish someone would have said to you when you were little? How would you shape your mind and self-esteem if you could go back and do it all over again? What do you want to say to yourself, and those around you, right now?

I know what I would say…

Be proud to be a woman. Take up space. Let your voice be heard. Don't let go of your kindness and empathy- this is a superpower, not a weakness. Stop apologising and feeling guilty. It's not lazy or selfish to look after yourself and your loved ones. Stop hiding and repressing your emotions. Love your body- it holds many miracles and so much wisdom. Anger can be healthy, it can tell you when your boundaries are being crossed. Surround yourself with as many people as possible who make you feel loved and safe, and who encourage you to be the real you. The best way to say ‘F**k you’ to haters, is to go live a good life. Love yourself like your life depends on it, because it does.

Also, say thank you more. Thank you to all the wonderful cheerleaders, both the women and men in your life who have gotten you this far. I know I couldn’t have done it without them. It really does take a whole village.

And if my mum was still here, I really hope she would be proud of the woman I have become.

How about you?

What would you say to younger you?

In my bones...

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