Ulcers

"Damn, son, your endoscopy looks like you're either a fifty-year-old investment banker or a chain-smoker — but your file says you're only twenty-two."

Those were the words I heard as I woke up, with only a faint idea of where I was, the mechanical buzzing and beeping of the heart rate monitor going off around me. How did I end up in the hospital? The last thing I remember is writing something late at night, and then suddenly there was a strong abdominal pain that gripped me — and after that, all I remember is curling up and screaming as if my insides were about to burst.

"Look, son, whatever you're into, these things aren't good at your age," said the doctor, looking over my endoscopy report. I was told I had a peptic ulcer in my stomach, and some ulcers in my mouth. The mouth ones I know — I've been dealing with them for a fairly long time — but the stomach one, well, that was something new.

So, like any curious person, I opened up Google and typed "peptic ulcer causes." Usually, it's caused by H. pylori bacteria, but its traces weren't found in significant quantity in my body, so that must have been a secondary factor here. There was another reason that made me think — stress. Am I stressed? Not in any particular way that I know of.

So, like any intelligent person with a phone and a good internet connection, I spent a few days reading about ulcers. And one thing stopped me: it's believed that stress linked to overthinking and keeping things unspoken — swallowing your own anger — is one of the reasons for stress-induced inflammation and ulcers. This struck me. There are many co-factors, of course, but this particular one felt like it knew something about myself that related to my condition.

I spent the next few days in a strange delirium, maybe from the medicine, maybe from thinking about all the times I have swallowed my words and shoved them down my own throat.

I feel my ulcers are marks of the times I tried to shove down something I would have wanted to shout at the top of my voice, or the cries I tried to hush. Yes, this seems pretty much about me. The ulcers in my mouth are the words that came close to being spoken, but at that very moment I stopped myself, and they stayed there — heating up and slowly eroding my skin from the inside, until they turned into bloody sores of pain that I have to regret for the next few days. I apply gel that dulls the pain, but isn't that what I've been doing to most of my emotions? Applying quick fixes of overloaded, complex statements that spelled "I am fine" — now I wonder who I was saying that to. The person who asked me, or was I simply assuring myself that I am fine, that all of this is fine? The heat that burns my mouth is a reminder of how strongly I wanted to express something and stopped myself. The saliva that flows from these ulcers is a feeble whisper — the one I let slip under my breath when I was at the tip of expressing something.

The mouth ulcers seem pretty easy to explain, but the stomach one — well, that's more complex. It requires me to dive deep into emotions I have suppressed — emotions that didn't even dare come close to being expressed. How strong were they, that they even survived the acid in my stomach? How strong were they, that they withstood the heat and even managed to take literal form inside me? The stomach ulcer is my regrets, my guilt, born from countless gulps and silences that I kept. I wish I knew exactly how many there were, but sadly, I don't. I'm sure there must be at least two that I clearly remember.

One was the day that bloody neighbor was beating his wife and children, and I clenched my fist so hard I nearly felt like I was digging into my own skin. I wished to step in, to stop him, to shield that child and tell them it's alright, they're not going to get hurt — but I wasn't able to. I was a coward. I stood there, frozen. I started crying, but it didn't help. I felt disgusted with myself. Even today, when I look back at that time, I still feel the same way, and that became my first ulcer. Even today, when I hear loud screams and aggression, I tend to freeze and suddenly start to cry, as if I'm the same child from back then.

The second is the ulcer I got when someone very important left me. I was frustrated and devastated. I wished to scream at the top of my voice, but I gulped it down because I wanted to be rational, to be the understanding one. This whole facade of swallowing my emotions, day after day, slowly eroded something deep within me — the mucous layer that shielded my insides eroded and gave way to my second ulcer. This one must have been the one that gave me that sharp pain, because it's been some days now that I've been writing about something that kept pushing me back to my long-gone past.

Staring at this now, I realize how a simple ulcer took me on a journey through scars and days I wished to forget — but my body didn't.

I wish I could go back to that time and shout again. But even today, I still write "I am fine."