I’m not sure how at sixty-something years old this man had not yet learned that the easiest way to make a woman less calm is to tell her to calm down. It was in this moment that I completely lost my shit—which come to think of it, I’m not sure I ever really had in the first place. So in that case I lost the already very lost shit. Another issue that further complicated the dynamic was that when this doctor put his hand in my face, I noticed that he was wearing a large cuff bracelet made of a mixture of coral and turquoise in a Tetris-type pattern. I was baffled that the same man who just treated me like a histrionic child also enjoys the spiritual benefits of precious New Mexican stones. Dude needs to pick a lane.
Dr. Ego continued to say things like “Relax” and “It’s gonna be fine.” I realized very quickly that this man had a core belief that women are irrational and overly sensitive. Everything I said was just playing into his prewritten narrative of who he assumed I was based on every woman he had ever dated. Words were obsolete because he clearly wasn’t hearing what I was actually saying, so the only thing I could think to do was to take off the bandage wrapped around my head and show him my beet salad of an ear. He winced.
Once he realized I was telling the truth and that my injury wasn’t a result of PMS or just from generally being a female, he got serious and left to call a plastic surgeon. By the time this happened, my friend Dori had arrived. You already know Dori, because she was one of the pals who was so patient with me around my eating-disorder madness. But allow me to give her some dimension: She’s hands down one of the toughest, most competent people I know. One time she called me on a weekday, and as soon as I picked up the phone I started rambling for twenty minutes at how terribly my day was going. Traffic was crazy! There was a line at CVS! That guy I’m dating is totally being so weird! She comforted and advised me for ten minutes on my fake problems. After I felt better, I finally asked her, “So, how’s your day?” She calmly replied, “Well, this morning I got hit by a car.”
This girl was in the hospital recovering from having just had screws put into her knee and ankle, a pretty solid opener for a conversation and certainly a home-run excuse to interrupt someone else who’s complaining about nothing, but Dori is constitutionally incapable of being selfish. Dori also happens to be from New Jersey, is incredibly flexible, has taken magician classes, and has the incredible gift of being able to pee anywhere.
Dori’s arriving was what my amygdala needed because it meant I was going to be okay. If Dori is somewhere, shit is going to get handled, so my body finally got the permission to collapse into being the terrified five-year-old that I was. She was able to say with poise and grace all the eloquent things I planned on saying but ended up coming out of my mouth as “What the fuck is happening?!”
Finally, a surgeon arrived. He was very old, which was a relief. In fields like tech and computer science, the younger someone is, perhaps the more they know, but in the field of medicine, I want my doctors to look like a vintage leather couch. In tense situations, the presence of old age makes me feel safe, especially when it comes to doctors, pilots, and wine. I thought the surgeon and I were going to get along swimmingly until he started putting needles into my open lacerations without any warning. After I jolted around on the bed and yelled horrible things at him, he finally told me that he was injecting anesthesia, and that in order to get numb, you have to feel a shocking amount of pain. The ole “it gets worse before it gets better” racket. It felt like the ER version of when you unsubscribe from Pottery Barn e-mails and they send you an e-mail confirming you unsubscribed. Honestly, I’d feel less disrespected if a Pottery Barn employee just came to my house and slapped my nipple.
Dr. Ego had told me I was going to go to the OR, so imagine my surprise when Dr. Old As Hell started stitching up my ear right then and there, before the anesthesia had even kicked in. “What the fuck!” came out of my mouth for maybe the two hundredth time. Once he was stitching me up, my tone switched. I tend to get incredibly polite when I’m in pain and exaggerate the enunciation of words. I said, “Sir, I don’t think the anesthesia has kicked in yet, because that is a shocking level of discomfort, sir!”
Dr. Old As Hell didn’t respond.
“Can you please inform me before you stick a needle in my ear so I can mentally prepare myself for the excruciating pain, sir?” Nothing. He wasn’t even rolling his eyes at me like most doctors do. Just zero response. This man was literally ignoring me.
Insane as it sounds, I don’t think my deep panic was caused by the dog bite, the fact that I now had bloodstains all over my favorite sofa, or Dr. Old As Hell’s telling me that my ear might not “take” and that I might need a prosthetic. Those things I could actually handle for some reason. My mind only kicked into a state of deep fear when I felt I wasn’t being heard. The only thing more triggering to my inner child than being patronized is being straight-up ignored completely.
I continued to scream and cry as Dr. Old As Hell continued to crochet my ear without acknowledging I existed. Later that day, Dori called Dr. Old As Hell’s office to ask about when I could come get the stitches out and the receptionist told her that Dr. Old As Hell doesn’t take phone calls because he’s deaf. Deaf. DEAF. Look, I love deaf people. In fact, I prefer people to be deaf given I regret everything I say moments after saying it. But, I feel like when someone introduces you to your deaf surgeon, the least they can do is maybe, I don’t know, tell you he’s deaf? The good news is at least it wasn’t my imagination that I wasn’t being heard.
So why am I telling you this story? What’s the point except to gross you out and make you think I’m still very insane and have made none of the progress I swear I’ve made? What could the lesson possibly be?
Well, this all felt like an oddly familiar situation in my life. I urgently rescued something that needed me, took him in without acknowledging his limitations and traumatized neurology, let him get in my bed, projected a fantasy onto him of how perfect our life would be together, and it all ended in a tremendous amount of pain. I had played out this cycle before, only in romantic relationships. It also happens to be a version of the cycle of something called love addiction.
When Vera first told me that I might be dabbling in love addiction, I scoffed. “But I haven’t dated anyone in like six months.” I had already proven her point by protesting too much because usually the more defensive I am about something, the more true it is. I also had been counting the months, which is a pretty addict-y thing to do.
Look, I had no idea what love addiction was, and truthfully I still get very confused about it, because love addiction and the concept of true love are very easy to conflate. Regardless, I still didn’t believe I had it because, well, yuck. Vera explained to me that love addiction isn’t about how often you’re in love, it’s about what happens when you are.