bellyache

You know when you’ve been on the toilet for what feels like fucking hours and your legs are numb and your slightly sticky from sweat and your forehead feels tight and you’ve been clenching your teeth so hard your jaw aches — that’s me most of the time. I’m always on the fucking toilet.

Wake up, open my eyes, blink once. The groan of my stomach. Toilet time. After breakfast, no matter what I eat; luminous green health smoothies, plain toast, probiotic powder sprinkled on granola that’s like chewing hard chunks of wood. I always need to shit my brains out afterwards. Lunch, I might get a break. Maybe. Sometimes I skip lunch and it punishes me for that too, my intestines groaning, literallygroaning at me. I have to leave meetings sometimes because it’s so loud. You don’t have a mouth for a reason. Shut up. Dinner — sometimes just the act of cooking sends me running to the toilet. The very smell of baked potatoes, spaghetti dripping in a fuck-you-stomach-rich sauce, or kale sprinkled with nutritional yeast. Doesn’t. Fucking. Matter. You can find me on the porcelain throne, head in my hands, hating my life.

My doctor hates me. Because I think I know better than him and his qualifications and experience seeing tons of women with belly aches and the shits. But I’m pretty sure I do ’cause I like, live in my body? And after I’ve done everything he’s suggested, no dairy, no fried foods, no alcohol, no fucking pleasure or joy, no stress, tons of exercise, yoga, running, walking, swimming — guess what? I’m still shitting. Go to therapy, he says. It’s anxiety, sweetheart. You’re anxious. Stop being so anxious! Maybe stop being so fucking idiotic. I’ve been anxious. I’ve been hyperventilating in my car because I’m too scared to go into a supermarket and ask where the chickpeas are. I’ve been shaking in my apartment hallway because I’m too anxious to speak to the neighbours and I can hear them talking outside. But that’s not me anymore. Not all of the time, anyway. It’s hard work, but I can overcome. But this. These stomach problems are driving me insane. They are taking everything out of me (literally, everything).

Ishmael hasn’t stopped mentioning how pale I am, I think it looks worse to him because he’s so blessed in melanin, but still, I am really pale. There is no light behind my eyes. And pull my eyelids down and my flesh is so light it looks like raw chicken. I don’t want to look like raw chicken, thanks. Take iron tablets. Eat some steak, sweetheart. Fuck you. I take enough vitamins to rattle at this point. Pick me up and shake me. See what will fall out. And on top of feeling like shit physically, I can’t go anywhere because what if I need to go? And what if there’s not a bathroom? What if I have to shit my pants again in my car? Once was already too many times. That shit sticks with you (literally). Sometimes I feel like my only choice is to move permanently on the toilet. Live here, move in my stuff, hook up a phone charger. Mini fridge, maybe a toaster. Not sure Ish would trust me with the whole bathtub/toaster thing though. Maybe he’d be right not to.

‘How’s it going in there?’ Ish says, standing in the doorway. We’re long past not seeing each other go to the bathroom. If he didn’t talk to me on the toilet, he’d rarely talk to me at all.

‘I think it’s stopped. But who knows. As soon as I get up it might decide it’s not finished with me yet.’

‘Did you want some dinner? It’s almost ready.’

‘I do. But I’m scared. I can’t be on the toilet any longer, my ass cheeks are so numb I’m worried they’ll never regain feeling.

‘I won’t put any sauce on your pasta. That might help.’

‘Who knows. I’ll be out in a bit.’

I finally emerge from the bathroom, walking stiff, feeling like a shell of a person. Ginger Boy runs over to me and rubs his head against my legs, leaving tufts of orange fur on my black pyjama bottoms. I head into the kitchen and plop some thick brown chunks into the Ginger Boys bowl, and shove a dry cracker into my mouth in an attempt to regain some energy. The fishy odour is still on my fingers and makes the cracker taste like cat food.

‘I’ve already fed him!’ Ish says, plating up our food. His looks so much brighter than my beige bowl of cylindrical pasta tubes.

‘I know but he’s so cute.’ I say.

Ish takes both our plates to the dining table and places mine down, giving me a sorry smile before digging into his.

‘How was your day?’ I say, lifting my fork to my mouth. My whole body feels weak, limp like a dirty, wet dishcloth hanging over the edge of the sink.

‘Fuckin’ brill, Dave was off sick so we all had a good laugh.’

‘What about Racist Anne?’

‘Oh, yeah, she’s always in. Said something about my Thai green curry lunch, ‘exotic’ she called it, her nose all scrunched up. Can you believe she’s never had a Thai green curry?’ Ish is only three mouthfuls in and has bright red pasta sauce all over his mouth.

‘Don’t talk to me about curry.’

‘Been a bad stomach day today then?’ He said, taking a break from chewing to drink his beer.

