Through elementary school and junior high I attended Christian private school which left me equally confused and freaked out by my body. I started public school my freshman year of high school. On my first day of 9th grade English class a substitute teacher in casual conversation said, "Ladies it is your privilege to explore your body and I encourage you to stand over a mirror and take a good look at your vagina." Sure there was a string of topics that led us to this point, though I can recall none of them. And why did I have a substitute on the first day of school anyway? And why weren't we answering the age old question, "conjunction-junction, what is your function?" WHO CARES…never in my life had it even been implied that I actually had a vagina in mixed company and suddenly half of the freshmen football team is picturing me balancing naked over a Covergirl matte ivory pressed powder compact squinting for a better look. I was suddenly aware that my body bestowed wondrous capabilities, some of them possessing great power over the acne ridden, Drakkar Noir stinkin opposite sex, but through my formative years I grew to be ashamed and fearful of it all.
I don't remember a time when I wasn't terrified of being the exception and not in an exceptional way. In the last week of kindergarten they brought us into the first grade room to meet the teacher and sit in desks that were arranged in lines facing the chalkboard for the purpose of a more focused learning. Above the chalkboard was the alphabet, both upper and lowercase letters, with a picture that began with that letter…we're not talking mind blowing educational tools here, but that of which you would see in any first grade classroom in America. The teacher excitedly announced that in the first grade we would be learning to read and write and it wouldn't be long before we could read books without help…everyone around me was estatic, suddenly first grade was the place to be…immediately rumors began to circulate that Bryan Johnson's nanny already taught him to read and spell his name in cursive…the room began to spin and I grew nauseous…what the hell was cursive anyway? I spent the entire summer dreading the first grade, because I just knew I would be the one kid that wouldn't pick it up and in fact I was positive that all the other kids would be writing their names in this mysterious "cursive" by the time summer break was over. I watched a Phil Donahue at my grandma's house about illiterate business men who faked their way to success…this gave me some hope, but the lies seemed very hard to keep up with and I wanted to grow up to be Alyssa Milano not a business man. From that point pretty much every right of passage and every adolescent unknown became a source of sheer terror, because I would be the exception. My brother calls me the "lazy perfectionist"…he says that I don't do anything that I know I won't be perfect at, therefore I don't do anything…It's not so much that I am lazy as much as it is that I am occupied elsewhere hyperventilating into a paper bag.
My number one fear in public high school…sexual organs. In private Christian school they warned us of what went on in public school. According to what I had been informed (possibly my first experience with right wing propaganda) my new peer group had been listening to "secular" music from a very young age with lyrics such as, "do me baby", as well as putting condoms on bananas and hanging out with gay people pre Will & Grace…these people were going to attend colleges with coed dorms! They had all looked at their vagina's in mirrors and I wouldn't even wear a tampon for fear of what it might rob my husband of on my wedding night….SIDE NOTE: another major adolescent fear…farting on my wedding night. I quickly learned to avoid any extracurricular activity which required a physical exam, because I knew a doctor would want to explore my vagina with a popsicle stick. I knew he would find something horribly wrong with it and I knew my mother would be close by to receive a full report. Either I would be the one person ever that contracted some shameful vagina ailment for telling a lie in 3rd grade or I would have some sort of embarrassing deformity and my mom would surely announce it at family prayer circle and add me to every prayer chain in northern California.
