A sample of What I Didn’t Post on Instagram: A Collection of Essays on Real Lives and What We Filter Out
Dedication
For messy women who don’t pretend to have it all figured out.
Contents
- Introduction — Chrissy Stockton, page 7
- In Which the Emergency Room Nurse Compliments my Engagement Ring — Kim Quindlen, page 15
- Too Much Love Is Worse Than None at All — Sarah Lansky, page 23
- New Year’s Eve and Asleep by 11 PM — Ari Eastman, page 29
- A Brief History of Being the ‘Cool Girl’ — Kendra Syrdal, page 35
- My Daughter Who Doesn’t Want to Be a Mother — Sarah Bregel, page 51
- Mushy British Face — Katie Sisneros, page 57
- Tell Me I’m Funny — Katie Mather, page 63
- What Cambodia Didn’t Fix — Dana Bedessem, page 69
- Beach Vacation Blues — Koty Neelis, page 73
- Perfect Pictures Don’t Stop Ugly Thoughts — Kaitlin Chappell Rogers, page 81
- Boss Bitch — Jen Kilgo, page 85
- Hot Lava — Nikita Gill, page 89
- My Social Media Life Is Bullshit (and I Feel Fine) — Mélanie Berliet, page 93
- I Don’t Want a Los Angeles Kind of Love — Chrissy Stockton, page 99
- All Light Contains Dark Things — Brianna Wiest, page 103
In Which the Emergency Room Nurse Compliments My Engagement Ring
by Kim Quindlen
After holding it in my chest all morning, I finally let out a strangled, pathetic little sob into my hospital bed pillow. A second, pathetic little sob followed suit.
For a moment, I was distracted by how weird and pitiful the noise was as it came out of my mouth. It was almost funny how dramatic it all seemed; combined with the weird fetal position I was in, I felt like I was a bad actor on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Eventually I looked up and saw Sean staring at me, his eyes wet.
"What?" I said, panicked.
He cleared his throat. His voice came out low and scratchy, like always. "It’s just hard for me to see you in pain and to know that I can’t do anything."
We had probably been waiting to see a doctor for an hour or two. Or, I don’t know, maybe it was seventeen. When you’re in the waiting room of the ER and in extreme pain, every minute feels insanely long.
Finally (after securing our $250 copay) they led us into a curtained-off area where I was able to curl sideways on a bed while we waited for someone, anyone, to come help us.
After I was diagnosed twelve years ago, this was the first time that Crohn’s Disease had taken me as far as the emergency room. I had some close calls in the past—plenty of bad days, plenty of bad weeks, and some Very Bad Months where the inflammation in my body was so bad that I could barely eat anything or do anything. Dark circles under my eyes from exhaustion, collarbones jutting out from my chest due to losing weight so unnaturally fast, running to the bathroom every few minutes after eating just one wrong thing—all those sexy symptoms.
If you’re unfamiliar with Crohn’s Disease, I will explain it very quickly in regular-people terms: My digestive system is chronically inflamed, so my day-to-day life involves consistent abdominal pain, frequent diarrhea, an inability to digest many foods, constant anxiety that comes directly from the unpredictability of my body, and lots of other fun surprises like going to the ER on a busy Monday morning.
Eventually we heard footsteps on the other side of the curtain. Sean let out a fast, heavy breath. He squeezed my hand. "They’re here, I think. You’ll be okay now."
The doctor came in and asked all the fun doctory questions: Where do you feel the worst pain? Have you eaten anything unusual in the last few days? When was your last bowel movement? Can you describe your last bowel movement? I murmured my answers while Sean rubbed my hand with his thumb and looked at the ground, knowing that I felt awkward having to talk about all of this in front of him.
They were concerned about a stomach obstruction, which is apparently very serious. They did an X-ray. It wasn’t that. Eventually, they determined that the problem stemmed from the fact that I had taken Imodium several days before and my body reacted poorly to it—as in, I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in six days and because my gastrointestinal tract was already such a mess, this just added fuel to the fire. This was where all the pain was coming from.
The doctor then had to do what I will scientifically refer to as a "butt exam," which was the last thing I wanted to happen while I was still clutching my stomach in pain. I asked Sean to stand outside the curtain. This whole experience was humiliating enough that I didn’t need him to be in there during this part of it, too. The doctor began the exam and a nurse held my left hand while I let out more pathetic little sobs. "That’s a pretty ring," she said, nodding to my finger. "Are you having fun planning the wedding?"
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