“Let me know if you need anything!”
“You can call me anytime!”
Content warning: mental health, trauma, gaslighting, violence.
You’ve probably said something like this: I know I have. You’ve also probably been on the receiving end of it as well. But are you truly prepared to help someone who is experiencing a crisis? If you’re the one in a crisis, would you really reach out for help, or accept the help that’s offered?
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When I had surgery to remove my colon (which is called a colectomy) and place an ostomy, I knew exactly what was happening. I knew I would wake up with a loop ileostomy. It was the first step in 2-step j-pouch surgery to treat my ulcerative colitis.
My colon was falling apart, full of inflammation and pseudopolyps (non-cancerous polyps that can occur with IBD). I had a few months to prepare for surgery, including meeting with my surgeon and an enterostomal (ET) nurse. When I woke up with a stoma and an ostomy appliance, it was not a surprise.
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In the spring of my junior year in high school, I met with my senior year Advanced Placement English teacher. I don’t remember much of that meeting, such as what we talked about, or even its purpose.
What I do remember is the store room she took me into.
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Contained below are mild spoilers for the Season 2, Episode 4 episode of Farscape, “Crackers Don’t Matter.”
In 1999, my husband and I came home to his parents house after a night out. We found my mother in law watching the Sci-Fi Channel, as she often did in those days. The show that was on was Farscape. It was everything that the other sci-fi shows of the era were not. It was intelligent, bright, messy, sexy, funny, and relatable. I immediately fell in love with it.
The premise of the show is that John Crichton, astronaut, is testing his ship, called a “module,” in low Earth orbit, when he’s catapulted out of the galaxy through a wormhole. He winds up in deep space, immediately pisses off a high-ranking military officer, falls in with some escaped prisoners, and is off on an adventure.
Oh, and there’s no way to get home because nobody knows where Earth is located.
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Spoilers for Alien are included in this post. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it and come back. It was released in 1979, but I promise it holds up.
What any individual person takes from a piece of art is shaped by their views and experiences. Two people can read the same book, see the same movie, or view the same sculpture and take different inspiration from it. This can be true even when the intent of the artist is fairly clear, because we all view art through our own unique lens.
That being said: Alien is a horror movie. I’ll tell you why.
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I was fortunate to see The Matrix on its first run in theaters when it came out on March 31, 1999. We knew little about the movie at the time, only that it was science fiction and it looked amazing and that we would want to see it on the big screen and not later on VHS (DVD was not yet mainstream). The movie came out only a few weeks after my first of two surgeries to create my j-pouch (or IPAA, ileal pouch-anal anastomosis) to treat ulcerative colitis (which is one form of inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD).
I love The Matrix, and how could I not? It contains so many narrative aspects I enjoy, including science fiction, robots taking over the world, an unconventionally beautiful and lethal female character, and a kick-ass soundtrack. To be honest, there are a lot of things about the plot that don’t hold up to serious scrutiny. But that’s fine, it is still amazing and undeniably groundbreaking in both storytelling and technical aspects.
When The Matrix opens, the watcher has no idea what is going on. This is my favorite way to be pulled into a story: absolutely cold, with no frame of reference. There’s no exposition; the narrative plunks you right into this universe that works differently than the one you know. You have to make a decision right then and there, if you are all in and if you’re ready for the filmmakers to take you on the ride and teach you about their world. For me, it was my first time being out of the house and enjoying myself after having surgery, and I was so ready for the journey.
(Mild spoilers for The Matrix are contained in this article, so if you haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it lately, go watch it now. I mean, how can you exist in the world and understand what other people talk about without having seen it?)
Cooper: “TARS, what’s your honesty parameter?
TARS: “90%”
Cooper: “90%?”
TARS: “Absolute honesty isn’t always the most diplomatic, nor the safest, form of communication with emotional beings.”
Interstellar has become one of my favorite movies. Don’t let the science fiction part of it get in your way — it’s not about that. It’s about what it means to be human and how to distinguish between saving individuals and saving humanity as a species.
Having a chronic illness is rather like having a secret. How do you go about telling people of your illness? Do you tell them at all?
I saw a posting in a closed IBD group recently where a member was asking for help in how to request accomodations at work without having to get specific about health circumstances. Advice was offered on how to handle the situation discreetly, until another member demanded that the advice seeker should “tell the truth.” “Why would you lie?” the response continued.
Not revealing the whole truth is not the same thing as lying. I was concerned about the helpfulness of this exchange, and I failed to see how it was productive for anyone. I don’t believe any person has the right to question another person’s decision to not disclose a health situation. We don’t owe each other the truth. Continue reading