IntenseDebate - alyssabarringer

8 years ago @ The Toast - "Reckless and Hopeful ... · 0 replies · +37 points

OH P.S. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is super common -- like, 10%-ish of women common, and if you're prone to highly irregular periods and a few other things you should ask your doctor about it. Sometimes it's co-morbid with endometriosis, too.

If I sound like a WebMD article it's because 12 YEARS AND 11 DOCTORS is too long to wait for a diagnosis of such a common thing, and I'm considering graffiti-ing bathroom stalls with "WOMEN'S HEALTH ISN'T NICHE AND YOU SHOULD FIRE YOUR DOCTOR IF THEY TREAT YOU LIKE YOU ARE CRAZY."
http://www.glamour.com/story/endometriosis-and-po...

8 years ago @ The Toast - "Reckless and Hopeful ... · 2 replies · +41 points

"My mother wept with guilt and sadness and relief at the confirmation I had not been a hysterical teenager ..."

I have PCOS, not endometriosis, but my mom also had that moment of "WAIT so you weren't just being an awful teenager? Something was really wrong?" moment of relief/guilt. I think she still has it, when she looks at pictures of me when I was 16 and looked like the ghost of a vampire.* I was so anemic. The picture I'm thinking of was taken around day 80 of bleeding without a break.

It was 12 years between the time I started having PCOS symptoms and the time I got a doctor to take me seriously. And I still think she only took me seriously because I was married by then and considering having a kid, which is tough to do if you never know when your cycles are going to happen. She was the 11th doctor I'd seen.

It makes me want to destroy something, how easy people find it to ignore women's and girls' pain. Thank you for writing this.

*I know that's not even a thing, except for a bit in the last season of Angel.

8 years ago @ The Toast - The Best of Nicole Cliffe · 0 replies · +9 points

Rereading every one of these things today. Sorry, other plans.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Happy Fran Drescher Fr... · 7 replies · +50 points

Things with Fran Drescher in them fell into the category of “not a show for kids” in my house. I later found out this category had very little to do with objectionable content and more to do with that my dad didn’t like the voice and didn’t want us imitating it.

(See also: Rugrats, Spongebob)

8 years ago @ The Toast - Let's Talk About The B... · 0 replies · +2 points

Kind of a slog, but I did get through it. I was 10. I've wondered if I'd enjoy it more now.

Sent from my iPhone

8 years ago @ The Toast - Let's Talk About The B... · 7 replies · +74 points

My tiny Christian elementary school's librarian tried in vain to forbid me from reading things that she deemed too hard for me. We were required to check out and complete at least one book every two weeks. However, I'd already read through the whole 5th grade level catalog and really, REALLY wanted to read Anne of Green Gables ("the words are too big," the librarian said) or The Hobbit ("too scary").

Eventually, she told me that if I could make it through Pilgrim's Progress in less than a month and pass a reading comprehension test on it, I could check out whatever I wanted.

My parents thought this was nonsense. My English teacher offered to circumvent the librarian for us and lend me HER copies of the Anne books, but my dad took the whole thing as an absurd challenge. He helped me work my way through the King's English of Pilgrim's Progress. We liberally sprinkled phrases like "frenzied distemper" into our conversation. I'm sure we were insufferable.

I made a B on the comprehension test, devoured all the Anne books, and transferred to a less ridiculous school not long afterward.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Gwendolyn Brooks (1917... · 1 reply · +56 points

Years ago, I tutored a boy one summer who was having trouble reading. He was the only black boy in the tutoring center, and he was a little older and taller than the other kids, and those things together made him very self-conscious. He told me in a matter-of-fact way one day, "I think reading is too hard for me because I'm black, and black people aren't smart," and my heart broke into a zillion infuriated pieces. (WHO told him this, I will fight somebody, who should I fight.)

His file said he went to Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School, but when I asked him about her, he hadn't realized she was a real person. I printed out a bunch of stuff about her for him, and he LOVED "We Real Cool." He could read all the words in it, for one thing, and he ran around telling everybody about this smart black lady and showing off the picture of her he was carrying in his pocket.

Black writing matters SO MUCH. If he hadn't known the writer was black like him, I don't think he would've powered through.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Tell Me About Your Wor... · 0 replies · +82 points

I KNOW RIGHT? He wasn't, though. Just an extremely sheltered kid who was homeschooled to work on his parent's farm, where he probably wasn't allowed to watch Friends.

8 years ago @ The Toast - Tell Me About Your Wor... · 20 replies · +359 points

Not murdery, just silly:

When I was in high school, I briefly dated a boy who would reference "Old Yeller" as though it were a happy story. I prodded him about it until he went back and discovered that his mom had edited their videotape to cut out the part where the dog dies.

8 years ago @ The Toast - What Goes Through Your... · 0 replies · +67 points

"But not only am I not always that person, under a variety of circumstances you probably wouldn’t be, either."

Oof. Yep.

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