Endometriosis, Art Therapy & Advocacy: Finding Strength Through Creativity with Hannah Marie

Lexi Burt: 00:00:05

Welcome to a quest for wholeness podcast. I'm your host. Lexi Burt, a fertility advisor and endometriosis advocate together, we're diving into the journey of understanding what it truly means to be a healthy, complete individual, biologically, psychologically, socially and spiritually. In solo episodes, I'll share my insights on fertility, holistic health and endometriosis, plus we'll have conversations with incredible guests, all exploring the same burning question, what does it mean to be a whole, healthy and satisfied person. I'm so grateful you're here.

Lexi Burt: 00:00:47

This is one part of a five part series introducing this won't end me a registered Canadian nonprofit that I'm thrilled to be a part of. The name This won't end me is a purposeful play on the word endometriosis, emphasizing the resilience and strength of those living with this chronic condition. While endometriosis is derived from the Greek word endometrium, referring to the tissue affected by the illness, our name transforms the narrative, sending a powerful message, despite the challenges, this condition will not define or defeat us. This won't end me serves as a platform to amplify the voices of women living with endometriosis, fostering community advocacy and support. Today, I'm joined by Hannah Marie, one of the board of directors at this won't end me. Hannah is a trauma informed social worker, artist, registered counselor and Certified Therapeutic arts practitioner with over a decade of clinical experience in her final year of her master's program in art therapy, she integrates healing and art to support emotional expression, nervous system regulation and embodied integration. Her lived experience with endometriosis has deepened her understanding of how menstrual related conditions are treated in the medical system as a facilitator. She creates safe spaces for individuals of all ages who menstruate, empowering them to find their voice through each phase of their cycle. Welcome to my podcast, Hannah.

Hannah Marie: 00:02:14

Oh so good to be here. Thank you.

Lexi Burt: 00:02:18

Well, we gave you quite the intro there. It's so amazing. And I hope you're proud of all of the work. You know, when you hear it like that, that's impressive. Bio you have there, my friend,

Hannah Marie: 00:02:29

Yeah, that's, that's quite the mouthful too. Like hearing it, but, yeah, no, I guess I am proud, for sure. I think the student debt really, does this really show for it, no, but in all realness, I think, I think I'm always going to be a forever student. So I don't think that's going to stop there, to be completely frank.

Lexi Burt: 00:02:50

So well, tell us a little bit about your background and what inspired you really to get involved with this won't end me.

Hannah Marie: 00:02:57

Oh man, so I've been thinking about that a little bit, but so maybe I'll start with the first question. So my background a little bit, but I've always loved art. I think with most artists like they might answer the same thing as well, that from the start, the moment that I could draw and everything like that's what I've been doing. I think I've always used art as a way to express who I was my voice in ways that verbal language cannot always do. And so I guess just to fast forward a little bit like right right after high school, I wanted to go to art school. So I was in Edmonton by then, and I wanted to go to art school in Calgary. And so by that time, it was called ACAD, but now it's transformed into a Arts University. But I wanted to take the year off school and really work on my portfolio. But I had a little bit of an identity crisis during that time, because I think you've been told your whole life, like up to that point in school and what to do and who to be, basically. And I didn't know what I was going to put in my portfolio, because art is really an extension of who we are. And so I had to kind of find that out a little bit again, and for the first time, actually having to make that decision on my own, and not being told what to do or who to be. And so that's pretty massive, especially when you're just turning 18. So my mom and I'm so thankful for her. I'm very privileged to have a mother that, like cared so much about me, but she saw that I was struggling a little bit with my identity for a bit, and so she told me and pushed me to actually go volunteer at an old senior's home and to do art with them. And so for two times a week, I would sit and just do art. I was not teaching them how to do art. I would just do art beside them, and we had conversations, and it was the most. Experience, and honestly probably like looking back, I think that really sort of like changed everything, like where my path was gonna go, and I obviously didn't have the word back then, but I think that was a very much form of art therapy. It was transformative for me and it was transformative for them, just to be around them, doing art without any judgment, without telling them how to do art. And that was kind of the beginning of my journey. So anyways, fast forwarding a little bit, went to art school, but that didn't seem like enough. So I wanted to go to really get to know people and mental well being. And so I went to social work school and then blending art and social work and social justice to create like art advocacy. So I did a lot of like community projects through like art and advocacy to show people's voice through art, through photography, through like whatever means. Did a podcast for a while for like invisible disease series, yeah, you name it, and I loved it. And so I guess it's really important for me to join nonprofit like twem, because I think everybody needs a kind of community. But also thanks to you, Lexi, who introduced me to tonight. I thought one of the coolest thing is that she wanted to do a nonprofit about endometriosis, which is actually quite an invisible disease, which is something that I really love, and that's kind of like my my field of work as well, but also that she wanted to blend creativity with it. And so I was like, This is amazing. I feel like this was one of those synchronous moments of my life that I was like, it's just kind of meant to be. I was like, these are the two passions kind of putting together. So I think if things resonate with you, I've always been told that if things are easy, it's kind of meant to be a little bit if it's organic, versus if things are very hard, that doesn't mean that you should stop every time there's a challenge. But if it's too hard or it's just not working out, sometimes it means that the timing is just not meant to be, or it's just not meant to be at all. But this, for some reason, it just seemed to align very well, very organic. So there I am.

