Model and writer Kaarina Parker shares her endometriosis story
3 November 2022
By Fashion Quarterly
Prior to her diagnosis Kaarina Parker had never heard of endometriosis. She shares her story with Fashion Quarterly.
Kaarina’s story — a drawn-out and at times discouraging journey to get a diagnosis — will, without a doubt, resonate with many people with the chronic inflammatory condition.
“I had never heard of endometriosis,” she says, “all I knew was I was in a disproportionate amount of pain, and it came to a head when I was around 24 years old because it was becoming difficult for me to work and function.”
At first, Kaarina assumed that she was having some other abdominal issues — one pain flare-up was so bad that her doctors thought she had appendicitis. “But I didn’t. And I was bounced around four specialists before I saw an OB-GYN, and she diagnosed me with endometriosis, which I had never heard of at the time.”
“The impact on my mental wellbeing was quite severe,” says Kaarina. “At first, when I didn’t know what was happening to me, it made me very depressed not being able to work or do normal things when I had my period.”
And, although a diagnosis often provides solace to many, Kaarina found that her depression very soon morphed into crippling health anxiety. “I found I had health anxiety because doctors would tell me everything was fine whenever anything was wrong with me, and I would think, Oh, I’ve heard that all before, so what’s going on,” she explains. “Small problems became blown out of proportion in my head.”
As a result, Kaarina admits she found it very difficult to trust the opinion of a single doctor. “It’s been a hangover of this whole experience.” Kaarina says that her health anxiety is something she’s still working through, but there are some learnings she would like to share with others who are in a similar boat: “Seek out medical practitioners that have an empathetic approach, that aren’t dismissive, who listen, who may have had similar experiences. Finding people I can trust has made a huge difference to me.”
Today, Kaarina has found a gynaecologist she trusts, and she says she’s learned a lot from her. “The biggest myth about endometriosis I would like people to unlearn is that pain is normal,” she says. “That’s something my specialist taught me; she taught me if your period pain is impacting your ability to function, then that is not within the parameters of normal.