‘Really bad. I feel dead.’

He laughs. ‘Well, you’re not. Sorry to break it to you.’

‘I’ve had this weird pain today. I can’t tell if I’ve had it before or not. It’s like…gnawing.’

‘Interesting…a new one for the symptom diary?’

‘Ugh. What’s the point. The doctors don’t care. They think I’m crazy.’

‘I told you, I’ll pay for you to go private. Find someone else.’ He says, talking with his mouth full. I can see the chewed up pasta, red sauce and cheese swirling around his mouth. I dry swallow.

‘I knowwww, thanks. But it’s not just gonna be a one and done thing. I’m going to need tests, more appointments. It’s crazy expensive.’

‘Yeah but you can’t go on like this. We’ve got France booked in May. How are you going to not eat cheese in France?’

‘I think I’ve gone off cheese anyway. Too…cheesy.’

Before this whole stomach thing I used to love food. All food. Vegetables, cheese, and big, juicy chunks of steak. I tried crickets in Thailand and loved them, loved the crunch, I tried Chicken Foot Soup in Jamaica, loved the saltiness. I could eat anything. I could drink anything. I barely got hangovers. I never even had food poisoning, even after that one time my Dad served us all raw turkey one Christmas where everyone but me threw up and shit themselves for the next two days. It was like I was being punished. Or maybe it was like all of the bad shit I’d eaten over the years building up inside me until now, it was all coming out whether I liked it or not.

But I was noticing I was no longer aching to eat the foods I used to love. I slowly started to feel repulsed by them. I could no longer stand the smell of cheese, it’s yellow-ness, the way it looked when melted. I hated the very idea of any kind of meat, even fish, it all seemed suspicious to me, like cutting into it would reveal tons of worms and maggots wriggling around, waiting to get a piece of my insides. Pasta was pretty much the only safe food I had left, and watching the way Ish was chewing it, the way I could see pieces of it on his tongue as he stuck it out for the arrival of another mouthful — it was dangerously close to falling into the no-go zone.

We were sat on the sofa watching an illegal download of some film we wanted to see at the movies but were too cheap to go. At least we’d be able to pause it if I did need to retreat back to my usual seat in the house.

G-Boy was lying on my stomach, his little chest moving up and down, up and down, faster and out of synch with my own breathing.

‘Ow, fuck.’ My stomach clenched from a sharp pain, pissing G-Boy off. He got down and slunk away, offended.

‘What’s up?’ Ish said, his hand deep in a bowl of homemade popcorn.

‘This is gonna sound crazy but, I feel like something bit me. From the inside.’

Ish crunched on his popcorn.

‘Mhmm. One of the more crazier things you’ve said. Not the craziest though.’

‘I’m serious. I felt it earlier too. It literally feels like there’s something fucking chewing on me.’

‘Let me feel.’ Ish said, taking his hand out of the popcorn and wiping the salt off on his trouser leg. He lifted my shirt up and started prodding around my exposed stomach.

‘Hmm. Feels normal to me.’ Ish said, kissing me on the forehead.

‘Oh yeah? Remind me, when did you finish medical school?’

‘Ha. But seriously, that’s weird if you’re feeling that. Maybe your stomach thing…I dunno what it could be. Hey, did you know there are bugs that hide in bananas and pineapples? We don’t see them, we just munch away and then they’re living inside us. I saw it on Twitter the other day.’

‘When’s the last time I ate a piece of fruit?’

‘Hmm. Maybe that’s the reason. Not enough fruit. Not enough fruit bugs.’

‘The last time I ate a banana I was on the toilet the whole night. Remember? You had to go to the store and get me electrolyte replacement so I wouldn’t die.’

‘Oh yeah. Don’t do that then. You’re not pregnant are you? Like, I know you’ve got that plastic thing in your arm but…how effective is that again?’

‘I dunno. Pretty effective. I don’t think foetuses bite.’

‘Well we’ve both got some gnashers, maybe our foetus is a fast grower?’ He crunches popcorn, dramatically sticking out his front teeth like a rabbit.

‘Stop talking about foetuses.’

I try to forget about the feeling of something biting me from the inside. But that is what it felt like. Sharp. Like my stomach had levelled up and grown teeth. Or maybe it was one of those tumours that can grow teeth and hair. I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat, feeling hungry, feeling too scared to eat.

The thing about having an undiagnosed stomach issue is that no one gives a fuck. Not really. Work still expects me to show up, my family still expects me to go out to birthday dinners and friends to their overly flashy weddings. It’s embarrassing to tell people. I don’t know why, because everybody shits right? But it is. And when you do tell people, they don’t really get it. They can maybe remember a time when they had a stomach bug or food poisoning from their local takeout they still go to. But they don’t get how it drains you, how it feels like being unplugged, a bathtub draining and gurgling until there is nothing left. There is nothing left. I don’t enjoy anything I used to because I can’t. I can’t go to the beach because there are no toilets. I can’t paint any more because what would I paint? There are no colours left in me. I can’t even sit through a movie without needing to pause it, and it’s just not the same.

