My artistic practice emerged from the necessity to process my life, and developed into both an approach and an intentional process of healing from pain that was under-diagnosed, unheard and difficult to verbalise. In mid 2021 I was depressed, consumed by fear; some days incapacitated.
The process of re-imagining pain in the absence of diagnosis was a cathartic one. It is difficult to put into words the different types of pain I endured over the past 22 months. Having journaled throughout this time, I revisited my writing, tearing out pertinent sections to use.
By creating a tangible work of art, it has helped come to terms and allow me to understand personal pain, instead of locating it on a non-descript scale of 1 to 10.
With this work I hope to promote conversation around silence and the fears women endure daily due to undiagnosed conditions and to edge towards a space where this type of pain and suffering is not merely shrugged off.
The initial medical opinion was that I suffer from an endocrine disorder, an issue arising in a
woman’s biological anatomy, and one of the most common causes affecting infertility; my biggest fear.
Taboos, medical, social and cultural stigma or biases contribute to the dismissal, ignorance, silencing or even misdiagnosis of different types of pain connected to ‘reproductive’ female organs.
Upon arriving at an Emergency room unable to stand up straight or walk from excruciating pain, I feared being dismissed as “just bad period pains”, “nothing abnormal”, “every woman goes through this”. Whilst visiting an endocrinologist I was labelled “a freak of nature”.
Pain for woman of this kind has been historically sidelined or written off as normal, and therefore accepted as part of having a female anatomy – “period pain is just something you need to deal with!”. Gripes are labelled as oversensitive or hysterical, with the multiple stigmas attached. For me, not having a definitive diagnosis has been painful in itself.