About PCOS
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is in its most simple form, is a chronic illness that only female-born women can experience. The leading diagnosis notices multiple ovarian cysts in the ovaries. However, it has significant and diverse clinical implications including reproductive: infertility, natural miscarriages, hyperandrogenism, hirsutism, abnormal uterine bleeding, and endometrial cancer diabetes. The metabolic which includes insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, adverse cardiovascular risk profiles. And the psychological includes, increased anxiety, depression, sleep apnea, mood swings, and worsened quality of life. It is a chronic disease with manifestations across the lifespan and represents a major health and economic burden to the women who carry it.
Naturally, my diagnosis made me spiral into an ever-growing investigation about what my illness was and how to manage it and found within that research that, PCOS is a frustrating experience for women, but more so, it is equally a complex challenge for managing clinicians and researchers. During my time researching a condition that affected every aspect of my life, I kept asking myself why it took so long to reach a diagnosis and why so many women suffered the same fate of being gaslighted. I was taken aback when various research found that around 70% of women go undiagnosed and that women of color and minorities have an even higher percentage of going undiagnosed and that inevitably leads them to carry multiple health complications whose origin is PCOS. If my investigations showed me anything, was that the healthcare system in the United States does not treat this chronic illness with the dedicated attention it deserves to the point of which it has become a major topic of clinical and public health importance.
Learning about the condition and its complications came as a shock but also gave me a sense of reassurance. After 22 years, I finally feel like I am making progress towards truly connecting and controlling my body. I look back to my hundreds of visits with doctors that always blamed me and the fact that I was overweight instead of thoroughly examining my body for the root of my metabolic, reproductive, and mental health complications. All this research provided me with the certainty that I needed to do something, speak up, or find a way to communicate the reality of this seemingly invisible illness. Therefore, I took it upon myself to express my frustrations and journey through my diagnosis in my preferred method of communication, art.
My education in the arts and my passion for photography merged to bring forward a photographic project titled “PCOS” which recorded my journey since March 2021, when I was officially diagnosed with the polycystic ovarian syndrome. Through an exploration of the self, I analyzed my condition, how it manifests in my body, my mind, and my attempts to regulate it. Because of the different components of the illness, I made the artistic choice to base the photographs around the four major categories: body, mind, treatment, and food. Put together the photographs present to the viewer a fragmented image of my body and the tumultuous image I had of myself given the health-related complications that have followed me for my entire life. Ultimately, my aim with this project was to bring visibility and to educate viewers on the chronic and heterogeneous condition that affects the overall livelihood of women, especially women of color, such as myself.
After completing this project, I received incredible comments from people who did not know about it and thanked me for the exposure to the subject and other comments from women who had already been diagnosed and felt my project had given them a voice, made them feel seen. This experience taught me of the reality my diagnosis put me in, which was one of privilege among the millions of women around the world that are undiagnosed, and that I should view this as an opportunity to educate others on this condition. I now see that I can merge my illness with my profession as an artist, curator, and arts administrator moving forward and that I can create spaces in the art world for people with diversabilities to communicate their struggles and life experiences. I could be a window for artists and art professionals to feel comfortable voicing their diversabilities while also giving them complete freedom to create outside the constraints of their conditions and giving them the chance to create art for art’s sake.