But I have to work because I need money. Even sick people need money. So I try to make some attempt at looking like I give a shit about how I look. I stand in front of the bathroom sink, the too-bright lights I got Ish to install when I still cared about doing my makeup creating purple dots across my vision. I reach up and try to pick apart some knots at the back of my head without pulling out the curls completely, but my arms ache instantly. I leave the knots and flip my head upside down, shake my head. I feel something brush against the tops of my bare feet.

Hair. My hair, clumps of it, still in curls like tiny brown coiled snakes. Fuck. My hair is falling out. This is new. But also, understandable. No longer getting the nutrients it needs, it’s given up, jumped ship. I get it.

I lean in closer to the mirror, analysing my hair, trying not to pull too hard. And then I notice my eyebrows, how thin they are, when’s the last time I had to pluck them? A few months ago I’d be sporting a unibrow if I didn’t pluck them every couple of days, but it’s been weeks and they’re looking pretty sparse. Fucking great.

I stand back and look at myself in the mirror. I am fucking transulcent. My skin seems so pale, so thin, it’s like I can track each of my blue-green veins from head to toe. Like that one in my forehead, protruding, throbbing. It’s almost neon blue, writhing down the side of my face, along my neck where it’s the thickest, across my chest, down my left arm where it stops at the tip of my thumb. I feel it twinge. Like it knows I’m looking at it. Like it knows I’m tempted to get a blade and dig it out.

Jesus. I am losing it.

I feel sick looking at myself. I feel sad. But it is not even about not feeling beautiful. We are long past that. It is that I don’t even feel like a woman. Like a human. I feel like I am slowly coming apart at the seams. I can’t even stand the thought of being perceived. I just want to melt into my bed, through the mattress, and out the other side into a parallel universe where nothing bites me, and maybe one where I don’t have to work, or pretend I’m not always on the edge of shitting myself, or pretend to be positive about there being a cure, or take antidepressants that make it impossible for me to orgasm, or worry about how other people think I look, if they think I look pale, bloated, or too tall for a women, or too awkward. Maybe a universe where I’d even have the inspiration to paint again.

Or maybe, a universe where I didn’t have to be human at all.

I’ve been at work two hours and have needed the toilet twice. What is possibly coming out at this point? I’ve barely eaten three mouthfuls of food in the last two days. And it’s so hard to give a shit about an hour long meeting where people tell each other how busy they are while wasting time. Especially when you’re dying. Because that’s what it must be, right? How can I possibly go on like this, what am I surviving on? Pure air and water? Unless I am some sort of new superhuman that doesn’t need sustenance, I give myself a week. And I am almost relieved at the thought, as one of the managers writes ‘deliverables’ on the white board, I think about how freeing it’s going to feel when all of this is gone. Over. I can’t say I am particularly suicidal but I am pleased about the idea of dying. This pain has taken everything from me. It may as well finish the job.

I get a text from Mum during my meeting. I open my laptop to reply so it looks like I am sending an important email.

‘You two coming over for dinner tomorrow love? Dad’s getting in some delicious fresh mussels from his friend, remember, the one with the boat?’

My hands hesitate over the keys.

My stomach acid seems to gurgle at the very thought of mussels, the salty-sour smell, the snot-like texture. I cannot believe I used to eat something so revolting to me now.

‘I dunno if I can :( my stomach has been so bad lately. I won’t be much fun. No mussels for me.’

I wait for her response, looking up at the whiteboard to pretend I am still listening.

‘Oh! I’m sure we can cook you something that will be okay. Martha sent me a great gluten free tray-bake recipe.’

‘I mean it’s not just that. I’m exhausted from shitting lol, I don’t think I’ll have the energy, what with work and everything. Sorry xx’

‘You shouldn’t be so negative, darling. I read an article about how IBS is all in the mind. Have you tried meditating?’

I want to launch my laptop across the room.

That’s the other thing about undiagnosed stomach issues. Or any health issue at all, really. People think they know best. People think they have all the fucking answers. They think it’s your fault, you haven’t tried hard enough, you haven’t drank enough water or exercised enough or fucking meditated. They think you’re being dramatic. Especially when you’re young. Young-ish. Under 35. Because no one under 35 gets a serious health condition, haven’t you heard?

It can’t be that bad, my Dad always says. Can’t be that bad if you’re still working, you’ll be alright, love, don’t focus on it too much.

Don’t focus on it. Don’t focus on the searing pain ripping through your lower intestines, the visceral groaning, the way the pain catches your breath in your throat, the way it leaves you gutted, emptied, drained.

