When Milly Rose Bannister looks back now, one memory still makes her stomach drop. She was about 15 or 16, sitting in a doctor’s office trying to explain the pain that kept flattening her every month. 

She remembers describing how bloated and sore she felt after eating or even just sitting too long, struggling to articulate something she barely understood herself.

The doctor asked whether it happened around her period. When she said yes, he laughed.

‘He basically said, “Well, that’s just a woman’s lot in life. That’s nature. Get on with it,”‘ Milly tells the Daily Mail. 

At the time, Milly assumed he must know better than she did. Adults and doctors were the experts, and you trusted them. 

Now at 29, she understands that appointment marked the beginning of more than a decade of pain being normalised, dismissed and slowly internalised. Pain that would eventually be diagnosed as endometriosis.

And she now knows her experience is far from unusual. Research shows more than half of Australian women say their pain has at some point been ignored or dismissed by health professionals, a pattern that leaves many doubting their own bodies before they ever receive answers.

Milly first noticed something wasn’t right around 16. Like many teenage girls, she was juggling school, friendships, extracurricular commitments and the emotional turbulence that comes with adolescence, so when exhaustion and anxiety crept in, it seemed explainable.

Milly Rose Bannister says her pain and fatigue were minimised and dismissed for years before she finally got answers

In her late teens and 20s, Milly saw neurologists, fatigue specialists, cardiologists, naturopaths and therapists. She was prescribed the pill, antidepressants and countless supplements

Doctors reduced everything to hormones, stress or simply doing too much. But her symptoms went far beyond teenage ups and downs. She suffered chronic headaches, overwhelming fatigue, painful and heavy periods, severe bloating and growing anxiety, alongside bouts of depression.

‘The fatigue was probably the most debilitating,’ she says. ‘Everyone else seemed able to just get up and go, and I felt like I was failing at life.’

She pushed herself anyway, determined not to fall behind or miss out socially, but most afternoons ended the same way, collapsing into bed after school and needing sleep just to make it through the evening. 

Her mum could see how much she was struggling, driving her to endless appointments while Milly drifted off to sleep in the passenger seat.

Still, answers never came. Instead came referrals, scans, medications and mounting confusion.

Across her late teens and twenties, Milly saw neurologists, fatigue specialists, cardiologists, naturopaths and therapists. She underwent MRIs, repeated blood tests and iron infusions. She was prescribed the pill, antidepressants and countless supplements, each new treatment carrying fresh hope that relief might finally arrive.

‘Pretty much every specialist you can imagine,’ she says. ‘Anything anyone suggested, I tried because I was desperate.’

The message, however, remained the same. Nothing serious was wrong. Her symptoms were simply part of being a woman, and she would grow out of them. At home, frustration sometimes spilled over. Family members, trusting medical advice, occasionally called her a drama queen. Not out of cruelty, she says now, but because everyone believed the professionals.

Milly talks about the ‘girl pain pipeline’, describing how girls are often taught from puberty onwards that pain is something to quietly endure

The diagnosis was validating but emotional. Relief came first, followed by grief. Much of her 20s, including years spent living overseas, had been shaped by untreated pain and exhaustion

Still, the label stuck. ‘You start blaming your own body,’ she says. ‘You feel dramatic. You feel weak. You question yourself.’ Slowly, she stopped trusting her own instincts.

Milly talks about the ‘girl pain pipeline’, describing how girls are often taught from puberty onwards that pain is something to quietly endure. That conditioning, she says, keeps many young women stuck for years without answers.

Instead of stopping, Milly learned to organise her life around unpredictable exhaustion and pain. She built flexibility into her career, freelancing before eventually founding youth mental health charity Allknd. Time and location freedom weren’t lifestyle choices but coping strategies.

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‘I needed to be able to go home and sleep in the middle of the day,’ she explains.

Friendships became harder too. She constantly worried about committing to plans she might not physically manage and felt anxious about being away from her safe space for too long. Over time, she realised how much connection she’d missed.

‘It cost me memories and opportunities,’ she says.

Loneliness crept in, feeding anxiety and depression. Ironically, people living with chronic pain often become the most isolated, even though connection is what they need most.

The turning point arrived unexpectedly in her late twenties. Milly had grown used to heavy bleeding and pain, assuming it was simply her normal. Then one day her partner walked in while she was emptying a menstrual disc and stopped in shock.

‘He just said, “That is a lot of blood. Is that normal?”‘

She had never questioned it. Normal for her meant going through three full discs a day.

Curious, she finally searched what was medically considered normal blood loss and realised her experience was nowhere near it.

Armed with new understanding, she raised it with a female GP she describes as kind and attentive. For the first time, a doctor paused and treated her symptoms as significant.

‘She said, “Your symptoms aren’t something to sweep under the rug.”‘

Milly still remembers how striking that felt. Someone was taking her seriously. 

A pelvic ultrasound followed, then deeper imaging and specialist referrals, eventually revealing a uterine polyp and signs of endometriosis. 

After 12 years, she finally had a name for what was happening inside her body.

The diagnosis was validating but emotional. Relief came first, followed quickly by grief. Much of her twenties, including years spent living overseas, had been shaped by untreated pain and exhaustion.

‘I felt sad for my younger self,’ she says. ‘She wasn’t dramatic. Something really was wrong.’

Surgery followed quickly through private healthcare. Doctors removed the polyp and endometriosis lesions and inserted a Mirena device in hopes of controlling symptoms.

Recovery proved complicated. Bleeding improved, helping her iron levels and fatigue, but pain persisted and even worsened, eventually leading her to switch back to the pill.

Pelvic physiotherapy later revealed years of muscular tension caused by chronic pain, something Milly wishes she had known earlier. Managing the condition remains demanding.

‘No one tells you how much admin managing chronic illness is,’ she says. ‘Appointments, tracking symptoms, medications. It’s like a second job.’

Milly says she’s in the healthiest relationship with her body she’s ever had, but rebuilding trust takes time. Yoga, Pilates, running and meditation now help reconnect mind and body, yet unpredictability remains.

‘I wish I could rely on my body every day,’ she admits. ‘Not just some days.’

In Australia, women wait on average six to eight years for an endometriosis diagnosis, with symptoms often normalised or dismissed. Milly’s experience sadly sits within that pattern.

Through her advocacy work, Milly sees the broader issue clearly. Women often push their own pain down the to-do list while juggling work, family and social expectations. When they do seek help, they are frequently dismissed.

‘There’s this idea that periods are meant to hurt,’ she says. ‘So we accept pain we shouldn’t have to.’

Historical bias in research and medical education has also left women’s reproductive health poorly understood and underfunded. The result is a system that leaves many women doubting themselves.

‘It’s not a personal failure,’ she says. ‘It’s a systems failure.’

Now Milly uses her voice so others don’t spend years questioning their own reality. She urges young women especially to seek community, education and support, and to keep advocating if something feels wrong, because ignoring pain doesn’t make it disappear.

Looking back, she wishes she could reassure her younger self.

‘You weren’t dramatic,’ she says. ‘Your body was telling the truth.’

And finally, someone listened.

For information and support about endometriosis, visit endometriosisaustralia.org 

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