I went to the doctor on November 6th
Yes, this is about the Election.
On Nov. 6th, 2024 – the day Trump was officially elected for a second term – I went to an adult PCP for the first time.
I entered the office for my 2:45 appointment in a haze. Up until that point, I had spent most of the day in bed, combing through every piece of reporting I could find about Trump’s voter base. I prepared myself for this outcome in the months leading up to the election. I wasn’t surprised he won, but learning his coalition had grown to be more diverse than ever before induced a level of exhaustion I couldn’t shake. It turns out preparation doesn’t prevent heartbreak.
Around noon, I fueled myself to peel out of bed, eat, and get dressed with a mantra: Be a big girl.
In a month I will turn 25. This is a big deal because 25 means you’ve officially entered your mid-twenties, and that’s when the government mandates you’re not a kid anymore. If you’re lucky like me and have health insurance through your parents, 25 is when you really start to think about handling your shit. Anything that feels a little off now could feel really off in a year. Who knows what insurance I’ll have then. Something about the devil you know being better than the devil you don’t…
I drove to the doctor’s alone and checked in at the front desk. I noticed the office’s interior design was very… mature. The pediatrician’s was always filled with little distractions, like wallpaper covered with cartoon animals, TVs that played Pixar movies in the waiting room, and baskets filled with candies or stickers. This appointment, falling on this day, was a reminder: It’s a cold, hard world out there. No more coddling. Be a big girl.
I waited in the examination room and scrolled through Instagram. I generally try to stay off social media, but this day I couldn’t help myself.
The outrage I remembered from 2016, especially from my female peers, had been replaced with something quieter. I tapped through post after post that expressed a sorrowful resignation. There was a lot of poetry. Mostly Mary Oliver, an excerpt from Ta-Nehisi Coates, some James Baldwin. “I guess this is just who we are,” they all seemed to be saying.
I heard a knock before the door swung open and a gust of wind hit my face. My new doctor entered swiftly.
She greeted me and sat down behind a computer. “What brings you in today?” she asked as she began typing.
I told her that I was here to go back on birth control. That I was prescribed a combination pill at 17 but stopped taking it my senior year of college because – as a lesbian with no history of, or future desire for, male partners – I am at virtually zero risk of pregnancy.
I told her that, after I stopped taking the pill, I began having my period twice a month. That I lived like this, in frequent pain and constant discomfort, for over two years, but didn’t realize why until I moved back home. That it was my mom who noticed how often I was bleeding.
I told her that I blamed my inattention on the chaos that comes with freelancing and that – up until very recently – I had undiagnosed ADHD.
I told her I was ashamed to have put myself through this for so long.
My new doctor listened. She agreed that I was bleeding too frequently. She scheduled to have my blood drawn to assess my thyroid and prescribed me birth control. We decided a NuvaRing would be best because, that way, I couldn’t forget to take a pill. She also told me that, depending on how I used the ring, I could opt to stop having my period altogether.
I said I didn’t know how I felt about that. Isn’t it dangerous?
“No, not at all,” she said almost immediately. Then she stopped typing and looked at me. “We don’t have to live like this.”
I drove to Walgreens and sat at the back of the store while I waited for my prescription. I scrolled through Instagram under the fluorescent lights and read more Mary Oliver: “it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in the broken world.” I closed the Instagram app and deleted it off my phone.
“We don’t have to live like this.”
Be a big girl.
At a stop light on my drive home, I thought about threats to birth control access since the Dobbs decision. I thought about Trump’s inconsistent statements on reproductive care. I thought about turning 26.
“We don’t have to live like this.”
Be a big girl.
I pulled into my driveway, went directly into my bathroom, and inserted the NuvaRing, finally putting an end to two and a half years of unnecessary hardship. Suddenly I couldn’t help myself anymore. I cried.
“We don’t have to live like this.”