Lena Dunham is taking about herself again, yet this time we should all listen. This isn't navel gazing, but talking about a chronic health condition that affects Dunham's life and that of millions of women.
The 29-year-old Girls star told her fans via a Facebook post that she would be taking a career break prior to the sixth season of her show while she deals with endometriosis.
Hey Beloved Pals,I just wanted to let you know that, while I am so excited for Girls to return on Feb 21, I won't be...
Posted by Lena Dunham on Monday, February 8, 2016
The condition affects as many as one in 10 women, yet it is rarely talked about. So kudos to Dunham for opening up about her struggle with the illness in a blog called "The Sickest Girl."
"Endometriosis is not life-threatening," she wrote. "I know I'm lucky in the grand health scheme, but I also know that I am one of many women who grasp for a sense of consistent well-being, fight against the betrayals of their bodies, and who are often met with skepticism by doctors trained to view painful periods as the lot of women who should learn to grin and bear it."
She describes in her trademark raw detail the chronic fatigue, the severe cramping from the moment she got her period, and her shame and determination to hide her pain.
And the relief, when she finally had a name to pin on the source of that pain, to her ultimate surgery.
"Long-term chronic infection. I carried the words around with me like an award statuette, flashing them at every friend who had ever complained about my phantom illness and general inability to party like a rock star. I apologized for all the weddings and birthdays I had missed, but it wasn't really an apology: it was a battle cry. I no longer felt like a weakling. I felt like a survivor."
Even better than being a survivor is being a survivor who goes on to share her story with others so they don't have to suffer in silence as she has. Thanks Lena.
Image Source: HBO
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