the quiet leak that changed everything
no one but me could tell the flood was coming
In my very first home, there is a subtle dripping noise in the upper right corner of my bedroom. This bedroom is any child’s dream: spacious, colorful, safe— a place designated strictly for my own world-building and curiosities. My bedroom is my endless potential, waiting to be nurtured and tended to.
One day, I notice the leak in the ceiling. The dripping begins out of nowhere one evening around dusk, when I am just barely 13. It is quiet, near silent— a distant hush generating just enough noise to hear once the entire house has gone silent, tucking in after a long day in the hot summer’s sun. Only enough noise to notice it’s there, when I am still and unmoving. Never quite enough to ever question why it’s there or where it might be coming from.
My 13-year old bedroom is full of life and color. I hang posters on every inch of the walls and paint the accent wall bright yellow with daisies. I hang wallpaper around the borders of the room, fitting my newly made vanity dripped in lace into the far corner. The mirror perched on top of it showcases my reflection, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed— an eagerness that cannot be replicated elsewhere. I notice the droplets of water slowly trickling down the walls, running over a painting I created last week at camp.
Night after night, the leaking begins to create an unsettling annoyance.
I cannot sleep, I need someone to stop the dripping. I also begin to worry. I worry this dripping means there is a faulty system installed in my safe space, my bedroom- my home- and need someone bigger and smarter than me to take care of it. When no one can hear the drip, I am confused. Don’t you want to fix the leak I’m telling you is there? No one will even agree to investigate. “It’s probably just the rain you’re hearing”
We don’t hear it, they tell me. Dismissive. Certain. But the sound is there—I know it is. I plead again, desperation rising in my throat, begging for someone, anyone, to acknowledge the relentless dripping that consumes my nights. Drip. Drip. Drip.
The rhythm is merciless. My paintings—labors of time and love—darken, the colors bleeding, dissolving into something unrecognizable.
No one ever hears it. So I must accommodate. Surely I won’t allow a dripping of water become more than an inconvenience to this bedroom I love so much. I learn to sleep with the covers over my head, the pillow pressing into my ears to muffle the water sounds. The same way that rain begins, a steady, rhythmic drumming.
One day, the dripping stops. When I go to investigate the silence, I’m appalled to see a steady thin stream of water, running down the corner of my room from a small hole in the ceiling. My fingers graze it, spraying the water out in all directions, my bathrobe and fuzzy slippers taking the worst of it.
I call again to show the grown ups and am taken back by their unamused nature— Leaks do happen sam, it’s a part of life. Each person that walked into my room that year met my concern with more shoulder shrugs. Most didn’t even notice the water existed. I would ask and they would tilt their head, stating how uninteresting it was.
More accommodation for my protection.
I rearranged my room without thinking, to adapt for my newfound waterway. I threw out moldy clothes and replaced them with bland, simple fabrics. The risk of everything being ruined was too great. How bad can it be, living with a little less color? I think to myself.
Then the surge happened.
I remember the exact moment the slow trickle became a violent surge. One second, it was a quiet seep, the next—a bursting flood. Panic seized me. I bolted outside, arms flailing, voice raw with desperation. “There’s a terrible leak in my ceiling!” I shouted, wild-eyed, spinning toward anyone who might listen. “My whole bedroom—my whole home—is about to be destroyed!”
My cries echoed down the street, swallowed by indifference. I stood there, chest heaving, waiting for someone—anyone—to come and help me.
The room is filling and there is nothing I can do about it.
I watch in horror as my room fills with water, my colorful posters and paintings ruined immediately by the flood. My precious vanity and favorite stuffed animals begin to float around the room aimlessly, drifting from corner to corner into the walls.
When they finally come to assess the damage, each person’s comment sounds a little different.
There were questions as to why I didn’t say anything sooner. Or if I noticed a drip when it began to form. There were others who noted how common it was for leaks to occur. Some shrugged their shoulders and said it would be an easy mess to clean up, that I could simply paint new paintings. And others who stated there was no way to even fix the leaking, because it was impossible to know the real cause. Maybe I should just be a more aware, happy little girl instead of fixating my life on the leak in my bedroom.
I tried to explain the drip but no one could hear it. I knew something was very wrong with my ceiling, even as a little girl. No one ever listens to a little girl. The little girl grows up to be a woman with a flooded, inhabitable home that she is now trapped in. No one ever listens to a trapped, emotional woman.
