“Is it overthinking, or is it…?”
Video Arts & Humanities 2025 Graduate ExhibitionPresentation by JoAnn Michel
Exhibition Number 530
Abstract
I have undergone two fibroid-removal surgeries (officially known as laparoscopic myomectomies)—one in May 2022 and another in June 2023–while IN graduate school. In 2025 I can’t say I’m doing any better, as much as I can say that I’ve been worse. While navigating the broken system that is healthcare in US, it is easy to internalize its many shortcomings as our own faults. Among its existing obstacles are insufficient or inaccessible health education, harmful mental health stereotypes, and misinformation surrounding the many reproductive health issues that have yet to be properly studied and one day, understood. Speaking and writing from ample personal experience, this tendency can be heightened in the mind of the average Black woman patient who is not only searching for the answers to her own medical mysteries, but would also prefer that much more human(e) treatment be part of her actual treatment. While this presentation cannot contain my entire health journey and story in five minutes, “Is it overthinking, or is it..?“ encapsulates snippets of my life as a Black woman writer, and scholar who also suffers from severe endometriosis and countless fibroids. Through my literary voice, I parallel my personal tendency to overthink with the academic tendency to question everything, and thereby bring attention to the reality of living and “working” (or trying to) through the fog of chronic reproductive health issues and the broken system that exacerbates them.
Importance
This story is important because it is mine. I believe that because pain like mine is not at ALL unique— especially for Black women in the United States— stories like this are even more important. My same, years-old pain has been dismissed, sensationalized, and ignored as recently as four months ago. I often feel so alone and helpless in it, to the point that I get angry that I cannot do more than I already am, to advocate for myself. Whenever the rage arises, I remember that by writing and sharing my personal experiences of reproductive injustice, I am putting my words out within reach of other Black women who are also fighting toward reproductive justice in the United States.