oh god, what's your excuse this time?
On the uncomfortable return to "invisible illness."
This is Bite Back, a newsletter from Tess Koman.
I think I made a mistake. Actually, let me not couch that: I made a mistake. I pretended too hard to be a Real Girl. I pretended so hard that everyone now thinks I am a Real Girl. It is everything I’ve ever wanted and…it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it feels…….unhinged!
How we got here
The past few weeks have been an exercise in pushing myself. I made the conscientious decision to try and leave the house more and attempt to begin to live some kind of life again, mostly as a data point. I went on vacation. I vacationed successfully! I attended one of my oldest and best friend’s marathon of a wedding weekend. It was wonderful. I got home after all of these things with more concrete information about what my body and mind can now handle at this point in recovery. I did it with the intention of bringing said data back to my therapist so we could figure out how I can incorporate this new information into my daily routine moving forward.
Like, for example, have I come far enough that I could I now get myself to a restaurant to eat with a friend every once in a while, on days where my still-absurd bowel movements felt manageable? Could I try and take my child to the better, funner farm 20 minutes away instead of the sadder one just three minutes down the road? The one where I have no idea what the bathroom situation is?? Could I maybe have the confidence to start leaning on my husband a little bit less? For, like, everything??? Could I just kinda…exist a little, and have that be fine???? Maybe?????
Everyone around me—the same people who have supported me unwaveringly throughout that whole prolonged-brush-against-death-thing these past many months—cheered as I posted gorgeous, unburdened nonsense on IG Stories. They asked breathlessly about how I did throughout all of it, their eyes silently beaming at me “please just say it was great and fine, please, don’t mention diarrhea, jesus christ, please, please” with each follow-up question.
…Have you ever had a friend who’d come sit with you for hours on the hospital bed you couldn’t move from? Has that friend, because she knew it’d make you more comfortable, pretended to be oblivious as both you and your hospital roommate shat yourselves in harmony? Have you ever then tried to look that friend in the eye after you were lightyears better than that and tell her “yeah, no, I still feel like that sad little bed-shitter, I just look so great right now and am still tan from standing on the edge of the Aegean! That’s cool, right? I *do* need to spend many more hours and months discussing, cool!?”
…Oop! We seem to have found ourselves back at the Sisyphean crossroads of invisible illness again. It’s still weird here!
What we’re (maybe) trying to do about it
Well, truthfully, I’m still trying to complain as much as I can in safe spaces, because the dichotomy between “‘normal’-looking person trying to move forward with her life” and ‘traumatized-slash-will-never-really-be-healthy one” is, and always will be, deeply trippy. Complaining to people who (1) get it and (2) professionally have to listen to you really helps marry the two.
For example, every week I ask said fantastic therapist if she is surprised to hear that I still feel stuck and traumatized and kinda like I’m still living that hospital bed existence, even though it’s been five months since my last surgery, the same five months since I lost my job, and 10 months since my intestines exploded. Every week, she says “...no.” This week, after all my objectively great adventures, she was entirely nonplussed, mentioning off-hand that sometimes we can’t even begin to process trauma until the body is physically stable enough to do so. That the fact that I feel more guilty and paralyzed than usual after accomplishing more than I have in a calendar year means…something might be going right. Oh!
I also take every opportunity I can to complain to my colorectal surgeon, who does save my life via abdominal surgery every few years, but who mostly is just family/trolls me now. Every opportunity, he says…well, he’s a little bit meaner to me than my therapist is, but he’s also quite incisive. It hurts and then it really, really helps:
.
…And I am staying close to my friends. The same ones I always and without fail hide from when health-related anxiety becomes all-encompassing. And that may be my biggest marker of legitimate progress yet. Like, of my adulthood. Or of my life. Really, that one’s a biggie.
Oh! And I’ve spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to really, truly, and finally ID the brand so we can attempt to make this content-creation-amidst-continued-unemployment thing real. More to come there soon. I hope?
How we’re eating through it
Starchy carbs and salty ones. Pretzel flats (thins? What are they called? Not the flat pretzels, but the pretzels that are slabbed and flat. Pretzel plateaus?? You know what I’m talking about. Yes??) with everything: powerfully aged cheddar, strawberries, egg salad. Everything!!!
If you missed last week’s return to YT, I discuss more of this carb influx and why it’s been working for me spiritually, digestively, etc. This week, though, I…oh god.
This week, I posted the world’s noisiest and disjointed travel vlog.
Nothing if not true to the brand, you know?
See you next week. I’ll clean it up for you by then, maybe. My sweet little sicks! Mwah mwah!
I’ve written multiple comments on multiple articles but always delete them. I think I sound stupid or too fan girlish. 🤪 So I’m just gonna say thank you. For every girl that loves all the food that their body hates, or had to detail anal/gastro surgeries to others without the earth swallowing them up from embarrassment … THANK YOU
You have been through so much, and I don't think there is a playbook for moving on and feeling better after that kinda trauma. It's amazing to see how far you have come and a joy to be apart of seeing your recovery.