We learn about Sigmund Freud and his views of his “hysterical” female clients. Norman is a terrific storyteller with a gift for weaving memorable anecdotes, some drawn from medical history, others from recent scientific debates and most plucked from her own travails. “Becoming a disappointment to a man,” she writes, “seemed to do the trick.” Norman repeatedly told doctors that sexual intercourse ached “like a dull pinch, that resonated to my pelvis.” No one paid attention until her boyfriend accompanied her and mentioned his frustration. So she didn’t know how to assign a number to it: “Bad enough that I couldn’t ignore it, which made it definitely higher than a four or five.” She questioned whether she was a six or higher and whether the doctor would believe her anyhow. She was still aching, but not in the original horrors of it all. A stabbing pain in my middle” - Norman eventually got to an emergency room, where she was handed the typical 1-10 pain scorecard. If they congregate near the bladder, urinating hurts near the sciatic nerve, pain can shoot down the legs inside the lung (a rare event), breathing can be stifled.Īfter one bout - “as sudden as a thunderclap. Women with the disorder have heavy, agonizing periods along with a litany of other symptoms depending on where the rogue cells lurk. Norman suffers from endometriosis - a chronic and debilitating illness triggered by uterine-like cells growing outside of the womb.
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