Work Text:
“Statement of Alexandra Kordestani, 7th of August, 2015 regarding an intruder during a panic attack. Jonathan Sims recording. Statement Begins.”
I’m an international student. The UK is really nice and you guys have been really welcoming. A lot of Americans say you’re really cold, but I don’t think so. We’re just not good at other cultures. Not that I’m excusing it, but we’re kind of weird about everyone else. Weird stereotypes that end up with us as the moderate, when we’re completely insane. That kind of thing is why I wanted to leave, outside everything, and I think it’s my right to do it. Half my family only went there because they screwed up our country and the other half… well maybe a fourth is there because of the famine. Though in the case of half my family, you guys were also involved. So the UK screwed up seventy five percent of my family and now I’m here to use your services and get educated at your schools. Perhaps steal your jobs… Kind of fair, oil for jobs, right?
Sorry, I go on tangents when I’m uncomfortable. You see, the adjustment has been kind of frustrating. I expected it to be stressful, but it really isn’t. I can figure out the underground and how to get around, but my stomach is the biggest worry. It just doesn’t want to work anymore, you know? It hurts a lot and nothing seems to help, and when I’m sick I can’t seem to focus. I get anxious, which according to the literature just makes it worse. There’s this thing called the gut-brain axis and if you’re stressed out, your guts stop working and then that stresses you out more. The solution would be to break it, right? But where does it break? Am I supposed to just accept the pain or do I need to swallow an entire thing of Miralax? And I can’t really tell my roommates because people don’t want to hear about your guts, you know? Other Americans are squeamish and I’m not close enough to the other Iranian kids to get aggressively parented. So it’s mostly asking my family back home and asking my doctor.
My family back home didn’t even want me to leave. My dad just survived cancer. Stomach cancer, which makes all of this even worse. And I know they won’t tell me if it comes out of remission and kills him. They didn’t even want to tell my brother my grandfather was dying. But I can’t stop my life, right? Still, when I talk to my dad on What’s App, I worry I won’t hear anything and no one will tell me what happened.
The pain is all the time, unless I’m asleep, so I end up pacing in my room, trying to calm down. What if it’s a tumor? Or something chronic and impossible to cure? What if I keep getting worse, you know? I’m not cute enough to marry for citizenship and you know how bad America’s healthcare system is. I know you guys aren’t much better about chronic illnesses, but at least you have a safety net.
Okay, off the soapbox.
Anyway, I’m in that kind of spiral, you know? What if I’m dying, what if this is forever, what if I get poisoned, all of that. I didn’t really have a plan to cope, I didn’t know what triggered the burning and the vomiting and the pain. Sometimes a cookie was okay, but then the next day I’d throw it up and unable to sleep, my stomach hurt so much. It made me want to tear myself open and see what the problem was. Sometimes I wanted to throw myself in front of a train and be done with it, but that’s not really an option, is it? So I behave and go to my appointments with my GP. Finally, I get a date for an endoscopy, but it’s a ways out, so the ER gave me this antacid. It helps a lot, but I’d really rather know why this is happening. Maybe if I understand why, it’ll become easier to deal with. Until then, the most I can do is grit my teeth during lectures and pop them like candy.
A couple nights ago, it was really bad. I had eaten some eggs, but they weren’t sitting right, so my anxiety was going wild. Like, you know that song “Not Getting Married Today”? It was like that. “What if I’m dying and I don’t know and my doctor is ignoring the signs because I’m a woman and then my roommates don’t check on me until I am a soup on the mattress?” That kind of thing. My therapist calls it catastrophizing, but it’s kind of hard to not when you can barely eat anything with the full certainty it won’t burn and then come up. I had an exam for my class, so I was in, by myself, trying to drown in the lovely world of SQL. I had a shower earlier too, just to see if it’d calm something down. It usually worked okay.
I went to get some water from the kitchen, hoping that I could pace a bit and maybe things could calm down. I wasn’t really paying attention, talking myself through my anxiety. I had to remind myself I’d be okay and not to throw up. It helped, in a way. I’m not really inundated with comforting words. Most of my family just says not to think about it. Positive thinking, as though that’s going to save me from cancer or whatever this is.
One of the doors was ajar, with this weird light coming out. We don’t really leave lights on in our apartment when we’re not using them, but this didn’t seem like anyone’s usual lamp. It was the wrong color, to put it as simply as I can. Like yellow, but in a bad way. There’s different colors to different bulbs and I try not to tell people what lights to use, but I’d never use this one. It’s too loud.
Someone poked their head out. This really tall guy and I felt this weird shift… It made my anxiety worse. The fear was there, since I didn’t know him, but it was my anxiety. It was like it kept rising, like I’d have to claw my own chest open to make it stop. Like I don’t know. I thought he was maybe someone’s boyfriend? But no one else was here and we’ve been really good about telling each other who would be in the apartment. If not, he was some sort of intruder and that was exactly what I needed, right? I knew he was going to do something to me and I needed to scare him off.
And I just sort of opened my robe? I was wearing pants, but sometimes I just don’t put my shirt on immediately, so I just had my tits out. It seemed to surprise him and he slammed the door closed. Funniest thing, I could have sworn his hair went pin straight. I then closed my robe and went to get water. I didn’t realize I had done something like that until I was pouring a cup of water. Who shows their tits to a burglar to run them off? I ran back to my room and locked it. I didn’t even tell my friends for a few weeks because it was so stupid.
The thing is… that part of the hallway, if there had been a door there, it would have opened to our living room… and it was gone when I checked in the morning. According to my roommates, none of them had a boy over. Haven’t seen him since and my stomach has been a lot better recently.
So I guess I flashed a monster into leaving me alone. I guess he’s welcome? They’re not the best boobs, but I like them. I guess I could say he can call me, but that seems ill-advised. But I’d like some guidance if it’s possible.
“Statement ends.”
“According to the notes, she was advised that regular stranger danger guidelines apply and to come back if it happened again. I sent Martin to follow up with her, and Miss Kordestani is job hunting, looking to be sponsored for a work visa and eventually get permanent residency. According to her, she has not seen this burglar again, but she has acquired a cricket bat for her own protection. Her stomach issues have been resolving slowly through medication, dietary changes, and exercise, which Martin claims she went into full detail about it. Excessive detail, if he’s being honest, though he assures me she’s very sweet. According to her, it’s not cancer.”
“I cannot believe Michael was scared off by a pair of breasts.”
“End recording.”