I went through the school day, I got home from school, and then I took the tampon out. I was itching and scratching all over. I just felt so sick. I was telling my mom, and my mom was like:
Mama: “She’s just faking. She not sick. She’s just faking.”
Grandma: “She got a fever though, she got a fever.”
Mama: “She all right. She going to be fine. Just take this Herbalife. That’s what you need to do, just take this Herbalife.”
To this day, I hate Herbalife because of this incident. She was making me swallow these pills, but soon as I swallowed them, I threw them up. Anything I drank—water, juice, whatever—I threw up.
Mama: “Oh, she acting. She acting. Stop acting like you sick. Stop acting like you got a problem. You just acting.”
Then she whipped me. That whipping hurt, but it also felt so good, because my body was so itchy. Every time the belt hit me, it was like a good scratch.
Then, when my grandma came over, I was completely dehydrated. I had scratched holes in my legs and my feet. You know when you run outside after the ice cream truck in the summertime and the bottom of your feet burn? That’s how it felt all over my whole body. My tongue had swollen up. I was so dehydrated from vomiting constantly.
My grandma was not having this:
Grandma: “She need to go to the hospital. I’m taking her to the hospital.”
Mama: “Don’t take her to the hospital. She don’t need to go to the hospital. She faking. She faking.”
Grandma: “This is why you gonna end up losing these kids.”
My grandma ignored her and took me to the hospital. Later on, they told me that if she hadn’t brought me in when she did, I would have died that night from dehydration alone.
I had toxic shock. That was my first time getting a Pap smear. I was thirteen. They had to break my hymen, all that shit. Two people stuck their finger in my butt. It was the worst.
But there was this sexy doctor that came in. I’ll never forget that doctor. He was black and really strong and he was scary handsome. He was pressing on my stomach and stuff.
Doctor: “Does that hurt?”
I would try to be all sexy and cute, and say it seductively.
Tiffany: “Owwww yes . . . it hurts. Owwww.”
It really did hurt, but I was trying to be cute about it. He left the room, but I wanted him to come back. I wanted him to come back, because I thought he was so handsome.
Tiffany: “I need the doctor. I need the doctor.”
Nurse: “What’s the matter?”
Tiffany: “It’s hurting. It’s hurting so much in my lower stomach and in my area. It’s hurting.”
Nurse: “You sure? Here, I can give you some pain medicine.”
Tiffany: “No, I think the doctor needs to come back in here.”
Nurse: “He’s still on the floor. We’ll get him to come back.”
I fixed my hair and spread it out on the pillow, made it look seductive. I was thirteen, and I was so stupid. I was trying to make it look sexy.
When he came back, I threw the sheet to the side and I opened my legs and said:
Tiffany: “I think I need another thing where y’all check with the thing ’cause it hurts a lot. I think you need to look at it.”
He threw the sheet back over me.
Doctor: “Miss Tiffany, that’s very cute but you do not need to be looked at down there anymore. You’re going to be just fine. I just looked over all your lab reports and everything is getting back to normal very quickly. You’ll be out of here by tomorrow. Okay? Nobody needs to look at your private parts anymore.”
Tiffany: “Are you sure?”
Doctor: “Yes, I am quite sure.”
Oh my God, I was a thirsty kid.
Controlling, Jealous Boyfriends
Every boyfriend I get is jealous. Every man that I date is jealous of other people around me or jealous of me. I don’t know what it is about me. I got to figure that out.
I can’t tell you how many guys I’ve dated who are all about, “No phone calls from dudes. Who is this dude? What’s his name? What kind of business is it? Are you cheating on me? Are you cheating on me? Blah blah blah blah blah.”
So many of these guys fussing at me every single day about dudes. Do they not realize I’m in a male-dominated business, and I’m going to have to talk to men every day? That’s just a part of my gig. I try to explain this, then I hear, “Well you shouldn’t be flirting. You shouldn’t be sending emojis.”
When I did this television special one time, I got two, three hundred text messages from all these different comedians. The guy I was dating went through my phone and deleted a bunch of them.
I let him do it, because I have nothing to hide. I don’t know why guys do that, but they always look at my phone. Every guy that I’ve dated has gone through my phone.
But I can’t even get mad at the dudes who are jealous and possessive. You know why?
I’m picking them.
I pick every dude. I literally walk up to them, grab their arm, like, “You are beefy. What’s your name? You sexy.”
That didn’t work in high school. In high school dudes were like, “What? What is wrong with you? You talk to Tiffany? What’s wrong with Tiffany?”
It works now. Now guys respond.
Well, at least the guys I tend to be attracted to—possessive and jealous and controlling—they respond.
The good guys, they don’t as much. They get scared.
One of my comedy buddies tried to help me:
Comedy Buddy: “Tiffany, you need to just smile and don’t say shit. Look at the dude. Smile and then look away. If they like you, they going to come for you. You’re a beautiful girl. You should never say, ‘Damn, you look beefy’ or ‘You’re handsome.’ You don’t need to do that.”
For most guys, I think he is right. For most guys, if a woman approaches them, they don’t know how to process it.
If you’re a woman and you compliment a guy, even something simple like, “Oh, nice shoes,” and you don’t work with them every day, you’re not seeing them every day, it’s just some guy you meet and you compliment them—they think something is wrong with your pussy. They think, even subconsciously, that your pussy must be broke.
That’s why so many guys tell me, “You be acting thirsty.” Comedy Buddy always says this:
Comedy Buddy: “You act like you’re an ugly girl. You’re like an ugly girl inside of you, but a pretty girl on the outside. Did you know that?”
It’s like fat people who lose weight, in their head, they’re still that fat person they used to be.
The other day, I was thinking about why I am like this. I think I act like this, and I end up picking jealous and possessive guys, because in some sick, twisted way, I think that means they care. I’m like, “Look at all the energy he’s putting into finding out what I’m doing.”
The reality is, in my life, no man’s ever really cared. As a kid, I didn’t have any man that cared about me.
My dad didn’t care. Stepdad didn’t care. Uncles didn’t care. Nobody cared.
I think that I interpret possessiveness from men as love.