The Barbados Association of Endometriosis and PCOS (BAEP) recently published ‘Invisible Not Imaginary’, a collection of short stories that aims to put the spotlight on endometriosis, fibroids, PCOS and dysmenorrhea. The book seeks to raise awareness of the impact of these conditions on the lives of those directly and indirectly affected.
This mostly fictional book invites you to dive into the lives of a variety of people as they navigate life with one of the above-mentioned conditions. Through Invisible Not Imaginary we explore the experience of adolescents, young women, mothers, working professionals and fathers.
Why We Love this Book
We thought Invisible Not Imaginary was a powerful and insightful read. It bravely explores issues like heavy menstrual bleeding, painful periods and infertility – common symptoms of these conditions. It also identifies the insensitivity, lack of empathy and the insecurities that women with these conditions encounter and experience.
Furthermore, the book causes the reader to reflect on the wide-spread normalisation of abnormal menstrual symptoms, the enormous pressure women feel to keep going despite feeling unwell and how invisible and misunderstood many women with these conditions feel.
The stories are very moving providing an honest, open account of the pain, isolation, upheaval, disruption and uncertainty caused by these gynaecological conditions which tend to be trivialised and disregarded because they are not life-threatening but as these stories clearly demonstrate, they significantly affect the quality of life, health and wellbeing of the many women who are affected.
We could relate to many of the experiences and believe the stories will resonate with most, if not all, women because of our shared menstrual experience. Many women have a story about their menstrual health which they are hesitant to talk about; this book tells our story and gives us all a voice.
This collection of short stories is an excellent and creative way of raising awareness. It really brings the issues to life in a powerful way and leaves the reader feeling disturbed by the challenges faced by those affected by these conditions.
This Book Challenges Us All
This book challenges society to address the health inequalities that exist in public health where conditions like these receive little attention, yet affect so many.
Sadly, discussions about women’s health or reproductive health tend to omit conditions like fibroids and it’s time for a greater focus on these conditions and more balance so that all women’s health issues are deemed important.
Well Done BAEP!
We applaud BAEP on all the great work they have conducted to add some context and depth to the discussion on these women’s health issues and believe this will be an effective resource for awareness and educational work in a range of settings – schools, colleges, medical schools, book clubs, the health sector’s continuous professional development programme and more.
More Information
For more information on Invisible Not Imaginary and how you can order copies, please visit BAEP’s website here or you can send them an email
Also, you can read a summary of our fibroids and endometriosis Twitter chat with Julia Mandeville the co-founder of BAEP here
