Episode 13: Show Me Where It Hurts with Kylie Maslen

In this episode

In this episode of the Inform podcast, we talk to Kylie Maslen, the author of Show Me Where It Hurts: Living With Invisible Illness. Show Me Where It Hurts is a collection of autobiographical essays that weave Kylie’s personal experiences with sharp cultural criticism and explores how living with chronic pain, invisible illness and disability impacts Kylie’s work, relationships and day-to-day life.

We discuss the value of online communities, why we should be talking about sex and dating for people with disabilities and Kylie’s hope that readers who are disabled or living with chronic pain and invisible illness can find a form of kinship in the pages of Show Me Where It Hurts.

Online communities a lifeline

In Show Me Where It Hurts, Kylie writes about the value of online communities and how they can be, and often are, a lifeline.

“I’ve been really fortunate to find other groups and within them some really amazing people who have become dear friends—even if we haven’t met in real life—who have that understanding of you know what the bad days are really like. And they understand the grind of the constant appointments and the expense and the fatigue and the trialling new drugs constantly and what that does to your body and your mind.”

Kylie Maslen, author of Show Me Where It Hurts

How pop culture can help breakdown stigma

Kylie weaves cultural references—everything from Spongebob to Beyonce to Frida Kahlo—with her own personal experiences, often using those cultural references as a way to dig deeper into a topic or idea.

Some of the, some of the ideas, yeah really come from my own experience of coming to terms with diagnosis. So, particularly my sort of quite recent diagnosis of bipolar two. Which only happened when I was 35 and I’m about to turn 38. Finding comfort in the film Silver Linings Playbook and the TV show Lady Dynamite really helped to break the stigmatisation that I had internalised with these labels. And really kind of helped me to see the illness framed from within and coming with humour rather than the kind of like seriousness with which it’s discussed in a psychiatric setting.

Kylie Maslen, author of Show Me Where It Hurts

Resources

Kylie Maslen

Show Me Where It Hurts

Find more information about where you can buy a copy of Show Me Where It Hurts at Text Publishing.

Transcript

You can find a transcript of this episode here:

Inform Podcast Episode 13: Show Me Where It Hurts with Kylie Maslen – TranscriptDownload

Share your story

Do you have a story that you’d like to share? Get in touch at [email protected]

Inform is a production of Independence Australia. If you’re keen to hear more, you can go back and listen to our past episodes at: www.informonline.org.au/listen

Stay tuned for the next episode of Inform. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to Inform on your preferred podcast listening platform to be the first to hear about new episodes.

Host and producer: Kirby Fenwick
Managing editor: Alison Crowe

Our thanks to Kylie Maslen and Text Publishing.

This episode of Inform was recorded and produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulan nation and the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay our respects to elders past and present.