One day when I was 15 I began feeling a horrible pain in my side…it quickly grew more and more intense until every time I took a step it felt as if I was being stabbed with a tiny knife in my lower abdomen. My mom rushed me to the ER assuming it was my appendix. The doctor who treated me looked like less of a doctor and more like a grandpa…make that a great grandpa. As he poked around at my belly I quickly assessed that he was not quite living based on the frigid temperature of his fingers and he quickly assessed that I did not have an appendicitis. Without any warning he announced to my mother, "I need to do a pelvic exam" and my mom agreed. Whaaaaa-wait….pelvic? Like pelvis? As in the same body part that gave Elvis a sexually charged seedy reputation? It was clear to my mother that I was terrified. As I stepped behind the curtain to drop my pants in private maintaining a false modesty as if he wasn't about to join me with that popsicle stick, my mother began to comfort me in, um, "her way". I wasn't just raised in the church, I was raised in the charismatic-pentacostal-ish church…my mom's way of comforting me wasn't to actually comfort me, but to go to the Holy Spirit on my behalf in her "prayer language". Other moms might offer practical non supernatural advice while holding their child's hand…my mom however would speak in tongues and authoritatively cast out demonic spirits in situations that were already stressful, scary and awkward in their own right. I soon learned that Doctor Father Time opted to use his frigid zombie fingers instead of the popsicle stick which no longer seemed so scary. My mother was now thanking God for the peace filling the exam room, while I innately clenched every muscle in my Holy of Hollies. After several stern requests from Doctor Crypt Keeper to relax, he finally gave up and opted for the back door…In the last 16 years since I had this exam I have been plenty educated and I still don't know how he found what he found using that route. Suddenly the feeling that I was about to poop in front of another human being while my mom sang the second verse of Then Sings My Soul ended and as fast as I heard the latex glove snap off of his frozen toquito-esque fingers, he announced, "she has a large cyst on her ovary". He suggested that I take birth control pills to prevent any future cysts all together, but in my world it was a fact that the instant I popped the first baby-squelching pill my eternal life would certainly hang in the balance as I stumbled down a road of heavy petting with Johnny Football Player. Instead I began an ineffective regime of missing school once a month and taking obscene amounts of Ibuprofen. In the years to come I silently coped with 20 day long periods and unbearable menstrual cramps fearful of what I believed would be an embarrassing diagnosis that didn't have a cure anyway.
In an overdramatic effort to run away from home I got married at age 19. A month before my wedding I got a prescription for Birth Control Pills…I certainly flashed my engagement ring about as if it were my permission slip to have them. Even after all that I had gone through the pill was not to treat the cysts, but was an actual form of birth control…the thought of being a mother was as scary as learning to read…it felt as if all the other married girls wanted it, were capable and would succeed and I just knew when it came to being a good mom…I would be the exception. The pills made me extremely nauseous and added to my already rapid weight gain, which was becoming a problem for the first time in my life…I gained 60 lbs within the first 6 months of my marriage and 30 more by my 21st birthday. I tried 3 different types of pills and gave up…little did I know at that point there was no need to control birth…I was infertile. After my first attempt with the pill, in 7 years of marriage we didn't use any form of birth control and I never got pregnant.
The OBGYN appointments became less scary as they became more frequent. It is amazing that through countless examinations, paps and cyst sonograms it was 10 years before I heard terms like "polycystic ovarian syndrome" and "insulin resistance"…I was told cysts were common and that I needed to cut back on coffee and chocolate and that my uncontrollable weight was due to lack of self discipline….turns out it wasn't that simple…turns out I was the exception.
I don't remember a time when I wasn't terrified of being the exception and not in an exceptional way. In the last week of kindergarten they brought us into the first grade room to meet the teacher and sit in desks that were arranged in lines facing the chalkboard for the purpose of a more focused learning. Above the chalkboard was the alphabet, both upper and lowercase letters, with a picture that began with that letter…we're not talking mind blowing educational tools here, but that of which you would see in any first grade classroom in America. The teacher excitedly announced that in the first grade we would be learning to read and write and it wouldn't be long before we could read books without help…everyone around me was estatic, suddenly first grade was the place to be…immediately rumors began to circulate that Bryan Johnson's nanny already taught him to read and spell his name in cursive…the room began to spin and I grew nauseous…what the hell was cursive anyway? I spent the entire summer dreading the first grade, because I just knew I would be the one kid that wouldn't pick it up and in fact I was positive that all the other kids would be writing their names in this mysterious "cursive" by the time summer break was over. I watched a Phil Donahue at my grandma's house about illiterate business men who faked their way to success…this gave me some hope, but the lies seemed very hard to keep up with and I wanted to grow up to be Alyssa Milano not a business man. From that point pretty much every right of passage and every adolescent unknown became a source of sheer terror, because I would be the exception. My brother calls me the "lazy perfectionist"…he says that I don't do anything that I know I won't be perfect at, therefore I don't do anything…It's not so much that I am lazy as much as it is that I am occupied elsewhere hyperventilating into a paper bag.