Don’t focus on it, oh and don’t talk about it. No one wants to hear you complain. It makes people uncomfortable to talk about your pain. People have it much worse out there, don’t you know? Fucking fuck you. Everyone has the right to complain. Everyone. If you’ve experienced what I have even once, feel free to talk about it till the fucking grave. We deserve it.

I get home and head straight to the bathroom. Why the landlord thought a full length mirror next to the toilet was a good idea I’ll never understand. I get fully naked, because I feel suffocated, trapped. Pulling off my clothes, one of my fingernails snags on my t-shirt, I pull at it, and it comes straight off. My fucking nail. The whole nail. I drop my t-shirt and grab my hand, shaking, the empty nail bed throbbing and pulsing, raw pink skin exposed.

My middle finger feels strange too, I press on the nail, it feels…loose. They all do, each fucking fingernail on both hands feels ready to come off. Out of a sick curiosity I pull, gently, gritting my teeth, and effortlessly, the next nail comes off. And the next, and the next and the next holy fuck what the fuck? I am nailness. My fingertips throb. But it’s not painful. It feels…freeing. Somehow. Like they were supposed to come off. With my hair falling out too, I guess my keratin production has just given up. It’s out of stock.

I sit down on the toilet, shaking. I close my eyes and focus on my stomach. There is that gnawing, chewing — almost constantly now. It almost feels like being tickled from the inside, but in a painful way. Being tickled with knives. Lovely.

Something cool drops out of me and into the toilet. It’s never felt like that before. Usually my excrement is disturbingly hot, burning me on its way out. I cautiously stand up and look in the toilet bowl. It is bright blue. Illuminous fucking blue. Is that the colour of stomach acid? Is that the only thing I have left to expel? No. Stomach acid burns. This, this is like a gel. It’s like toilet cleaner, but the stuff we use is pink.

I grab some toilet roll and wipe, looking at the colour. Cobalt fucking blue. It definitely came out of me, whatever it was.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Ish gets home and finds me in the bathtub, in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. He is immediately worried before I even tell him about my nails or the blue stuff I still haven’t flushed. I force a smile in an attempt to reassure him but I think it has the opposite effect.

‘I think we should go to the hospital. You don’t look well, babe.’

‘No.’ My voice sounds faint, crackly, like talking through a phone with a weak signal. ‘They’ll probably just keep me on a psychiatric hold if I tell them something is eating me from the inside.’

‘Well, we won’t say it like that. But come on, they have to do something. You’re wasting away before my eyes.’ He sits down on the edge of the bathtub.

I get the strangest urge to say my goodbyes.

And then a wave washes over me, like all the answers I’ve ever wanted coming to me at once. A low gurgling starts in my throat. I shoot up out of the bath, scaring Ish, and get out, dripping onto the floor. A shudder runs through my whole body, my skin prickles, I feel each goosebump, each hair follicle as every strand of hair hardens.

Releases.

Falls to the ground in a puff of dust and skin particles. Ginger Boy walks in, curious as to what we are both doing in here in the dark.

Ish turns the light on, confused, his face a mess of worry and disgust.

I turn to the mirror.

My body is hairless, even my eyelashes, gone.

Ish whispers a ‘what the fuck’.

My arms shoot up to the sky, fingers twitching and searching along my newly bald scalp, finding what it’s searching for and –

Unzipping.

Fingertips plunge into the sweet spot where the back of my neck and skull meet, and pull, pull, pull, peel away from my face. It burns and aches in the most delicious way, like when you pick dead skin from sunburn to reveal pink, new flesh. Keeps peeling, past my face, my shoulders, my bloated stomach, all the way until the tips of my toes.

I am raw.

Electricity buzzes through my fleshy body, I feel every vein pumping blood, every heartbeat as my degloved hands reach back up to the sweet spot and begin to pull again. Pull away my organs and bones.

Thank you, Thank you, I say instinctively as my body parts fall to the ground, thanking them for their service, how well they held me up even when I didn’t treat them kindly.

Ish is open mouthed, eyes bulging, a scream trapped in his throat but I am calm and Ginger Boy is calm and I feel weightless.

Suddenly my perspective drops from up high to down low.

I am small. I am something new and old. Something forgotten. I crawl out of the shell of my stomach, pushing past organs and intestines that drop to the ground with a thud and find myself in the mirror. My true self.

I have never felt more free, more alive in the most inhuman way possible. I understand everything at once, forgive everything at once, as I look at my new/old form in the mirror. A deep blue coloured creature with five eyes and a glowing tail, hundreds of sharp black teeth, those fucking sharp teeth — my belly ache.

Answered, cured.

‘I was homesick, Ish. I was homesick.

And it’s time for me to go home.’

© 2023 Georgia-May Stone. All Rights Reserved.