Amidst various challenges in recent years, Tiffany Haddish has been wrestling with intense pain.
"My body keeps playing tricks on me," the comedian and actress, 44, tells. Ahead of her forthcoming memoir, "I Curse You With Joy," set to release on May 7, the star opens up like never before about her battle with reproductive health issues and the heartache it has brought.
"I'm pretty sure the devil is real," says Haddish, "because the first day of my period, no matter what, the devil goes into overdrive. I feel like my life gets turned upside down."
She also grapples with debilitating pain, which she recently discovered was likely caused by endometriosis, a condition where the endometrium extends outside the uterus and can lead to pelvic pain. "I'll be like, 'Am I dying?'"
In November of last year, Haddish reveals she visited her doctor due to fainting spells. "She gave me something because I kept passing out. I don't talk about it, but people just think I'm sleeping everywhere, but I'm passing out because I'll be in so much pain."
"The pain is crazy," she explains. "It feels like somebody is kicking me in my back." Though she's powered through extra heavy painful periods for years, Haddish says she was previously told she had "a dent in my uterus." She only recently learned that the diagnosis was incorrect.
"It turns out it's not a dent they saw on the ultrasound. It was endo that was hanging down. It looked like a dent but it was just extra layers."
To address the issue, "they've shaved it down, I had to do a fibroid [removal] thing," she says. At this point, "I just want them to stay out of [there]." Still, she says that the most painful experience, and potential side effect, of endometriosis has been pregnancy loss.
"It's so devastating," she says, revealing she's had a total of eight miscarriages. Haddish, who was married once and last linked to rapper Common, is known for being sex-positive and telling expletive-laden jokes about her busy love life. But when it comes to pregnancy, she takes it very seriously.
"Every time I find out I'm pregnant, I’m like, ‘Don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do nothin’," she says. "Even if I don’t really want [the baby], I still try to give it a chance.”
Her last miscarriage was just last year. "It's like, I won't know why there's so much blood. And then I go to the doctor and they're like, 'Oh, you're miscarrying right now. And I just D&C (dilation and curettage, a procedure to remove pregnancy tissue)."
Haddish is currently celibate but dating "multiple guys." She’s not completely sold on getting married again or becoming a mom, but she says, “there is a part of me that wants to.” “I’ve got all this love, I should give it to somebody who can grow with it.”
As for how she's feeling these days, "The last two months have not been as bad," she says. With prescribed hormone medication, "I just feel drowsy. But I've been working out even more. And I've gone from 11 days [on my period] to four or five, which is kind of normal, so that's nice."
The Quran - Chapter Al-Jathiyah : 21 - 22
Or do those who commit evil deeds ˹simply˺ think that We will make them equal—in their life and after their death—to those who believe and do good? How wrong is their judgment!
For Allah created the heavens and the earth for a purpose, so that every soul may be paid back for what it has committed. And none will be wronged.
Of the two verses mentioned, the first one argues rationally that Divine reward and punishment are necessary. Every person is a witness to the fact that no one receives his full measure of reward or punishment for the good or bad deeds he does in this world.
Generally, the unbelievers and evil-doers wallow in wealth and lead a life of luxury. The obedient servants of Allah, on the other hand, live in poverty, hardship and misery.
In the first place, the crimes of the wicked criminals are often not detected. Even if they are detected, more often than not, they are not apprehended.
If they are apprehended, they swear oaths - lawfully or unlawfully, truthfully or falsely - and try to find loopholes to escape punishment.
In this way, one in a million might be punished and that too not fully. As a result, the rebels, who follow their selfish and base desires, move about in high spirits and without any hindrance, enjoying full powers in this world.
The believers, on the other hand, who follow the Shari'ah strictly, do not touch many kinds of wealth and give up many pleasures because they treat them as unlawful.
They only adopt the lawful ways of gaining anything in order to avoid calamities and afflictions. Thus they are deprived of many a comfort and pleasure in this world.
Since this is the state of affairs where people are not rewarded or punished in this world in commensurate with their actions, it follows necessarily that there must be another world - the Hereafter and life after death - where people will be recompensed fully for their deeds.
Otherwise, it would be absurd to refer to stealing, robbery, adultery, fornication, murder and so on as crimes, in this world.
These people often lead a very successful life in this world. A thief or a robber acquires so much of wealth in a night that a university graduate might not be able to acquire it in years of employment and hard work.
If there is no such world as the Hereafter and accountability, then the thief or the robber would be thought to be better than the respectable university graduate.
No reasonable person would ever accept this position. If it be pointed out that every government in the world has legislated severe punishments for criminals, then we would respond that experience shows that only the foolish criminals get caught.
The clever habitual criminals always find loopholes, and ways and means of escaping punishment. For instance, the escape-door of bribery is always open for them and that is sufficient for them.
In short, the need for the Day of Requital may be denied only when it is conceded that there is no such thing as good and bad; or that whatever one acquires, by fair means or foul, it is absolutely rewardable.
But no one accepts this position. Similarly it is absurd to believe that there is distinction between good and evil, but the consequences are equal, rather the criminal should have a more comfortable life than the righteous and innocent ones.
There could be no greater degree of wrong than this. It is to this absurd judgment that the Qur'an refers in سَوَاءً مَّحْيَاهُمْ وَمَمَاتُهُمْ...so as their life and death becomes equal? Evil is what they judge... 45:21) ". It is a very unreasonable and unjustifiable position that evil-doers should be placed on the same pedestal as the righteous persons.
Since the reward and punishment in this world are not given in full measure, then it necessarily follows that there should be life after death in the Hereafter where reward and punishment will be paid in full measure.
Thus the second verse in the set complements the same subject –وَلِتُجْزَىٰ كُلُّ نَفْسٍ بِمَا كَسَبَتْ وَهُمْ لَا يُظْلَمُونَ ...and so that everybody is recompensed for what he (or she) earned. And they will not be wronged. - 45:22).
In other words, the Day of Requital is necessary in order to wipe out wrong and injustice. As for the question, why the people are not requited or recompensed for the good or bad deeds in this world, we would respond that this is not in keeping with the Divine wisdom of creation: He made this world the ` domain of deeds and test-n-trial', not the ` domain of requital'. Allah knows best!
