Representation truly matters, y’all. I, a Southern Californian twenty-something, had finally found my soul sister, in Mindy Lahiri, bejeweled and bespangled Indian OB-GYN, in Season 1, Episode 10 of The Mindy Project.

In the episode, her brother dropped out of school to pursue a rap career. Her lame boyfriend Josh dumped her for drugs. Her life had quickly gone to hell in a quilted Chanel handbasket.   

Mindy: I’ve got charm and elegance, like a polished debutante.
Jeremy: You forgot your barf bucket.

Same, girl.

For a year and a half, I believed that I was plagued with raucous hangovers, vicious flus, and food poisoning. At least once every two weeks, I would become violently ill. When I wasn’t battling insomnia, I’d wake up with my t-shirt sticking to my back, soaked from night sweats. Thumping heart palpitations were a norm, as was vomiting profusely, whether I had eaten anything or not. Dry heaving stomach acid became a monthly occurrence. I learned to barf in public without reservations or humility.

I’m proud to say that there isn’t a major American airport hub that I haven’t thrown up in. My gastric shenanigans aren’t restrained to American borders either. My little brother saved a well timed Snapchat of me racing across luggage carousels in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to gracefully upchuck into a janitor’s cart.

I thought it was either bad luck or bad fish.

As it turns out, it was neither. At the plucky young age of 25, I was riddled with ulcers. 

Contrary to old wives’ tales and purveyors of well-meaning clichés, “Stop stressing so hard, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer!”, ulcers are not exclusively birthed by stress and spicy food. Pulitzer Prize winning medical research in 2005 shows that, more often than not, it’s a toxic combination of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and poor lifestyle choices. Luckily, I was rife with both.

Years of black coffee, Marlboro Lites, and periodic panic attacks left me with a digestive system made of lost hopes and dying dreams. My dietary choices were once aptly compared to “a carnival worker on their lunch break”. Chronic stress was likely triggering most of my frequent vomiting episodes. 

Rishi: Just give me one aspect of your life that I should copy!
Mindy: *dry heaves*

For months, I was unable to sleep through the night. I’d flip on my aunt’s Hulu account at 2 AM, drenched in night sweats and battling a gnawing feeling at the top of my chest, only to stumble across my new friend. Enter: The Mindy Project  

A bull in the romantic comedy shop, Mindy Lahiri constructed a life that wasn’t clean and perfect yet still authentic and accessible. She went on lame dates with loser dudes. She ate a staggering amount of donuts for someone her age. Despite her churning internal monologue, she was fluorescent and fierce and unwilling to take anyone’s shit. Emily Nussbaum from The New Yorker described Mindy as, “a fabulous original, rude and bubbly, like Veuve Clicquot spiked with Four Loko.”   

In the pursuit of life, liberty, and chicken wings, Mindy lived her life with an unapologetic brashness that I found appealing during my more nausea-inducing periods. The Mindy Project was a friendly escape that gifted me with esteem and aspirations during a chaotic and confusing time in my life. If my girl Mindy could step in for Rishi’s back up singer while wracked with stress barfs and still slay, then, surely, I could get through the day without up-chucking due to a mean email from a passive aggressive client or sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. If she could do it, then I could do it too. We were in this together. 

After months of gripping stomach pains and the realization that I lost four pant sizes,  I broke down and saw a doctor. As I sat in my kindly gastroenterologist’s office, staring at his ear-wax colored walls and generic motel room art, he gently explained that, in combination with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), I effectively worried so hard and so often that I melted several holes in my stomach.

Ex-squeeeeeze me?

Notably, the science behind the correlation between clinical anxiety, stress, and ulcers is changing. While it’s universally agreed upon that stress exacerbates ulcer symptoms, scientists haven’t agreed that there is a direct, causal relationship between the two. Nevertheless, the impact stress and panic had on my ravaged esophagus was immediate and fierce. My ever-so-thoughtful neuroreceptors would shoot a quick signal down to my stomach: RELEASE THE HOUNDS!

And like the dogs of war, stomach acid and digestive enzymes would storm the gates and launch a vicious assault on whatever happened to be in my stomach at the time. The devastation came in the form of a constellation of red, angry, inflamed ulcers along my tattered stomach lining. After surgical intervention, my kindly gastroenterologist explained that I already had a small amount of internal bleeding from ulcers in my upper digestive tract. 

This new found knowledge left me confused, anxious, and desperately wanting a glass of wine.

Like any good twenty-something, and former resident of drinking meccas and hot spots, my social life revolved around alcohol.

In Washington D.C., happy hour is practically a job requirement. It’s a cultural staple that entire Democratic networks are basically built upon. And the stories are true, depending on what café you go to in Paris, wine is cheaper than water. In Moscow, you have to squint to see the end of the vodka aisle at the local grocery store. Being a little bit drunk was a hobby, skill, and occasionally part of my profession for years.

In a lilted accent, my gastroenterologist detailed how with every drink, I was pouring toxins into my many internal open wounds. It turns out, I wasn’t barfing because I was hungover; I was barfing because my body was rejecting poison and stress. Like many other ulcer patients, I became my own gastronomical guinea pig, forced to experiment on my own guts to figure out what offers reprieve and what brings about eventual disaster.  All of what I thought made life worth living — happy hours, bar snacks, agave tequila, sriracha mayo; all of it was now deemed suspect.

Despite my doctor’s best advice, ultimately coming to the conclusion that drinking wasn’t doing me any favors was a long, embarrassing, drawn-out process. Each time I attempted to drink, my night was rudely punctured by quick trips to the nearest receptacle to violently hurl. I was sick of hiding my Linda Blair moments in dank, gross bar bathrooms. There was no Morgan Tookers to hold a DIY’d, pink, fluffy barf bucket for me. 

On February 27, 2017, my body launched a coup d’etat against my toxic habits. My body effectively put me on notice — my brain wasn’t in charge of decision making anymore because, physically, I was done. Really done this time. At a Santa Ana house party filled to the brim with fuckboys, I gave up drinking. While clutching a toilet seat; pondering why any young man would need a Squatty Potty and puking up Tequila Sodas, that was it. I haven’t been drunk since and any attempts at a cocktail or a glass of wine since have been charitably judged as total failures. 

I cannot hold onto anything or anyone toxic anymore. The revolution inside my digestive system has summarily responded with a wholesale rejection of all of it. Now, my body will tell me when I’m facing something potentially poisonous (something I was never a great judge of to begin with) by instantly expelling it with great force and fervor Linda Blair style. 

Nevertheless, thanks to my gal Mindy Lahiri and The Mindy Project, I’ve found relief knowing that I am not a social pariah as a recently sober and occasionally nauseous young woman. Ulcers are a running gag these days, not a reason to climb into the bell towers and befriend a sprightly gaggle of gargoyles. When I’m at a bar, close friends thoughtfully order me a soda water with lime as it best resembles my former favorite cocktail. While addiction has never been my struggle (and a special shoutout to those maintaining their sobriety) I’ve arrived at a similar destination as those in recovery. I can’t drink again without it turning into a total clusterfuck.

The Mindy Project made my life better by offering a visual alternative during a tough time — innate confidence and a messy, confusing life did not have to be mutually exclusive. Even though I am occasionally clumsy, short sighted, demanding, and in need of a quick barf break, much like Mindy; I am also capable of changing so that I can build something, be it a San Francisco fertility clinic, Democratic political campaign or growing shoe collection, worth being proud of. 

Me and my girl Mindy, we’re in this together.