Sick: A Memoir

by Porochista Khakpour

And there it came: his half smile. And here it followed: my rage.

What 9/11 did was give us the gift of time running out; it put limits on things, stamped expiration dates on us. Suddenly I watched the news, the clock, the calendar. Age meant something.

By this point, three decades into life, I’d seen all sorts of adversity from war and revolution to abuse and rape and car accidents and terrorist attacks—what could a bug bite mean for me?

Women simply aren’t allowed to be physically sick until they are mentally sick, too, and then it is by some miracle or accident that the two can be separated for proper diagnosis.

I also kept saying something I had heard some other therapist or doctor say at some point, maybe in the psych ward: Let’s get to the bottom of this once and for all. I was mesmerized by what “the bottom of this” could be, but I knew I wanted it.

So many men had tried to fix me; so many men were convinced they could help. What was one more.