Lexi Burt: 00:07:19

That's such a hard lesson to learn. And, you know, admittedly, I'm kind of in the middle of that, because I'm someone who presses and beats things over the head into submission to move things forward, and I'm slowly learning that, yeah, do you know what? Sometimes it just isn't the right time, or if you're coming up against a lot of resistance despite trying, maybe you just need to, like, give it space, and then maybe in two days, you'll find that things actually start flowing, or it wasn't the right thing to be doing. So I'm so glad you brought that up, and I also feel very privileged to have connected you And tonight, because I feel like the more you know, I'm meeting different people who are, you know, in the endometriosis space and and advocacy space. Everyone's doing such good work, but we can actually do so much more if we kind of work together and kind of take the load off that way, which is why I'm really excited to have you part of this project and just the wonderful board of directors that we do have, like everyone has their different skill set and brings different things to the table, and that's how we're going to make an impact, is actually by working together and connecting with people. Instead of thinking, oh, you know, there's only enough room for a few people, like, I have to take my what's what I can get. It's, I think that's a mindset a lot of people have, is like, there's, there's not room for everyone, but I think there's enough to go around. Yeah,

Hannah Marie: 00:08:43

I agree with you. I think that there is very much this, this idea, maybe this ideology in our northern Western society, that it's like, it's become an i society versus an US society. And honestly, like, everything is so much easier in community. I think we've always been meant to be in community, and so it's nice to create something. And you're absolutely right. I think alone, yes, obviously you can do things alone. And like, the best part about twem is that I think we still have our individual projects, are individual goals and dreams, but we're still able to find a unified voice together, and as we know, like taking on something like endometriosis is a huge thing, and we need, Actually, more voices, different perspective, different backgrounds, diversity and experience, to actually create a wave of change. So I think this is the only way to do it, is by in community.

Lexi Burt: 00:09:50

Well, on that note, Hannah, tell us a little bit about your personal connection to endometriosis.

Hannah Marie: 00:09:56

Okay, yeah. Well, I mean, I've been dying. Notes with endometriosis, probably it, you know, it's funny, because it doesn't even seem that long ago, but yet it's been a story for a long time in my life, but the actual diagnosis was only done, I think, two or three years ago, two and a bit of years ago, so it's very recent, but yet I didn't I had endometriosis since the time I had my first period. So I think I had that at 13 or 14 years old, but there just was no word or name for it. So it's very strange how that kind of rewrites your story a little bit once you actually have the name for to like, name your whole experience, even though you were kind of navigating through the fog of it, I guess, so to speak. So So I guess I've had like pain from the from the very start, and, you know, you go through as, like an adolescent, I think you've been, like a lot of us are told that, oh, you know, it's the first few years. It's just going to take a while to, like, regulate whatever. So you're kind of not really taken seriously just from the start. And so I think that's where, like, some of the gaslighting starts to happen a little bit. And so then you're navigating through this month by month, and you're, like, in pain, but then you're told, Oh, just wait five years, it'll be fine in five years. So okay, great. So you're already projected on these ideas, like these conditionings from society onto you at a very, very young age. And so then, you know, you're obviously vulnerable, you're young, and I guess you think that's the truth about about yourself? And there's something to be said about, you know, endometriosis is not my identity, but pain that was so closely related to my menstrual cycle became who I thought, you know, that was, you know, I it like interrupt me, instead of like, kind of seeing it as a separate thing. So my journey with endometriosis was I really developed a very bad relationship with my menstrual cycle. Developed a very fearful relationship. And because of that, I also developed a very like bitter image about myself as a woman, and also women around me, which was lightly, yes And so, and this was a very unconscious, like, it wasn't like, a very conscious thought. But as I was growing up, I realized, because I think I projected myself of being like, Oh, I'm weak as a woman, like it's my menstrual cycle. I'm not being taken seriously. I guess pain goes with being a woman and month to month, and it sucks. And so like, I think I projected that onto, like, the women in my community and being that as a gender, so I didn't have a good relationship with my own femininity, so to speak. And so it was really interesting. And then as I got a bit older, I realized that, no, it wasn't quite normal, because, look, I, like, left adolescenthood, and I'm still in pain, and if anything, it actually gotten so much worse. And so, like, luckily again, I'll say it over and over again, because it's important to name the people that were in my life, but my mother, I have, like, very good, like, women in my family who have always, like, kind of take that seriously, and so they've always, like, encouraged me to, like, keep fighting for it a little bit, even though they didn't know what was going on. But like, Go navigating through the healthcare system as being a healthcare provider was an interesting relationship in itself, being the patient and also the practitioner. Yeah, being a patient was not I was not taken seriously. I was a woman who had bad periods, and that's how it was looked at. Never super investigated, and then fast forwarding, like years later, it's just gotten worse, to the point where I had to miss work on a monthly basis, and then I finally went to the hospital, because, as a practitioner, maybe I shouldn't say this out loud, but this is just the truth of it all is that if you go through the hospital in Alberta, specifically, you will be taken more seriously by if you see a specialist, if you get referred to a specialist directly in the emergency room, you will see a specialist faster. And I knew that, and so that's why I went and I said, That's enough. I'm going to get a specialist to, like, take a look at me. And so I did, but the gynecologist I saw was not great, and she was a woman, and she was young, and she told me to do yoga. That's what she told me. She told me that I didn't fit the criteria to have endometriosis, and I had waited six months to see her, and she just. Me. She's like, Have you thought of doing yoga?

