Elis de Guerre

I am 27 years old, 10 months into my marriage, and have been separated from my husband for two weeks. Consider this a letter from the trenches of impending divorce.

t interests me that I can immediately think of the gifts of anxiety, panic, and even my spurts of agoraphobia. Being tense in body and mind, living with fear that feels real even though I know intellectually it isn’t, experiencing the migraines, chest pains and choking sensations — these aren’t things that lend themselves to my happiness.
Yet the compulsion to stay at home, brought on by edginess and unease outside, keeps me productive. Anxiety makes me communicative, even if just through electronic means. The worry about judgment pushes me to write better, to edit more thoroughly, to answer the voice in my head saying “You’re not good enough” with a defiant “Then watch me improve.”

What if masturbation doesn’t work for you? What if you’ve tried fingers, vibrators, porn, fantasies, and even romancing yourself with glasses of wine, and you still can’t seem to get there?

I’m a person who needs to know the facts. I bring a notebook with me to every doctor’s appointment. I record important meetings. The research list for my memoir is pages long. Why should pregnancy be any different? And so the research began.

There's a hot non-bromance brewing between new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci and Trump's Chief of Staff, Reince Priebus.

If you see me with my partner, you’ll more than likely think that I’m a straight girl in a heterosexual relationship — and there’s nothing I hate more. Being with a man seems to negate my sexuality, rendering it secret or private when I’m anything but.

I disowned my father when I was 17. He was a perfect storm of a human being, drowning women in physical abuse, rape, judgment, and his excuses. I experienced all but rape, and for that I consider myself lucky.

Raise your hand if you feel like you want to make new friends as an adult, but have no idea how anymore. Oh, good. It’s not just me.

Everyone has their inner critic, the voice in your head that whispers all manner of terrible things:

You look fat in that outfit.

I never wanted children. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I played with stuffed animals. Even when I played house, my home was filled with plush puppies.