No exit

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

“Hell is other people.”

— Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

I had a severe allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine while in college. My joints swelled so much I couldn’t move them; my entire body broke out in hives; and, eventually, my throat started to swell.

Don’t misinterpret my story: I had a choice between getting vaccinated and dying — or potentially killing my parents — during a global pandemic. I don’t regret my decision.

As I sat in the emergency room, my face red and swollen, a male doctor asked me why I’d come in. I told him I was having all the classic symptoms of an allergic reaction and that I felt like my throat was closing. He agreed that, yes, these were “textbook symptoms.”

Then he asked me if there was any chance I was pregnant. I told him, “No,” and he left. He returned an hour later and asked me if there was even a slight chance I was pregnant. I told him, “No,” and he left. An hour and a half later he led me into an exam room and once again declared I was displaying “textbook symptoms” of an allergic reaction — then he asked me if I wanted to take a pregnancy test.

“There’s no possible way I’m pregnant,” I said, and he looked at me like a parent disciplining a toddler, covered in marker, who swears up and down she doesn’t know who drew on the walls.

“The female body reacts to pregnancy in many distinct ways. And the woman doesn’t always know…,” he said, shoving a $300 pregnancy test into my hands and making it clear I’d get no treatment until I complied. 

After two and a half hours, he gave me a shot of epinephrine “just in case,” and suddenly I didn’t feel like I was dying.

Shockingly, I wasn’t pregnant. It took me four visits to four different hospitals — the last to a female doctor — for a medical professional to confirm that I’d had a severe allergic reaction. 

Reruns of House and Royal Pains had apparently made me a better diagnostician than the average doctor’s medical school. My friends from conservative states like Idaho and Missouri have all had similar experiences, the only difference is I had my medical emergency in western Washington.

On a recent Sunday, my Missouri friend proposed we move to a liberal area like Washington to escape the oppressive politics of our respective home states.

“They at least have things like women’s rights,” she said. 

The Washington Legislature does indeed protect women’s reproductive rights — rather than stomping them into the dirt while simultaneously running every OBGYN out of the state — but Idaho sets the bar low. I’d love to share her dream of greener pastures, but in my experience, no state is a haven for us.

No matter where women go in the U.S., doctors will reduce us to our reproductive organs.

When I walked into that E.R., though the doctor admitted I had all the symptoms of an allergic reaction, he still only saw me as a uterus. Not only did my personal well-being matter less than that of my theoretical child, but the doctor either thought I was lying to him or too stupid to know if I might be pregnant. Neither option paints a flattering picture.

When existentialist philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Hell is other people,” he wasn’t simply an introvert at the office Christmas party. He meant that the way others perceive us affects how we move through life and, consequently, our reality. Likewise, because we can never know another person’s mind, other people are essentially objects to us, and we must work to recognize that they’re their own subjective beings. 

Often, when we talk about women being viewed as objects, we focus on the concept of sexual objectification. It’s glaringly obvious that advertisers reduce the half-naked models eating Carl’s Jr. hamburgers to set-dressing for the horny and hungry, but our society often forgets that women don’t have to walk around in lingerie to be seen as objects. For myself and many women in my life, actions as mundane as going to the doctor can turn Sartre’s philosophical concept into a harsh reality.

Unlike in his play, there is no exit — no hope of escape — for us. Political extremism and threats to women’s rights will continue to spread if left unchecked. We have to dig in our heels and reshape doctrine, legislature and society where we are if we ever hope to walk into a hospital unafraid.