Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 18, author and university professor Dr. Shahd Alshammari never learned to give up and continued her education until she earned her doctoral degree in 2014.
I sat with Dr. Aslhammari to talk about her latest published book. In this fascinating discussion, Alshammari discusses her memoir Head Above Water, which is an intimate conversation on illness and society's stigmatization of disabled bodies.
We delved into women's identities and bodies, the importance of discussing the human experience of illness, and how women are represented in literature, like the image of the“crazy woman in the attic.”
And yea, did you know that hysteria is derived from the Greek word hysteria, which means uterus? A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure to remove the uterus, which removes the “source of madness” if we follow this logic.
Hippocrates (5th century BC) was the first to use the term hysteria. He believed that the cause of this disease lies in the movement of the uterus.
Talk about stereotypes.
Don's miss this intimate, inspiring conversation on illness and the representation of women in literature.
A Kuwaiti author with multiple sclerosis writes a narrative on illness