DIRT: the grunge diaries (𝒱𝒾𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶'𝓈 𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃)

entry #106 - my pain is self chosen

⚠️ lame jokes (?) and mentions of eating disorders ⚠️

'Hey... calm down sunshine. What's up with you ?' Sean asks me, trying to keep me calm while I'm still there, being probed down there, kicking, screaming and crying. All of the above, religiously in Baghdadi/Bethlehemi slang, 'cause the doctor is smart, very discreet, and he's making sure I will be the only one to understand him while he's still probing me. I like the degree of discretion, but a part of me would just like to reassure Bessie and Sean, who are both really worried about my health, and tell them I'm all good. That I ain't dying, my condition is just temporary, and that I would like to make it better, in a reasonable future ... but I am afraid I can't. I can't speak, because I'm sobbing too hard. And I can't heal, because I'm not strong willed enough to.

Me? Gaining weight? No way, absolutely no fucking way in the world I'm ever gonna. Sean is telling me to calm down and asking me what's going on with me... and I'm laying here, holding his hand, and wondering how the hell I'm gonna tell him that if I'm having a nervous breakdown, it's not because I'm about to tell Bessie and him that I have a terrible disease, but because the doctor keeps telling me he must weigh me, and a number on a fucking scale terrifies me. He wouldn't understand that. He would think that I'm crazier than what I seem, face value. We've talked about my issues more than once, and on every single occasion, he just told me that, to him, I'm perfect. And he can't understand why I'm that hard on myself. I appreciate his support, 'cause support is what it is ... but still, having a guy who cares about me and who thinks I'm perfect to him doesn't make my issues any better. It sometimes makes me forget about them for a little, but moments like this, aka while I'm thinking about being weighed and finding out effectively how much I've gained since I moved here to the US, trigger it all back to me. The threat of being weighed in its own has just about the same effect of when Gerry calls me out for being the fattest girl he's ever seen under my lover's arm. Or when he calls me out for being fat and that's it. Hurtful much, yeah ? Not only I get compared to someone else on the daily, and I get called fat like it's a mantra, I also get my weight estimated at over 99 pounds pretty often, too... and now my Iraqi doctor friend is telling me he wants to put me on a scale to see how many pounds I gotta gain, in order to have my periods back. I'm mentally in hell. And I can't fucking stop crying.

I'm so fucking confused. Weren't I ... fat? Which in Tori slang, means average slim ? I tell myself I'm average. Sean tells me I'm perfect. Bessie tells me I have a lovely figure. Gerry tells me I'm fat. Rami tells me I'm underweight of a to be defined amount of pounds. My mom tells me I need urgent fattening up. My dad asks me if I stay lean because I don't want to find a husband. Who should I listen to? Who's shitting me and who's being real with me? And why do I feel so mentally all over the place?

I'd just like to disappear, all over again. But I'm getting probed, Rami the doc is asking me to keep still because we're almost done, and there's nothing else I can do besides keeping my legs spread and letting him insert the last couple probe inches inside of me. It's gonna be over soon, that's what he's telling me, in his thickest, exotic accent. And I'm cool with having my faulty ovaries checked, as long as I have my best friend rubbing my hair, and my non boyfriend boyfriend sitting by my side on the examination table, holding my hand in his, and rubbing it with his fingertips. Calming much, from my perspective of patient. But Bess and Sean aren't calm at all, just pretending to be for the sake of keeping me tame. They are worried, they effectively have no idea what's going on between Rami and I, and I just know I gotta make this better for them.

'Can we know what's happening, doctor ?' Bessie speaks, rubbing my hair some more, very worriedly so. Her one tearful eye is on me, her other tearful eye is on the ultrasound monitor, like she's trying to understand what's going on, but with negative results. She wants to know if I will die of a slow death on front of her eyes real damn soon, or if I will live through this unknown issue of mine. That's very much of a role reversal, because not so long ago, I was the one to be afraid for her life and limb. But she's being very forward, in a very Bessie, very polite manner: whatever I may have or not have, she wants to understand what's happening, and I'm pretty sure so does my lover. They're looking at me like they're silently, discreetly asking me to say a single word in English to reassure them, in all of this sorrow and madness in two different Arabic dialects. And oh, I think I will try to give into my best friend, between a sniffle and a sob.