I Told the Doctor the Whole Truth

Dear Delyara, Not the edited version. Not the calm version. Not the one where I play reasonable so no one thinks I’m anxious or dramatic or one more woman making too much of her own body. I told the whole truth. I said how long it had been happening. I said how much I was thinking about it. I said what I had stopped doing because of the fear. I said how embarrassed I was by how scared it had made me. And when I finished, I felt this strange wave of relief. Not because I had answers yet. Because I had stopped making my own pain easier for the room than it was for me. That felt like health care in a deeper sense than tests and forms. It felt like dignity.