graphic by ella sylvie
I’ve experienced more physical pain in the past month than I have in my whole life.
Currently, there is my hand — sprained, swollen, and purple from a bad fall off of a swing. My attempt to unlock childlike glee via swing set resulted in a bandaged hand and a particularly humiliating 30 minutes on the playground. However, by the point I fell off of the swing, I had already traveled through the deep valleys of pain my body could produce.
Long before the hand, there was the cyst.
Both the cyst and the pain it caused started small. First, there were the hours of twisting, contracting agony in my pelvis that I wrote off as period cramps. Because I was not used to hurting in such a tangible way, the experience of excruciating pain felt exceptional — something to be endured and then forgotten.
Months later, at the dinner following my college graduation, a similar ache in my pelvic region took shape and vector. Saying goodbyes and taking photos with some of my best friends from college took on a desperate quality as my body sent me frantic signals to go home and lay down. The next three days were spent vomiting at the scent of my roommate’s homemade meals and laying on my side with no other choice but to feel my body and whatever was happening inside of it.
I avoided visiting the doctor for as long as possible, not only because it hurt to walk and wait for pedestrian signals but also because doctors were typically dismissive of me. Requesting relief for pain felt like admitting a personal shortcoming. As a nonbinary person, I was also reluctant to be examined by doctors who labeled me female without a second thought. If I could not trust a doctor to consider my gender outside of the binary, how could I trust them to treat a body that exists outside of it?
When I finally visited a gynecologist later that week, she pressed on my stomach, asked if I was using condoms or thought I was pregnant (go figure), gave me a referral for an ultrasound, and sent me a prescription for painkillers that were less effective than Advil. It had been decided, then: If the person who went to medical school wasn’t worried about me, then maybe I shouldn’t be, either. I endured.
After a few days, the pain subsided, and I forgot about it. After three months of forgetfulness, my bouts of unexplainable pelvic pain suddenly took a turn for the worse. I found myself bent over the toilet for the fifth time in 24 hours, throwing up Midol and Essentia bottled water.
I could no longer forget nor endure the pain. Instead of seeking medical attention immediately, I decided to embrace the religious eroticism of physical suffering. The embrace of physical suffering as a method of spiritual enlightenment, or as validation of personal righteousness, has existed throughout human history — take self-flagellating medieval saints, Buddha fasting for 49 days to reach enlightenment, Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” twisting her toes for the “prima ballerina” title, and, of course, Jesus nailed to the cross, as just a few examples. The most venerable figures in history and media have not only experienced pain, but they have also embraced suffering for a greater good. I was dedicated to discovering what my pain had to reveal to me if I could only bear it.
As a Black person, the instinct to embrace suffering carries a racial element along with a spiritual one. Black pain has been disregarded and exploited by medical professionals throughout history. In the 19th century, Dr. James Marion Sims, or the “father of modern gynecology,” experimented with gynecological procedures on enslaved Black women without anesthesia and went on to become the president of the American Medical Association. In 1932, researchers began the Tuskegee experiment, in which they studied 600 Black sharecroppers in Alabama to find a cure for syphilis. Researchers infected a portion of these men with syphilis without their consent and denied them treatment as they spread syphilis to their wives and children. Dozens of these men went blind and mad before dying as a result of the infection. Even though the cure for syphilis was found in 1947, the Tuskegee experiment was not terminated until 1972.
Today, Black and Indigenous women, in particular, face higher mortality rates than their peers and are two to three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Colonial history hums a consistent rhyme. When Black people are not sick, the medical system infects us. When Black people admit we are in pain, the medical system responds by making us hurt more. My intergenerational instinct led me to believe that disregarding my pain was easier than fighting for it to be validated and treated.
So, I tried to disregard the pain. As I laid in a fetal position in more agony than I thought was possible to experience, I felt more present in my body than I had ever been. The ache in my organs laid waste to everything else; my body was all there was. My mind and my internal organs sat sideways for days, watching and hearing each other in the dark of my bedroom. Was the twisting, aching sensation from five minutes ago duller or more acute than the one that came right before it? Perhaps stretching would help, I thought, so I hung in a downward dog position and convinced myself it offered relief. I watched the clouds. I passed the time. I prayed. The unabating waves of sheer hurt culminated into a primal frustration. Finally, moments after my mom massaged my pelvis in an effort to soothe me, I did what I had been trying not to do the entire time: I wept.
The urge to downplay my pain burned away to a simple truth: I hurt real bad and needed something to make it stop. My mom insisted we go to the hospital straight away.
After a pregnancy test (negative), a CT scan (to rule out appendicitis), a transvaginal ultrasound (“Do you want me to put it in, or do you want to do it?” asked the soft-spoken nurse as I writhed in pain), multiple blood tests, and a steady-ish stream of pain medication (that barely worked and once took four requests to refill), the resident gynecologist visited the foot of my bed to reveal the source of my suffering.
A cyst on my right ovary had grown to over 9 centimeters in diameter — roughly the size of a grapefruit. The cyst had caused ovarian torsion, which meant that my ovary was twisting on itself and cutting off its own blood flow. Although I was immediately scheduled for an emergency surgery the following morning, there was a chance my right ovary would have to be removed along with my cyst. Modern medicine had unveiled the holy truth: My pain was a cry for help from organs that were literally twisting into knots inside of me.
I was lucky to be assigned to a skilled, personable surgeon who guided me through my first major abdominal surgery (I had never even been under anesthesia before). While he managed to unwrap my ovaries before they suffocated to death and remove my cyst without any complications, I needed accommodations throughout my recovery. At first, I hated being the person in the room who needed things — a chair, an ice pack, a slower walking pace. However, pain forced me to grapple with a universal truth: Having a body hurts like hell.
Being able-bodied is a temporary status. Someday, everybody will experience pain that cannot be endured or forgotten. We have been taught to resent this fact of life, ignoring our pain to prevent missing work and school, canceling plans, or looking weak in front of others. This mindset is rooted in rugged individualism, toxic masculinity, and white supremacy. Pain can exist as a pillar around which small villages form. My mom and grandma stayed long past visiting hours to sit with me in the hospital. My friends offered to drive me to social events. My partner, who was on a research trip in Ecuador, Venmoed me for dinner so I didn’t have to eat hospital food (which was pretty good, actually). I had no other choice but to ask for help and allow the people in my life to answer me with care.
Not all pain is created equal; those who live in chronic pain, do not have access to pain relief, or are terminally ill should never be expected to gaze at the silver linings of physical agony. I was extremely privileged to receive the medical attention and mutual aid that I did. However, we all have a responsibility to reframe our perceptions of pain — if not for ourselves, then for the bodies that surround us. Pain does not have to be a solitary or shameful journey. Pain can be an opportunity to not only receive support from others but also provide love and solidarity in return. For queer, transgender, Black, and Indigenous bodies, pain can be a site of loving revolution, where we take time to heed the signals our bodies send us, even if doing so inconveniences work and school institutions. Experiencing and witnessing pain is not easy work. But the work must be done if we are to share the burden of our wounds.
In other words, fuck the bootstraps. Allow yourself to hurt. Nothing is gained through agonizing without complaint. But allowing the body to fall apart and be weak, as all bodies must, can be a deeply humanizing experience. After all, hurt and human is all we can ever hope to be.