I would never claim that I completely understand what Frida experienced on a daily basis with her chronic pain; however, as a writer, I try to imagine what it must have felt like on a physical and emotional level. Ironically, after my last post on chronic pain and the importance of having a caring doctor, I came down with the flu. I was bedridden for several days with a fever, body aches, etc. Luckily, I was back on my feet after five days. I had high hopes for a rather speedy recovery, but this hasn't happened. Instead, I'm still coughing and I feel tired. I'm behind on everything. My list of things to do just keeps growing and "I'm exhausted from trying to be stronger than I feel." It's been twenty days, but it feels like four months. I'm trying to be patient, but I do have thoughts, such as "Will I ever get my energy back?"
I think about Frida all the time. She complained about how hard it was for her to maintain a painting schedule. She was hard on herself, chalking it up to laziness, but I think a lot of it was connected to her pain. I've read about those with chronic pain who struggle with the same issue. And now, I find myself in a similar situation. I usually don't have any problem waking up and getting to my computer to write. In fact, I look forward to it. Since I've been sick, I wake up and dread sitting down at my computer because I feel lethargic. Sitting at the computer takes too much energy. Instead, I lie down on the couch and sip my tea. Physically this feels great, but emotionally/creatively it feels terrible because I want to write. Today was the first day I felt strong enough to sit down and write. I can't tell you how glorious it feels to be writing these words. I just hope today is a transition into an upward cycle, but I'm cautiously optimistic. I've felt fairly healthy for a couple of hours previously, yet it didn't last. This reminds me of what I've read about chronic illness. You end up in a physical/emotional loop that keeps circling round and round. I can see from some of Frida's letters that she was caught in this loop, but I think the fact that she persevered and pushed herself as an artist is a testament to her brilliance and strong will. © Celia S. Stahr 2015
23 Comments
Chronic pain interferes with every aspect of daily living. It creates both physical discomfort and emotional distress and the two feed off of each other in a vicious cycle. You feel pain in your body, which raises your stress level leading to anxiety. Now, your muscles tense up, increasing your physical pain, which turns up the volume on your emotional pain. It's not surprising that 1/3 of people with chronic pain become clinically depressed. Frida certainly understood this cycle well. In these two paintings, she conveys two significant sides of chronic pain: the importance of having a sympathetic doctor and the stark reality of living with pain.
In her portrait of Dr. Leo Eloesser, Frida pays homage to a man who played an important role in her life as doctor and confidante. Although Diego had met Leo as early as 1926, Frida met him for the first time in San Francisco where he lived. He led a fascinating life. He was the chief thoracic surgeon at San Francisco General Hospital and Professor of Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine as well as a musician, sailor, and leftist, who spent his life helping the poor and underserved populations around the world. His ability to speak several languages helped him as he traveled the globe. It's easy to see why Frida and Leo would have hit it off. It was a significant relationship for Frida on many levels, but one is that he was sympathetic to her physical and emotional pain. This, according to neuroscientist David Linden, is important, but if your doctor touches you, for example, on your arm to express concern, then you're going to feel healthier. Dr. Linden notes, in his new book Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind, that doctors who touch their patients are rated as more caring. Also, these patients have reduced hormone stress levels and better medical outcomes. This reveals the power of touch, and certainly, Frida would have experienced this with Dr. Eloesser because he was a good friend. In fact, on the little model boat Frida depicted in the painting, she inscribed "Los Tres Amigos" (The 3 Friends), to convey the friendship between her, Diego, and Leo. In The Broken Column painted thirteen years later while in Mexico, Frida shows the physical and emotional pain she endures due to her broken spinal column, which resulted from the bus accident she experienced at age eighteen. She created this painting shortly after one of the many surgeries she underwent throughout her life. As we can see from the painting, she had to wear a brace afterwards to help her spine heal. It's an incredible depiction of this cycle of physical and emotional pain as we see Frida's body broken apart like the ground behind her and tears dotting her face. But, what fascinates me is how she places nails in her skin. Many scholars have pointed out how Frida's self-portrait of suffering connects to images of Christ. I think Frida was definitely referencing such images, but after hearing Dr. Linden interviewed about his book on touch, I'm also seeing how Frida's use of nails penetrating the skin conveys visually her experience of tactile sensation. If I understand Dr. Linden, our skin has sensors that allow us to experience a range of touch sensations and these tactile sensations are transmitted from our skin to the spinal chord and the brain, which then integrates and processes this information in regions known as the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices. Through this process, our brain determines if they are pleasant or painful sensations. Frida conveys this in her painting: the nails create the look and feel of tactile sensation, the spinal column, in the form of a classical column, receives the unpleasant tactile sensation because it is broken, and Frida's facial expression and tears show how the tactile sensation has been processed by the brain as pain. Of course, in real life, Frida's broken column was the result of the accident, but when she created this painting, she'd just had surgery and clearly, it didn't provide her with the relief she was seeking. She needed to convey her physical pain visually and chose nails piercing the skin as the vehicle through which she could show the endless loop of physical and emotional pain. Even though Frida was fascinated by medicine, I don't think this detailed information about how we process tactile sensations was known in the 1940s. To me, this painting reveals that Frida understood this process because she lived it. It's too bad that Dr. Eloesser didn't make Mexico City his home in the 1930s and 1940s because maybe his empathetic touch could have helped Frida to heal. © Celia S. Stahr 2015 |
Celia Stahr teaches art history at the University of San Francisco. She’s interested in women artists and artists who cross cultural boundaries. She fell in love with the power of Frida Kahlo's art in the 1980s, a feeling that has intensified over the years. Frida in America took 10 years to research and write, but Stahr never lost interest in this fascinating woman and artist.
AuthorCelia Stahr's Archives
October 2022
Categories |