The Day the Pain Was Gone: My Hysterectomy Story

I didn’t cry when I scheduled my hysterectomy. I cried after it was over.

Not because I was unsure, or questioning my decision. It was because I didn’t realize how much of my life had been shaped by pain—until it stopped.

For years, I lived with discomfort that I told myself wasn’t that bad. I adjusted my days around it. I made deals with my body. I took supplements, saw practitioners, gave up certain foods, leaned into holistic care, and tried to believe I could outsmart what was happening inside me.

I had adenomyosis. But more than that, I had a lifetime of being told—explicitly and implicitly—that women's pain is normal. That exhaustion is just part of motherhood. That healing is a luxury. That if you can function, you’re fine.

So I functioned.

And I gaslit myself in the process.

It had started in adolescence—and those brutal periods that knocked me out each month for decades—but I adapted. I kept going. And then slowly, quietly, the fatigue became constant. I wasn’t as fun anymore. I wasn’t as sharp. I was so tired all the time that I stopped recognizing myself. I couldn’t go to yoga or dance or anything that used to energize me, because I didn’t have the energy to get myself there. The very things that might have helped me feel better felt impossible.

At work, I lost my edge. My spark. I couldn’t carry what I used to carry.
And I blamed perimenopause. I blamed motherhood. I blamed being in my 40s.
I told myself this is just what happens.

But somewhere in my body, there was always a quiet knowing. A whisper I couldn’t un-hear. The treatments weren’t working. The lifestyle changes weren’t enough. And my body was speaking louder and louder until I finally listened.

The decision to have a hysterectomy was not dramatic. It was sacred. It was one of the most grounded, self-honoring decisions I’ve ever made.

And yet—I still didn’t expect what happened afterward.

The morning after surgery, I felt something I hadn’t felt in years. Clarity. Not just relief from the pain, but a deep internal awakening. Like I could see myself again. My body felt different—lighter, but not in a way I can easily describe. It was more than physical. It was emotional, spiritual, maternal.

The pain was gone. Gone.

And I wept.

Because I hadn’t even known how much it was costing me. Because I had woven a narrative around the pain being manageable, even normal. Because I had minimized it for so long that I almost didn’t believe I deserved a life without it.

But my body knew better. And in that moment, it validated me in a way no doctor ever had.

There is grief in surgery. There’s grief in letting go of the organ that created my babies, that once held so much life. But there is also peace.

This isn’t a post about surgery as a solution for everyone. It’s not even really about the procedure.

It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to survive. The way pain becomes part of our identity. The way women, especially mothers, are trained to power through, to understate, to dismiss our own suffering because functioning is seen as success.

But functioning is not the same as thriving.

If you are living in chronic pain, in discomfort that you downplay or hide, I want you to hear this: Your pain is real. You are not being dramatic. You do not have to wait for permission to feel better.

My healing didn’t start the day I went into surgery. It started the day I stopped pretending it wasn’t that bad.

Since my hysterectomy, I’ve felt a shift—not just in my body, but in my boundaries. In my self-trust. In my clarity.
I’m funny again. I’m lively again. When I lie on the couch now, it’s because I want to rest—not because I simply cannot pick my body up. I’m present again. With my kids. With my work. With myself.

Honestly, for a while… I think Honey became a stand-in for me. A way to keep showing up in the world when I couldn’t show up fully for myself. And now—now that I’m back—I’m ready to do some big things. This is the beginning of that. This post may be the first glimpse.

Pain was loud. But healing speaks, too.
And I’m finally listening.