This week’s disabled woman in history features the incomparable Frida Kahlo who lived with chronic pain. From the beginning of her life to the end, Frida was a force. I enjoyed every single minute of my research on her. I felt her physical pain, her emotional sorrows, and her triumphs. Frida was someone with lots of feelings, her emotions were always an essential part of her paintings. She is remembered for painting the female experience unlike anyone before her. What a life she lived!
September 17, 1925
Laughing and joking Frida jumped onto the bus. She was standing and talking to her friend Alex because the flimsy benches were too uncomfortable. She didn’t look when a trolley veered off course and headed straight for the bus. The next thing she knew the bus was exploding, her body felt the impact of tremendous pain, and everything was chaos. Gold dust power flew through the air like snow, and the darkness came.
Other posts in this series:
Disabled Women in History: Florence Nightingale and Fibromyalgia
Disabled Women in History: Rosemary Kennedy and the Lobodomy
Frida Kahlo and life with chronic pain
(1907-1954)
Frida grew up outside Mexico City with a German immigrant father, and a half Amerindian and half Spanish Mother. She was bright and energetic from the very beginning, and this endeared her to her father. When she was six years old she caught Polio and the months confined to bed changed Frida. She began to rely on her imagination and a world of daydreams to distract herself from illness and pain. She started to withdraw from other children and become more introverted.
After recovering from Polio Frida had one leg shorter than the other. Her friends in the neighborhood started calling her “Frida peg leg” because of her uneven gait. Frida responded by cursing at the other children and running even harder and wilder.
Frida’s world began to expand when she was 15 and started attending the National Preparatory School in Mexico City to be a doctor. She met the artist Diego Rivera during this time as he painted murals inside the school. Frida was attracted to his politics and his art, and she loved messing with him. He was rumored to be having an affair with one of the models, so Frida would hide in a dark corner and yell “Lupe is coming” to rattle him. Frida told her friends she would have a child with Diego¹.
The accident that disabled Frida and caused her chronic pain
Frida and her boyfriend Alejandro (Alex) missed their first bus but climbed aboard the second one available. A trolley went off course and hit the bus, throwing Frida into the air and impaling her through the abdomen, hip, and pelvis. A package of gold dust powder from another passenger exploded all over her body, leaving a passerby who thought she was dead to call her La Bailarina.
Someone eventually noticed Frida was impaled and quickly pulled the steel rod out of her. Alex had to beg paramedics to help her because they thought she was too far gone. She had multiple fractures in her spinal column and pelvis. Her collarbone, two ribs, and right leg were broken. Her right foot was crushed and her left shoulder was dislocated. She spent a month of torture recovering in the hospital before she was sent home. She would never be without pain again.
Frida Kahlo’s chronic pain
From the beginning, Frida didn’t feel like her mother and sisters understood the kind of chronic pain she was dealing with. Frida was bound up in a giant cast and was constantly having to go back into surgery. Her pain felt unendurable. An excerpt from Frida’s letter to Alex said²
To distract herself she wrote letters and painted while lying down. Her father attached a mirror to her bed canopy so she could see herself and make self-portraits. Frida’s paintings reflected the chronic pain she lived with every day.
Frida never went back to school and gave up her dream of being a doctor. Her accident cost her family a lot of money they didn’t have. She spent the next 2 years doing surgery and treatments for her spine. One friend said of Frida after her accident:4
Frida Kahlo’s allodynia and chronic pain
Researchers believe that because Frida Kahlo lived with chronic neuropathic pain, she might have experienced allodynia which will sound really familiar to my Fibromyalgia readers. Allodynia can happen with even the lightest touch by triggering pain receptors. Frida may well have experienced pain from just wearing clothing, just many others living with chronic pain. Though the official narrative is that she wore traditional Mexican dress to please Diego, she might have worn it to reduce her allodynia and pain levels.
This type of pain and sensitivity is very difficult to treat even now, as it associates with hypersensitivity of central pain processing.³ This type of pain amplifies over time and becomes more intense and it moves to other parts of the body. For Frida, this means her leg pain continues to worsen more and more as time goes by.
Frida and Spina Bifida
Along with all her physical problems created by the accident, Frida also suffered from complications of the spine from a congenital disease, Spina Bifida. This diagnosis came late her in life and she didn’t seem to refer to it at all. However, she did have surgery on her spinal column, and when it failed she had to wear a metallic corset. It was at this time in 1944 that she painted The Broken Column as a portrayal of strength in suffering.
Frida Kahlo’s depression and mental health
Frida could be lively and animated, or she could be severely depressed. This comes as no surprise to people who live with chronic pain. When you’re physically suffering all the time, your mental health suffers. Some of Frida’s worst mental health moments came after her miscarriage in Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital. Her painting of that time was heartwrenching. Frida so badly wanted a child, but her body just couldn’t handle it. It’s not surprising that she was severely depressed afterward.
Frida drank heavily throughout her life to help her cope with her pain and it’s reported she was addicted to pain medication (dependent would be a better word in my opinion). By 1945 she was drinking all day long. A year later she went through a failed spinal fusion surgery and relied on morphine and Seconal to cope with the painful aftermath. In 1953 as she was dying she was consuming two liters of cognac a day, and mixing it with other drugs to control the pain.
Frida and Diego Rivera
Though their relationship was rocky, Diego Rivera was the love of her life. They both had frequent extramarital affairs with women and men (Frida was bisexual). However, Diego crossed the line when he had an affair with Frida’s sister Christina. It broke her heart and contributed to their short divorce, but they couldn’t live without each other for long.
During their lifetime, Diego was by far the more famous, but since her death, Frida became the more popular of the two. Frida liked to joke about it and one Detroit News article said²:
Shortly before her death, Frida had a great exhibition of her paintings. For most of her life, her talent went unremarked and unrecognized, but this was her moment and Frida wouldn’t miss it. As the guests began to flow into Mexico City’s Gallery of Contemporary Art, an ambulance arrived. Why was an ambulance at an art museum? It carried Frida of course! She lay on a four-poster bed dressed in her favorite Mexican clothing. Frida would never arrive in a boring old bed either, she covered it with pictures of her heroes and her husband Diego. 200 guests were loving and supporting Frida that night. Gathering in a circle around her bed they began to sing Mexican ballads. It was a celebration of life.
The life of Frida Kahlo
Frida’s health was declining, including an amputation of her leg in 1953. It broke Frida’s spirit. She writes in her journal:
I have achieved a lot
I will be able to walk
I will be able to paint
I love Diego more
than I love myself
My will is great
My will remains
Her last words read;
I hope the exit is joyful. And I hope never to return.
Suggested media
- Google Arts and Culture on Frida and her relationship with her body: An quick and easy read about Frida’s chronic pain and its influence on her painting
2. A great documentary on Frida’s life. The movie Frida starring Selma Hayek is also available to rent and it’s a fairly accurate representation.
3. I read several books on Frida and this was my favorite.
Sources
- Barbezat, S. (2016). Frida Kahlo at home. Frances Lincoln. 2016
2. Herrera, H. (2002). Frida, a biography of Frida Kahlo. New York, NY: Perennial.
3. Frida Kahlo: Portrait of chronic pain. Retrieved May 17, 2021, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27562644/
4. The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo | PBS America
5. Dissociation, Repetition–Compulsion, and the Art of Frida Kahlo. Gail Carr Feldman.Psychodynamic Psychiatry. Volume 27 Issue 3 Sep 1999