Giorgia Soleri and the arrival of menarche: “It was heartbreaking, I dreamed of menopause”

The intimate story of the influencer, suffering from endometriosis, during a conference in the Chamber of Deputies

ROME – The arrival of menarche, for me, coincided with a new, unexpected desire: the arrival of menopause. And while my mother ran down the stairs screaming ‘you’ve become a young lady!’, I writhed in pain wondering how many years I would have to endure that torment. In that moment, at 14 years and 15 days, I discovered the reality of a body that turns against you”. Giorgia Soleri, influencer and activist for women’s rights, invited to speak on the podium during an event on endometriosis at the Chamber, gave the audience an intimate story about the pathology, strongly disabling, which has afflicted him since he was a teenager

DIAGNOSIS AFTER YEARS OF PERSISTENT SUFFERING

Born in Milan 28 years ago, the activist received her diagnosis in March 2021, after years, as she has repeatedly said, of persistent suffering. “Unfortunately, I had already known pain, both physical and emotional – said Giorgia Soleri – At the age of 4 my parents had separated amidst violence, escapes and hospitalizations in psychiatry. I had spent months living with my mother in a house without gas, eating bread filled with ketchup, washing myself in a basin filled with water heated with the electric stove, the one used when camping.

At 8 years old, 11 days after the birth of my first half-brother, I was hit by a car – an accident from which I still have many scars – and I was hospitalized for a month in hospital”. But the one linked to menarche, the influencer underlined, was a different pain: “It came directly from my bowels, it burned as if hell had broken loose inside me and I had no ways or tools to silence that heartbreaking scream that came from my belly, to put out the fire that was blazing inside me. This time I couldn’t blame anything external: that evil was inside me, it was me”. Because when the influencer got off the bus after the two-hour journey needed to reach the desert and managed to reach the first available bathroom, “not only did I find the tampon soaked in every millimeter of bright red blood, but also the underwearand the denim shorts that I had decided to wear that day. While I was asking my mother how to cover the ‘crime’ scene – continued Giorgia Soleri – those clothes soaked in very recognizable menstrual blood, I tried to hold back the tears so hot that they burned my eyes – they were burning of shame as I burned with pain. The response was a perplexed expression and a not very convinced ‘it’s only the second time, sometimes you don’t know how to do it, you’ll learn'”.

“WAKE UP EVERY TWO HOURS TO CHANGE THE TANK”

And Giorgia tried them all: “We started with tampons without wings: ‘maybe you’re too thin and the wings make you dirty’, my mother said. When we understood that the problem wasn’t the wings, we tried with the classic day pads: same result – he said – it was the turn of the night pads: ditto with the latest commercial idea: the super mega innovative pads, produced with a brand new material capable of fit perfectly to any woman’s body. Nothing to do, not even that time.” The following days and nights, of that never punctual monthly appointment, the activist learned to manage them in his own way: “With an alarm clock every two hours to be able to change the tampon. For safety I slept with a dark towel spread under me, there were now too many sheets that I had irremediably stained with the symbol of my development, so similar to my condemnation. Yet that first year after menarche my menstruation, despite overwhelming me with the force of a tsunami – metaphorically and literally – they only came to see me three times.”

“TOO MUCH PAIN, TOO MUCH AMOUNT” 

It was the fourth time, at the beginning of the second year, that began to arouse her suspicions: “The pain (of the period) was too much – Giorgia Soleri said –the quantity was too much, the dose of painkillers (taken, among other things, in vain) definitely too much. My mother accompanied me to the most renowned center in our area, and so I had my first gynecological examination. The report, which I still have, read: dysmenorrhea (pain during menstruation) 9/10″. And although the influencer complained of almost unbearable pain, she was offered the contraceptive pill: “I hadn’t had intercourse yet and my mother didn’t agree with the idea of starting to take hormones so early.

THE PRESCRIPTION OF A SUPPLEMENT

So I was prescribed a supplement, with the phrase that in the years between the blind pain and the (or perhaps I should say ‘the’) diagnosis, most of all became as sharp as a blade: ” Miss, you are in perfect health’ and all its possible declinations. How one can be hurt by such happy news still remains a mystery to many people and this is why I decided to talk about it”, commented Soleri.