My number one fear in public high school…sexual organs. In private Christian school they warned us of what went on in public school. According to what I had been informed (possibly my first experience with right wing propaganda) my new peer group had been listening to "secular" music from a very young age with lyrics such as, "do me baby", as well as putting condoms on bananas and hanging out with gay people pre Will & Grace…these people were going to attend colleges with coed dorms! They had all looked at their vagina's in mirrors and I wouldn't even wear a tampon for fear of what it might rob my husband of on my wedding night….SIDE NOTE: another major adolescent fear…farting on my wedding night. I quickly learned to avoid any extracurricular activity which required a physical exam, because I knew a doctor would want to explore my vagina with a popsicle stick. I knew he would find something horribly wrong with it and I knew my mother would be close by to receive a full report. Either I would be the one person ever that contracted some shameful vagina ailment for telling a lie in 3rd grade or I would have some sort of embarrassing deformity and my mom would surely announce it at family prayer circle and add me to every prayer chain in northern California.
One day when I was 15 I began feeling a horrible pain in my side…it quickly grew more and more intense until every time I took a step it felt as if I was being stabbed with a tiny knife in my lower abdomen. My mom rushed me to the ER assuming it was my appendix. The doctor who treated me looked like less of a doctor and more like a grandpa…make that a great grandpa. As he poked around at my belly I quickly assessed that he was not quite living based on the frigid temperature of his fingers and he quickly assessed that I did not have an appendicitis. Without any warning he announced to my mother, "I need to do a pelvic exam" and my mom agreed. Whaaaaa-wait….pelvic? Like pelvis? As in the same body part that gave Elvis a sexually charged seedy reputation? It was clear to my mother that I was terrified. As I stepped behind the curtain to drop my pants in private maintaining a false modesty as if he wasn't about to join me with that popsicle stick, my mother began to comfort me in, um, "her way". I wasn't just raised in the church, I was raised in the charismatic-pentacostal-ish church…my mom's way of comforting me wasn't to actually comfort me, but to go to the Holy Spirit on my behalf in her "prayer language". Other moms might offer practical non supernatural advice while holding their child's hand…my mom however would speak in tongues and authoritatively cast out demonic spirits in situations that were already stressful, scary and awkward in their own right. I soon learned that Doctor Father Time opted to use his frigid zombie fingers instead of the popsicle stick which no longer seemed so scary. My mother was now thanking God for the peace filling the exam room, while I innately clenched every muscle in my Holy of Hollies. After several stern requests from Doctor Crypt Keeper to relax, he finally gave up and opted for the back door…In the last 16 years since I had this exam I have been plenty educated and I still don't know how he found what he found using that route. Suddenly the feeling that I was about to poop in front of another human being while my mom sang the second verse of Then Sings My Soul ended and as fast as I heard the latex glove snap off of his frozen toquito-esque fingers, he announced, "she has a large cyst on her ovary". He suggested that I take birth control pills to prevent any future cysts all together, but in my world it was a fact that the instant I popped the first baby-squelching pill my eternal life would certainly hang in the balance as I stumbled down a road of heavy petting with Johnny Football Player. Instead I began an ineffective regime of missing school once a month and taking obscene amounts of Ibuprofen. In the years to come I silently coped with 20 day long periods and unbearable menstrual cramps fearful of what I believed would be an embarrassing diagnosis that didn't have a cure anyway.
In an overdramatic effort to run away from home I got married at age 19. A month before my wedding I got a prescription for Birth Control Pills…I certainly flashed my engagement ring about as if it were my permission slip to have them. Even after all that I had gone through the pill was not to treat the cysts, but was an actual form of birth control…the thought of being a mother was as scary as learning to read…it felt as if all the other married girls wanted it, were capable and would succeed and I just knew when it came to being a good mom…I would be the exception. The pills made me extremely nauseous and added to my already rapid weight gain, which was becoming a problem for the first time in my life…I gained 60 lbs within the first 6 months of my marriage and 30 more by my 21st birthday. I tried 3 different types of pills and gave up…little did I know at that point there was no need to control birth…I was infertile. After my first attempt with the pill, in 7 years of marriage we didn't use any form of birth control and I never got pregnant.
The OBGYN appointments became less scary as they became more frequent. It is amazing that through countless examinations, paps and cyst sonograms it was 10 years before I heard terms like "polycystic ovarian syndrome" and "insulin resistance"…I was told cysts were common and that I needed to cut back on coffee and chocolate and that my uncontrollable weight was due to lack of self discipline….turns out it wasn't that simple…turns out I was the exception.
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