Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg is not a linear narrative, it circles back to loss--both Rapp Black and Kahlo are amputees--but the the loss here is not that simple.

If it’s true that for daughters growing up in a patriarchal culture, there is a feeling of having to choose between being empowered and being loved, I had chosen the loneliness of empowerment. Mother wound: aisle five.

I told him he should leave. When what I wanted so badly, what I would have given anything for would have been for him to say, I want to stay.

In keeping with much of the language surrounding major illness and/or disability, M.E. itself used to be known by a euphemism, “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”.