So I grew up in a very rural, rural, I'm very southern so when I talk and I say a rural, it's going to sound southern. Very rural North Carolina, where my mom made my own clothes, and my grandparents, my both sides grew all the food. My dad had a race car shop off … Continue reading I Cannot Consider My Body As Something Of Value, Because I Don’t Have The Resources / Hannah, Artist & Maker

So I thought I would dictate this story and you can decide if and how you want to use it. When I was young, like 10 or 12, I gained a lot of weight. We had moved from the country to the city. I had gone from riding my bike everywhere and being very active … Continue reading That’s How I Feel When People Look At You / Sarah W.

I know the book talks about the human body and is also an exhibit, so an exhibit on the human body. And I think unfortunately as you go through the medical training experience from the first day of med school till you're done with residency, the human body can get more and more dehumanized almost … Continue reading His Body Became An Exhibit | Two Traumas Happened That Day /Heather, Pediatrician and Storyteller

When I was 43 years old, I was diagnosed with stage one breast cancer. After the tumor was removed, I had the minimal treatment of radiation. Because I was so young and because my mother had died of ovarian cancer, I was encouraged to do genetic testing. The testing revealed that  I carried a mutation … Continue reading “What, Then, Is A Breast?” / Tracy, Teacher

Good morning Marianne. And I've been thinking about what to speak to you about and there was sort of a series of events and I kind of have to relate the events so that you'd understand the stressors and things like that. What I really wanted to highlight by speaking about this was how destructive … Continue reading Renée, Artist “The Effect Stress Has On Every Aspect Of Your Existence”

Okay, so what happened in my journey of understanding my body slightly better? I wouldn't still say that I have a great grasp of what's happening internally, but I went through a myomectomy in June, so that was because I'm nearing 42, at the end of October. So the strange thing happened in March when … Continue reading The Story of My Myomectomy / Bernice, Art Teacher

I found out I was colorblind when I got glasses, so probably about five. And being colorblind is one of the weirdest things, I think because people perceive it in a completely different way than I do. People really ask about it. They think it's fascinating to them. They always say, "Can you see? How … Continue reading What Color is This? / Gabe, Artist

I think with lipedema, there's so much of it is, all of us who had it… And I'm in a lot of online groups and stuff like that. But everybody… I didn't find out, even existed until I was… what year was it? 2017 or 18 when I first read about it?And the reason I … Continue reading There Needs To Be A Seismic Shift in How Some Medical Professionals See Their Patients / Mary

I'm really excited that you asked me to participate in this because I have just, as of the last year, really started to incorporate my chronic pain and my anxiety into my artwork in a really intentional way. I think it always leaked into my work. I think you could glean notes of anxiety and … Continue reading I Feel Like I’m Butterflying A Little / Anonymous, Artist & Teacher

I was a swimmer as a child and I started having problems with my knee. When I was about 11 years old. Swimming breaststroke, it became very painful. My mother took me to see an orthopedic doctor and without discussing it with me, he may have discussed it with my mother, but without discussing it … Continue reading I Try to Trust My Doctors, Even Though I Have Reasons Not To Trust Them / Jo Green, Artist

I've always had anxiety, I think, growing up. A tremendous amount of anxiety. But about 10 years ago, 11 years ago, it manifested itself in this very strange way, where it would repeat. I started having repetitive thoughts that wouldn't go away and certain words or phrases would just repeat in my head over and … Continue reading With People Like Me, You’re Preoccupied With That Thought For A Month / Gabe, Artist

The story I wanted to talk about, or tell, was the time that I was diagnosed with cancer. Well, let me start from the very beginning. Both my parents died at a pretty young age, in their 60s, which I think is pretty young. Because of that, I said, "I need to go to the … Continue reading Having cancer was the best thing to happen to me / Anonymous

So my grandmother was Swiss German. She was born and raised in Basel, in the German part of Basel. And she, in her body and in her spirit, were both very much German and very much Swiss. And there's a really specific distinction.So the German in her is sort the very strong, she was the … Continue reading On Intergenerational Strength and Women’s Bodies in the World / Monika, Artist and Educator

So when I was in medical school, it was really common on different rotations to have the attendings tell you totally different things, and so one of those totally different directions I got was about feet, actually, where one supervising doctor said, "Always look at the feet." Then, on the next rotation, I was told … Continue reading Feet Don’t Lie / Heather, Pediatrician and Storyteller 

I have had some unknown illness, or some unknown unhealth, most of my life. When I was younger, it was looked at as hypochondria and as a teenager, it was looked at as deeper issues. And it just went on, and I went from doctor, to doctor, to doctor, until at 19, my body did … Continue reading My Best Option Was To Change What I Put in My Body / Patricia, Artist

I was playing inner tube water polo at the Chinatown YMCA in 2011. I'm not an inner tube water polo player in general, but someone had convinced me to join this league. I got into my tube and it was much harder than I thought it was going to be. In general, people were very … Continue reading I Think Something Happened to My Shoulder / Gabe, Artist

Yeah, I think I've always grown up and I've had these indents in my two fingers on my left hand, and I kind of started questioning what they were about at some point. And I asked my mom, "Why do I have these two parts of my fingers that are pushed in?" They look like … Continue reading My Dad Carried the Fingers in a Bag / Gabe, Artist

So my story, as I say, it was a while ago, I was only in my 30s. Originally, when I was 19, I had what was called a fibroadenoma, which is a benign growth in the breast. Then they took it out because it was getting quite large. They don't usually bother, otherwise. And I … Continue reading It Helped Me To Heal Faster, Having This Amazing Community Of People Around Me / Maddy, Artist & Curator

Okay. My story about the body is the body in becoming healthier, I guess is the story. Before the pandemic, I spent a couple years going to a gym and doing weightlifting and just that change of being somewhat disconnected from my body, to getting strong and having confidence in it was a real transformation. … Continue reading It’s Never Supposed to Get Easy / David Lachman, Artist