Sick: A Memoir

by Porochista Khakpour

And the deal with so many chronic illnesses is that most people won’t want to believe you. They will tell you that you look great, that it might be in your head only, that it is likely stress, that everything will be okay. None of these are the right things to say to someone whose entire existence is a fairly consistent torture of the body and mind. They say it because they are well-intentioned usually, because they wish you the best, but they also say it because you make them uncomfortable. Your existence is evidence of death, and no one needs to keep seeing that—especially not the people who gave birth to you.

To be seen, to be heard, to exist wholly, whether in beauty or ugliness, by a parent often felt like another big step to wellness.

I have been through so much, I wanted to say, but the words were tangled in my throat. They were still with me, the summer and autumn spent suffering from serious anxiety, panic, depression, chronic fatigue, gastritis, carpal tunnel, God knows what else, all the shattered states in the nightmare nation of chronic insomnia.

illness will always be with you as long as life is with you. And tragedy will be with you too.

I imagined myself back in Indonesia, falling asleep to the sounds of Muslim prayer echoing off the walls of the cities.

And I imagined myself further holding a book, this book, This Book that was not The Book I Sold, holding it against my chest, if only to feel my heart beat against it. The story didn’t end as I imagined so many times: in the end I would make it.