It is a pain that cannot be said, what he tells Tea Ranno in “I had a fire inside”. A pain endured for years, underestimated and underestimated by doctors, not listened to by those who should have treated him. As happens too often with women, who are not believed when they say they feel bad, that they suffer. Like when they say they suffer violence. In this story from which one cannot tear oneself away until the end, Ranno courageously opens up to his personal story and tells the story of his illness, endometriosis, but not only. In parallel, there is the story of a passion and a dream pursued, here too with being a woman which does not facilitate but complicates.
Free yourself from the shame of “red”
Endometriosis is a subtle and violent disease, which has only been known and studied in recent years but which, until recently, was diagnosed with great delay, subjecting women who suffered from it to severe pain and suffering, not explained, not cared for, not understood. You can’t see endometriosis, so it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Endurance was the most frequent advice: “Everyone has the pain of menstruation, what will it ever be?” The red of menstrual blood and illness is the shame that cannot be told, which must be hidden as if it were a sin. But the pains caused by endometriosis are not normal menstrual pains, they are unbearable pains (“A dog that bites inside”, says Ranno), from an emergency room, from an IV in the vein to calm them.
It’s a shame that, by not understanding its power, the suffering ended up being underestimated and declassified and, perhaps, the woman was branded as “too anxious” or “exaggerated”. This book is an act of courage by Tea Ranno, who lays herself bare for the redemption of all those women who suffer from endometriosis and who, for a lifetime, have thought exactly this: that they were “exaggerated”, as they were told. Ranno’s book is an outlet and a liberation, because she tells what it was like for her to move forward together with the illness, pretending that everything was fine without ever being able to truly feel well, with the habit of pain and with those symptoms that instead they must be ignored, accepted, underestimated. Because life is involved, which can really be risked, as the author’s story teaches. A deliberate and determined testimony precisely so that there are no more women who can risk their existence for not having received adequate care, for having listened to those who she said they could tolerate.
The path towards herself
“Pain was the story of all (the patients), not being believed was the story of everyone, wrong diagnoses were the story of many, dying was the story of some,” says Ranno. Which here too, in his story, returns to tell stories of women like in his novels, women who meet, who support each other, who create a family, who recognize each other, even in illness. And the liberation, even in this case, is not only that of endometriosis, but is also that of the girl who couldn’t say no, who behaves well and stays quiet. Liberation from those men (not all men, mind you!) who think they know everything but who actually don’t even know how to look at what’s in front of them (doctors, but not only).
When Ranno talks about his writing training, his mentor offers him authors to study, books and readings. The author writes: “Literature for men only. Men talk about women, talk about women, invent stories about women, improvise as women, but they are not women: they don’t menstruate, they don’t know what it means to suffer cyclically, having to shake off centuries of forced ignorance, forced confinement in the house – lava , iron, bring children into the world, spade, crochet, knit, look after the old, the sick, compose the dead -, humiliations of intelligence. They don’t know what it means to fear phallic attacks on street corners, to suffer unwanted attention from bosses, long hands, silent blackmail, to keep your job. If I wanted to learn literature, I had to look to the masters. And women? ‘Mystics or witches’, he dismissed me.”
Here too, therefore, there are obstacles to overcome, stereotypes and prejudices to overcome to reach self-realization. With the network of affections that supports, loves, helps and gives meaning. With the beautiful, positive and warm male figures who accompany them and with all that flourishing of female figures from the present, from the past, from stories, who populate the pages and – now we know – also the life of the author. So yes, magic also has something to do with it, in a beautiful and useful book, written with wisdom and with that red that becomes warmth, which by telling the story of an illness manages to convey joy, strength and passion for life, in which you feel the love given and received together with too much suffering suffered, gratitude together with anger at mistakes and injustices and fatigue. .
Because writing, as Ranno says, is returning there, to the exact point of pain. And know how to make good use of that suffering, making it precious, as this book does.
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Title: I had a fire inside
Author: Tea Ranno
Publisher: Mondadori
Price: 19 euros
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