A month after the first flood, I curl up on the rained-soaked bed. My bedroom is empty; the fuzzy warm carpet torn out from the mold. I cannot risk it becoming ruined once more. My floor has become stripped concrete, a coldness my feet recoil at. The walls bare and sullen, the bits of colorful wallpaper that are left peeling up at the edges. My bright and safe bedroom, once filled with life and safety and potential. All to become hallowed-out, lifeless shell.
I learned to live with such little comforts, I learned to live with so much less.
One day, a plump little robin appears outside my window, his chest a brilliant flare of red, pulsing with life. He flits and hops, untouched by the weight of the world, while I sit inside, staring at the dullness that has settled into my four walls. I ache for that color, that energy—to seep back into my space, into me. So I seek help in flood recovery.
Each person that I invite to fix the leak and find the cause, tells me there is really no leak, and if there was— it’s gone now— and I have to find a way to move on with my life. From what they can see, there was never any water to begin with. You’re such a young and bright girl, they say to me. You should really try to focus more on your future.
I do my best to realign my expectations. It doesn’t feel like a home anymore. And yet, I have no where else to go. I stand on my tip toes, my shoulders just barely peaking above the waterline— wondering how it’s all gone so very wrong.
Each time the water recedes and I am left in a damp rot of mildew and mud, my favorite books plastered to the floor, forever waterlogged by the lack of preventive measures that would have saved their fairytale ending. If only someone would have believed me, I could have saved my home.
Endometriosis affects approximately 10% of women and those assigned female at birth worldwide, translating to nearly 190 million people. Despite its prevalence, it often takes an average of 7 to 10 years for individuals to receive a proper diagnosis due to widespread misinformation and the normalization of menstrual pain
Endometriosis is the growing drip that never recedes. It is the steady leak of water that no one else ever seems to hears or see, unless you are the one inhabiting the body it’s taken prisoner of. Endometriosis is often mislabeled as just a "period disease," but it is far more complex. While it primarily affects the reproductive system, endometriosis lesions have been found throughout the body, including in organs completely unrelated to menstruation: such as the heart, the brain, and even the eyes. Endometriosis is the flood of everything you love dearly; the way pain swells and swallows within your body— demanding to be reckoned with.
March is Endometriosis Awareness Month.
I fought for over a decade to be listened to, to have my concerns be taken seriously. Within that decade, I began to believe the pain and lifelessness I felt were not real— and as many doctors said to my face— were symptoms created in my head. I accommodated and pushed through my barriers in order to continue holding on to any sense of life. My body became an unsafe, exhausted place to live. I reckoned with the idea that my body would forever remain this broken, destructive thing.
It wasn’t until my appendix ruptured that I was able to receive a diagnosis. Since then, I’ve been fighting for my life to receive proper treatment and care for my stage four endometriosis and adenomyosis. Life-altering conditions the world seems to have no information on, and because of that— I ultimately have no control over. The pain is a shattering, relentless thing. The fatigue drains all sense of optimism you held the day before. You hold vigil for and grieve the body you once knew, the one that could effortlessly stride for a greater life- one with less bedridden days and more vigor. The doctor nods her head, it is a common disease she says. As if the dismissal should be enough to validate the way its ravaged my life and forced me into an existence of nothing more than endurance from one task to the next. I brush my hair after a shower can use my last three spoons for the day. (With chronic illness, each "spoon" represents a unit of energy, and each activity or task requires a certain number of spoons.) I cry myself to sleep and hope I wake up with more. What will tomorrow cost me?
It strips you of your color and sense of self. You learn to tread water in silence, endlessly preparing for the next disaster as you stand helplessly in its wake… knowing no one is coming to save you.
I stare upwards at the leak beginning to grow once more, knowing at any moment— the flood can and will surge through these walls, taking everything I know and love, right along with them.
Like a flood, it obliterates everything in this path, leaving behind traces of destruction long after the water levels subside.
To my fellow Endometriosis warriors and Chronic Illness family— I honor the way you choose to live your life each day with endless vigor, bravery, and extreme courage. You should never have to be this strong. But I am so thankful you are.
The flood may come, but in the aftermath we clean and rebelliously hang new paintings and decorations on our internal walls— because no disease could ever be powerful enough to strip us of our vibrance x
Keep filling the walls with color, I love you
This definitely increased my awareness. You certainly have been through a lot. Thank you for sharing your experience.