Eight years. That is the average length of time it takes for a woman to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis.

Eight years of pain. Eight years of being told it is normal, it is stress, it is in your head, it is just difficult periods. Eight years of doctor's appointments where you leave with a prescription for painkillers and the quiet, creeping suspicion that you are somehow failing to communicate how bad it actually is.

I know this because I lived it. My endometriosis was not diagnosed until I was well into my fertility treatment journey - years after the symptoms had begun, and long after the damage had already been done. By the time it was found, it was at stage four. The most severe stage. My organs had fused together. My uterus was twisted out of shape. And I had been told, by a qualified gynaecologist, that there was no sign of active endometriosis.

How does this happen? How does a condition affecting 1 in 10 women - as common as diabetes - go undetected for so long, so consistently, in so many women?

The reasons are multiple and they are systemic. Women's pain has historically been dismissed, minimised and attributed to anxiety or emotional sensitivity rather than investigated properly. Endometriosis has no blood test that can detect it - a definitive diagnosis requires laparoscopic surgery, which means it is not something a GP can confirm in a standard appointment. Symptoms vary widely between women, which makes it harder to recognise. And the condition has been chronically underfunded and under-researched for decades.

There is also the issue of what we teach women to expect. When painful periods are normalised from adolescence, women do not know that what they are experiencing is not standard. They do not present for investigation. They manage. They cope. They become very, very good at getting on with it.

I want to be direct about something: if you are in significant pain around your period, during sex, during ovulation, or at any other point in your cycle - that is not something you have to accept. It is worth pursuing. It is worth going back to your GP if the first appointment does not lead anywhere. It is worth asking for a referral to a gynaecologist who specialises in endometriosis. It is worth insisting that surgeons who specialise in laparoscopic surgery are considered, these do not have to be practising gynaecologists. The difference between getting this right and wrong can mean years of pain and anguish. It is worth speaking up and trusting your body. It is worth pushing.

I know how exhausting it is to push. I know how demoralising it feels to leave yet another appointment feeling unheard. But the alternative - staying silent and letting the damage accumulate - is so much worse.

You know your body. Trust it.

If you are searching for answers about your own pain, The Library has a curated list of endometriosis organisations and resources for the UK and Ireland. And if you want to read the full story of what it took to finally get a correct diagnosis after years of being dismissed, that story is in Inconceivable.