Lexi Burt: 00:15:05

Oh, my God. Oh my god. But this, this is that. This is reality. This is reality. Have you tried losing weight? Have you exercised? Have you done yoga? Like, yeah.

Hannah Marie: 00:15:15

And, like, and, I mean, okay, sure. Like, Yoga does. It's like, side No, but yoga is, it's actually like one of the, it's funny, it's one of the exercises that's the most researched and correlated to help with endometriosis, sure, but that still doesn't help, you know, to the core. And so anyways, I've gotten like it was so discouraging. I think it felt discouraging being a woman. So I think that relationship with identifying as a woman, I didn't like that because I wasn't being taken seriously and so but finally, I had a person who told me, and she said, you know, Hannah, if you work on the relationship with yourself being a woman, you will see that it will ease a lot of your own pain, that you're putting even more onto your cycle. And she was right. So I had to really identify and get curious what my relationship was with me being a woman. And I realized that my menstrual cycle every month wasn't against me, but was telling me a message, and so I developed a better and healthier relationship with my body. And it seemed this whole time I was like this, it was finally easing up. And then it seemed like all of a sudden that organic easiness started to open up. And I saw another gynecologist. He was so old. He was like, 70 years old. And I was like, Oh boy, here we go. That was already like, putting my fighting, yeah, my fighting gloves on. But he listened to me and he and I told him, I'm like, I'm not taking birth control, because that's not a solution. And he listened to me, he took me seriously, and he's like, yeah. Yolanda Mushi was like, I don't know why anybody else didn't tell you that for years, and I cried so much after that, it was finally the first time being taken seriously. So anyways, that was a really long story. I apologize.

Lexi Burt: 00:17:14

You said so many important things. No way. You know the first being the hospital. Like knowing to go to the hospital, because you might be taken more seriously. And I think it's tough, and I see a lot on support groups, just like, should I go to the hospital? What are they going to do? Is there really any reason am I wasting their time? Am I wasting my time? And unfortunately, as you said, it's kind of like these loopholes to actually get access and care, and it establishes that need for, like, immediate support. So if you're really trying, and you're going through this journey of, like, trying to get a diagnosis and trying to be taken seriously, having that in your file that you needed you went to the emergency room for care because the pain was out of control is almost just like more proof that you can have in, like, your data for your kind of fight. So I just wanted to mention that for you know, people listening, if they you know, don't have a diagnosis yet and are still trying to navigate, that it can be beneficial, and the fact that this really old man listened to you, and there are good people out there, like there are medical professionals who care and want to support women and will listen to you. It feels like they're far and few in between, but I just wanted to take a moment to recognize that, yes, there's a lot of people who aren't going to listen to you and maybe slow you down and bring you down. But there are people and healthcare professionals out there that are doing good work.

