Interest Statement

In 1991, at the age of 23, I got a really bad headache. One so severe that now, in 2008, 17 years later, I still have that same headache, all day and all night. 

Over the years, in my desperation to reclaim my old life, I was obsessed with trying every possible “cure,” no matter how expensive, damaging and irrational: from dozens of mind-numbing drugs to a failed surgery to a vibrating hat from a late-night Infomercial.

Indeed, after an epic --and at times absurd—odyssey through the extremes of Western and alternative medicine, I have not found a cure for the physical pain. But I have still learned a great deal, the hard way, about how to manage pain that won’t go away, which includes addressing and treating the mental and emotional pain that inevitably accompanies chronic pain.

I share these lessons, and medical-system critiques, in my memoir, journalistic report, and black comedy, All in My Head. The book goes beyond my own experiences and stops to address different “big picture” issues involved, such as framing chronic pain as a “women’s issue” – because of women’s disproportionate suffering with pain disorders and typical medical undertreatment for their pain.  While it is specifically about chronic headache, the book also speaks to the particular experience of those with an “invisible disability” and the “thick-folder patient” in general. 

I am now very honored to collaborate with the insightful, dynamic and committed people in the For Grace Leadership Circle.

Biography

Paula Kamen, a Chicago-based journalist, is the author of four books, including her newest, Finding Iris Chang: Ambition, Friendship and the Loss of an Extraordinary Mind, which will be out in paperback in early 2009. This book addresses other long-stigmatized women’s health issues, regarding hormones and mood disorders. The Chicago Tribune called the book “fascinating” and “engrossing” and one of its “favorite books of 2007.”

Paula has held the position of “Visiting Research Scholar” with Northwestern University’s Gender Studies Program since 1994. Her commentaries and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Salon, Ms., Chicago Tribune, In These Times, and more than a dozen anthologies.

In the past fifteen years, she has spoken at more than 100 non-profits and universities about her books, including the Tufts Medical School and the International Museum of Surgical Sciences in Chicago.  She was born in Chicago and grew up in Flossmoor, Illinois.