pain isn't always a lesson 🛸

first contact in the waiting room

sick girl in various sick girl positions such as laying on the couch, laying on the couch trying to work, laying down teaching a class and walking to the pharmacy to get a prescription

I spend a lot of time in waiting rooms. I have multiple chronic illnesses, pains and stuff that generally leaves doctors going “well I am not really sure what to do…”. There’s a lot that makes me feel like an alien but multiple doctors scratching their heads makes a gal feel truly unhuman. The internet is really hot for liminal spaces but I think waiting rooms are closer to a nexus between human world and alien world.

All waiting rooms are a purgatory of sameness. A pulse to the line up of vinyl chairs and fluorescent lights. Wall mounted tv’s with CP24 switched on with the recent political news, or trade deal, or budget cut or a budget increase, disgraced politician or viral video clip of duck and baby in the bath together or a chihuahua at pride.

The community of the waiting room forms. There are roles to the waiting room community. The day players that make up the 10 minute to 3 hour wait we’re all about to endure. Man watching tik-tok on his phone without headphones (a demon from a hell-mouth), rogue child that seems to belong to no one climbing over the chairs with an uncharming amount of dried snot on their face, and overly chatty mother daughter duo that will talk loud enough for you to listen to their current family gossip.

In the waiting room, we all elect a leader. We are no autonomous collective, no democratic proceeding takes place. She arrives and her presence is known, felt, across the waiting rooms. She's 40-something, she’s breathless, sweaty and annoyed she has to be here in the first place. She stages her authoritative takeover, but we all agree that she, red-faced-white-woman-with-micheal-kors-hamilton-tote is the best representative for us, the people of the waiting room. She is relentless and just, standing up for the entirety of their waiting room experience like a junk yard dog pacing it’s grounds. Broken in blundstones heel striking across the terrazzo tiles that look slay in an instagram influencers kitchen backsplash but feel dated here in this brutalist medical office building. She keeps an eye on who has arrived to the waiting room after them and who has been called in before them. We all collectively do this, keeping track of where we are in line, but she is brave enough to walk over to an nurses station and ask “why that person went in before here”.

This is something I would never do because I respect nurses but that is because I am terrified of girls that played high school volleyball and went on to become nurses. I am also well versed in waiting rooms enough to know that the receptionist with gravity defying asymmetric bob pulls the strings around here, and I won’t be doing anything to jeopardize my spot by asking such trivial questions such as “when is it my turn to see the doctor?” or stating “I had an appointment at 2 and now it’s 2:30”. There are also the seasoned waiting room patients such as myself vs the people that haven’t been to their doctor in years. The wheat from the chaff. Seasoned waiting room patients arrive to the waitrooming and lock in. Trigger fingers light on the noise cancelling in our headphones to not miss our names but enough to drown out the woman arguing with her mother over speaker phone. We know which way to swipe our health card (stripe facing receptionist, right to left) and also know that if you learn the names of the receptionist (Cynthia M-W, Barb T-S) they know to send you through to the nurses desk when you ring for your appointments.

I have had pain in my body since I remember having a body. My doctor asked me last week if I have always had migraines. I told her I thought we all walked around with a buzzing in front of our brains. A tensor bandage and needle through our eyes. It’s hard to evaluate how you feel inside your body when we live in a world that asks us to constantly gaslight our sensations.

I wake up each morning and try not to evaluate how I feel or name it good or bad, just trying to exist for the first few moments of the day, even if it is with pain. I can manage one thing a day right now between the various floor beds I have made up for myself across my apartment. Leaving my bed bed as a sacred place to sleep only. It’s boring being sick so you need to distinguish areas for times of the day to break up the day and not let them blend together like a watercolour.

I read a few weeks ago that psychologists don’t know if alexithymia (the inability or difficulty identifying, and expressing emotions) is inherent to being Autistic or if Autistic people are just traumatized out of listening to our bodies and feelings so much that we don’t know how to feel or express feelings. I am not someone that lingers on alternative timelines but that hurt. If I lived in a world that was kinder to Autistic people I might know when I am at my limit. When a smell bothers me, when the sound at a restaurant is too much or that I even when I am in pain in the first place. I may understand what I need. I might not be a person that experiences chronic pain. I may not feel so far away from my body or at the very least spend less time in waiting rooms.

It’s hard to talk about disability in anyway that feels light. Human bodies are terribly embarrassing. It’s uncomfortable to be met with someones humaness and vunerabilty. Telling someone you have chronic pain is like ripping the worst fart on planet earth in front of them and then staring directly into their eyes without saying a word about it. Which is also usually true for me because the amount of magnesium citrate I take for my migraines really plays up my IBS!

Bodies are embarrassing. Pissing, shit, laughing till you cry, making out and drool stranding getting caught between your lips, dying and fucking are all awkward. That’s what disability asks us to confront, our fallible bodies. It reminds us that the goal in life is to become some version of disabled, but I am standing in front of you now reminding you that it can happen at any moment. And while my body isn’t ME it, it is the body and flesh suit I have been given for this earth spin.

It is also hard to talk about because people get tired of hearing it. If I ever answer the question “how are you” it very honestly would be “not great, I am trying really hard to sit up right and converse with you in any kind of normal way, the sound of you clicking your nails together makes me want to buy a looney toons gun and shoot you comically in the face and all this concentrating on not murdering you also is making my physically nauseous so now I am concerned about running to the bathroom on time ”! But that's not only not socially “acceptable” its “extremely rude” and “Phoebe why are you ruining Christmas be nice to your step sister”.

I don’t think I have a very high pain threshold but when you are in pain everyday of your life it just sits with you. Carving out a layer between me and the body I inhabit. A hum and buzz a tinge and stab. It’s with me when I am teaching, lifting weights over my shoulders to a room full of people. It’s with me when I sit around the table with my friends. It’s with me when I log into a zoom. It’s with me when I ride my bike to the coffee shop or toboggan down the snowy hill on my coat. It’s with me at dinner and when my siblings call complaining about our other siblings.

There's not cute bow for chronic pain, no lesson or reason or god. It just is. How absolutely unliterary and boring. And while I am annoyed that my spaceship sent me down to make first contact, I am using my time on Earth to make sure you bitches feel just as uncomfortable and weird as I do. 🤸🏻‍♀️

Thanks for reading weird girl. You can find me weekly over at my “day job”

DoYouEver

! Last week we released our first Artist Study on Doechii! 🐊 We are also currently booking Studio Sprints for March + April! 🌱 (aka 6 weeks to birth a project, essay, book proposal, podcast, new website, song in your heart, into the world!).

The Universal laws of Doechii

And the week before we were yapping about THE GREAT META EXIT/LEAVING THE APPS etc etc.

the apps won't save us

xx

Phoebe

*typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop* I am just a human girlie living on earth with a mortal brain 🤸‍♀️(and also like, don’t be an ableist freak🥰)

Thanks for reading the Weird Girl. Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and breaking up with the wellness industrial complex. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing 👼