When Doctors Dismiss Women’s Pain
Before I got sick, I probably would have said I had a lot of trust in medicine. Not that I’d given it much thought; as a healthy twentysomething, I’d at that point had little need to. But I believed in...
View ArticleMy Eyeballs Are Falling Out, and That’s OK
It starts like this. You are lying in bed, poking your stomach, making sure all your organs are cool before you go to sleep. As you press the skin around your navel, you feel a twinge. It’s not a fart,...
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Exhaustion, Heartbreak, Anger, Pain
Georgie Wileman, an England-born, New York–based photographer, is tearing the façade off endometriosis. Her severe pain began when she was thirteen, but Georgie wasn’t diagnosed until she was 26. Her...
View ArticleDominican Kitchen Witchcraft
2016 almost killed me. In an emotional way. A head fog was followed by a depression that felt like I was walking around with weights strapped to both my legs. The weight settled into my bones, and I...
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From Grace Kelly’s Bridesmaid to a Homeless Shelter
In order to picture my mother before she had me, I have to go back in time. It’s 1947, and she has newly arrived in New York from Steubenville, Ohio. She’s living at the Barbizon, a hotel for single...
View ArticleLit Thursday: The Beginning of Everything
I am an unreliable narrator. And yet, here in the doctor’s office, it is required of me to tell my story. *Where does it hurt? Does the pain change? When did this start?* These are valid questions, but...
View ArticleMilli Violini
In 2002, when I was a 20-year-old college student, I was hired as a violinist for an orchestral ensemble that had sold millions of albums, appeared on national television, and performed sold-out...
View ArticleRead an Excerpt from *Woman of Substances*
1982. The UK. The Falklands War erupted. The lowest temperature on record was captured by a lonely weather station in east Scotland, at −27.2°C. Unemployment exceeded three million, the highest since...
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The Air Down There
When I brought home my new puppy a year ago, I quickly discovered that she was drawn to one thing more than all other things. She was a crotch junkie. Being constantly reminded that between my legs...
View ArticleBirthing Justice
My favorite picture book when I was three years old was called *Where Did I Come From?* It was a big cardboard book, with the title question written in large, black letters across the front. Inside, a...
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