Hannah Marie: 00:18:46

Yeah, and I think you can't judge a book by its cover either, because, like, I hate to say it, but I was definitely judging, and, like, I definitely edited a lot of the story, because, like, there was even, like, former partners. Now I'm fine with it that, like, you know, I was embarrassed and ashamed to share this, like, when I was a bit younger, but former partners who, like, you know, was super impatient with, like, the stuff leading up to, like, like my luteal phase, like, I was so, so much pain and just, like, obviously, it really affected my mental health as well. And so, like, I wasn't maybe the best partner for them at the time, but also there wasn't a lot of compassion back. And also it's hard to explain to someone what you need for support if you don't even know what's going on with yourself. And so this was a while ago, and so I have a great like partner now, you know, and who is, like, very encouraging, but, but this is not to say that, like these doctors in our healthcare system. It's really important to mention that they are not trained to know this, and so it's and it's not to me, it's still not really an excuse to, like, knock. Quite like listen to if you have, like, patients who keep coming over and over to have like menstrual pain, but like menstrual cycle, like disorders or any kind is just not in our education, like there's no way that anybody knows, not even our practitioners, not even our doctors, not even gynecologists, most of them, they don't know the severity of it. And I think that's, I mean, that's a problem in itself, but like, and I'm not excusing them, but like, how are you supposed to take the seriously if they don't even know the information?

Lexi Burt: 00:20:33

Well, on that note, Hannah, what is something you wish more people understood about endometriosis?

Hannah Marie: 00:20:40

I mean a lot, but I guess the main thing, and I'm sure maybe you've heard this before, but like, the main thing for me is that, like, this is not just in like, it's not just in your uterus. It's not just like a reproductive system systematic disorder. This is a full body disorder that affects your mental health, your social well being, other physical health can emerge with it too. This is a very, very like big impact, and is also recorded to be one of the top worst pains in the world. And I think it's so silly to say these stats, as somebody who, like both of us who have actually gone through this experience to, like, put that in a percentage, but it sucks. But like, presenting it that way is like, look, look how, like, severe it is. Take it seriously.

Lexi Burt: 00:21:31

Well said. Well said. I mean, when I think about these stats too, it like it really objectifies it, because a lot of people who suffer with endometriosis have different experiences. It's a spectrum of symptoms. Some might not have any pain at all, and some might be on the severe end of the spectrum, having pain. But I feel like, when you're in in the middle of it, you like, are doubting yourself, and you're like, Is it that bad? Is it really that bad? Am I in that much pain, like, compared to other people? So, yeah, hearing those statistics really, like, for me, it's almost healing in a way,

Hannah Marie: 00:22:12

Yeah, yeah, it is. And, like, it sucks, but that's how we record things in our in our society, too. It's by these statistics, it's not like, because, I guess, to some degree, nobody it's like, very individualized experience you can't like if you say, Oh, I'm in pain, okay, but your pain could not be like, you know, like, one of the things I hate open the hospital when they ask you one to 10 how bad your pain is, because not the hardest time to rate that. Because if you're normalized to this pain constantly, maybe you're like, Well, it's actually like just at a five, but really it's actually probably like a 12,

Lexi Burt: 00:22:54

Right? So what impact do you hope to make within

Hannah Marie: 00:23:01

What impact Am I willing to Oh, okay, that's an interesting question. I'd love to bring more of my therapeutic arts advocacy work into that creating workshops in the future. Those are things that we're just like in the process of of talking to right now. Obviously, we're at the very beginning of just like, creating a foundation right now, but just like, yeah, the future, I would love to, like, create more community work with art and therapy. And like, how art can be so healing and finding your voice. And like, even chronic pain through art can be so transformative experience, especially when you cannot find the words. So that's kind of where I would love to see my role in the future.

Lexi Burt: 00:23:46

Well, I have no doubt at all that that will take place, just given the hard work that I know you put into everything that you do, and how committed and dedicated you know each one of the board members that we have at TM are, and I'm really excited to see, yeah, what we can even achieve by this time next year.

Hannah Marie: 00:24:06

I know it's true, we should write a letter of our goals right like, like in right now and see opening it up in a year from now. How special and cool it would be to see how far we've come in thwam, well,

Lexi Burt: 00:24:20

I will be sure to relay that to the team, and I also invite anyone listening to do the same write a future letter to yourself. What goals? What are you working on now? How do you hope to feel this time next year? And Hannah, I just want to thank you for your time and coming on the show.

Hannah Marie: 00:24:38

Thanks for having me.

Lexi Burt: 00:24:42

Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to embrace your whole self, in mind, body and spirit. If you're ready to take the next step in understanding your fertility or women's health needs, I would love to support you. You. Book a free consult with me and Together, we'll explore how we can work towards your healthiest, most vibrant self. Until next time, take care you.