About Stories of a Body

It was prompted, in 1990, by my initial visit to a G.P. in the town to which I had recently moved. Without much preamble or invitation, he launched into a speech about how “thalidomide had been such an awful tragedy” and how I must feel “very angry” towards him and the medical profession in general. Then he waited for me to respond. I expected he wanted reassurance and curiously, forgiveness. As an adult I was able to be clear with him how I wanted him to relate to me as my G.P., and that his feelings regarding thalidomide ought not to be part of that.

Nevertheless, the incident shook me and reminded me forcefully of how I had been disempowered as a child - how I had been stripped naked, objectified and desensitized by the medical profession as they tried to label, categorise, define and re-define my very existence.

I remember remembering it all, recording it in my child’s memory as if to act as a witness in my adulthood to the indignity I endured as a child. I remember the big words they used. I remember their recommendations when I was two years old, how their artificial arms would fit me better if they sliced off my little hand.

Most of all, I remember their horror at my condition. I was treated me as if I were invisible and incapable comprehending the judgments that were being made about my life then and my future now.

They were not the only ones in my life to treat me as if I was invisible and incapable of comprehension. In fact, being treated in this way is a regular part of my life and in many ways in doing this performance, by standing here, naked in front of you; I am trying to hold up a mirror for you,

I am making you question the nature of your voyeurism.


©Mary Duffy, 1991