"An older man with gray hair, whom I had never seen before, was also waiting to use the bathroom and tried to make eye contact with me. I was in no mood to converse or chit-chat, so I simply stood there, neutrally. I did my best to ignore him. I tried in vain to look everywhere but at him, but he inched closer. "You know, you really should smile," he finally uttered. "What could be so bad that you can't smile?""
"I needed the bathroom to check that I hadn't bled through my leggings because I was actively miscarrying a pregnancy. I was at the gym because my miscarriage was not a "quick" one. It happened to be an awful, excruciating, drawn-out loss that took three months from start to finish - it turns out the pregnancy was a non-fallopian ectopic, so the tissue had implanted somewhere in my body that the doctors couldn't find."
A 29-year-old woman waiting for a gym restroom endured a stranger's insistence that she 'smile' despite her visible distress. She was actively miscarrying, checking for bleeding through leggings, and coping with a prolonged, excruciating non-fallopian ectopic loss that unfolded over three months. Her hCG rose repeatedly, followed by heavy bleeding and false hopes from doctors until medication halted dividing tissue. Regular gym visits served as a crucial coping routine amid isolation and unpredictable symptoms. The stranger's comment—made after he inched closer and tried to engage her—exposed entitlement and compounded her pain, validating her anger.
Read at Business Insider
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