Amy Berkowitz: Writing about Trauma, Medical Gaslighting and Chronic Illness

“I wanted to connect my rape to my sickness, but I also wanted to connect all the various ways that women are hurt by men, and patriarchy, and the patriarchy of Western medicine, in our society.” In our final episode of this season of Blackfishing the IUD, host Caren Beilin gets on the phone with Amy Berkowitz, author of Tender Points, originally published in 2015 and just rereleased last year. Named after the diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia, Tender Points is a book-length lyric essay exploring sexual violence, chronic pain, and patriarchy through lived experience and pop culture. Caren and Amy share the back-stories that led them each to the subject of chronic illness and their unique processes as writers. They discuss tales of medical gaslighting, reclaiming the conspiracy, and the empirical medicine and collective care practiced in online support groups and message boards. A part of this interview was excerpted on Lithub in November, 2019. Berkowitz is also an editor and co-organizer of the groundbreaking SICK FEST, a 2016 festival featuring, among other events, performances and readings by chronically ill and disabled writers and activists, and is currently working on a novel.