A diagnosis is the bare minimum

Some way or another, most women I know have normalised being unwell. My mum has adenomyosis. I had PCOS. Between us, that's years of being told it was normal. And it isn't only hormonal.

Endometriosis is the same story at scale. Around 1 in 10 women in Aotearoa have it, and most wait years, sometimes a decade, before anyone says it out loud. Endometriosis New Zealand has been doing the support, advocacy and research on that for over thirty years, out of Christchurch.

I'm 17. Earlier this year I started making herbal blends in my kitchen, one of them built around spearmint, for my own PCOS. It began as a school project with a group. The group has since gone their own way, and I'm the one left with the jars. Every dollar those jars make goes to Endometriosis NZ, and this page pays them directly, so the money never touches me.

But this isn't really about the jars. There are only so many of those.

If you've ever sat in a room and been told you're fine when you knew you weren't, or watched someone you love do it for years, you can give here. Any amount. You don't need a jar, and you don't need to know me.

A diagnosis is the bare minimum. Most women here don't even get that.