Voices

Looking Back:‘Skin Stories’ in 2017

December 27, 2017
by Point of View Team
3 min read
In this illustration, a woman is seated on her bed in a bright-coloured room with shades of orange, yellow and pink. She is on her bed reading under her blanket while her pillow is on the floor. There is a coffee mug lying on the floor, half-spilled, next to a magazine. On the other side of the bed is the woman’s phone, blinking.

Fresh, urgent narratives on disability, sexuality and gender.

Skin Stories brings you fresh, urgent narratives on disability, sexuality and gender. Here are all the stories we published this year. We hope you enjoy them. Don’t forget to check back in January for more. Happy holidays!

Relationships

The image is a triptych. In the first panel, a couple is kissing in a bookstore. A cat washes itself on top of the bookshelves. In the second image, a young person is wrapped up in a red blanket and watches ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ on their laptop in bed. In the third, they sit in a room with another person — both holding steaming cups of hot chocolate as the rain falls outside.

Credit: Alia Sinha

Why mental health, for me, is about relationships, relationships, relationships, by Sneha Rajaram

What living with food intolerance taught me about dependence, by Unmana Datta

Moy Moy used to talk: coming to terms with the degenerative disorder my daughter lives with, by Jo Chopra

In Sangli, love and partnership in the lives of three couples with disabilities, by Srinidhi Raghavan

Tindering as a one-legged girl in Mumbai, by Antara Telang

Navigating the mind and the body

Description: A young person reclines on green grass, resting on one arm, which is folded below their head. With their other hand they are clutching a notebook and pen to their body. There are white flowers, green apples, and sheets of paper strewn around them.

Credit: Upasana Agarwal

I live with blindness, but it is not the hardest thing I have to deal with, by Nidhi Goyal

Tweezers underneath my pillow: grappling with trichotillomania, by Manjiri Indurkar

Living with vitiligo: finally greeting the elephant in the room, by Durga M Sengupta

A woman wearing black sits at a cafe desk. A black and white picture hangs on the green wall behind her. To the right, there are plants and lanterns.

Credit: Upasana Agarwal

‘An end without an end’: finding my way to myself as a person living with quiet borderline personality disorder, by Arpita

When secrets turn into stories: living with PTSD as a young queer woman, by Anonymous

How surviving polio has impacted my personality, by Abha Khetarpal

What it takes to understand the intimate core of my disabled self, by Anita Ghai

Violence

The illustration is divided into three panels against a bright red background. The first panel has a green and orange coloured bird cage. The second panel has a woman dressed in green with yellow and orange flowers on her left as she smells the yellow flower. The third panel has a woman dressed in a yellow and orange salwar-kameez, riding a blue bicycle as she looks lovingly at three, seated orange-coloured dogs.

Credit: Alia Sinha

My family colluded to have me put in a mental health facility. This is the story of how I survived, by Jhilmil Breckenridge

The Venus Flytrap: the story of a marriage, by Payal Kapoor

Rising from the ashes: how I rebuilt my life after I left my abusive husband, by Payal Kapoor

‘I am fighting still’: navigating my mental health as a survivor of child sexual abuse, by Manjiri Indurkar

Dealing with vicarious trauma: what law school did not teach me about working on cases of sexual violence, by Priyangee Guha

Stigma and representation

A teacher and child sit in a classroom, both holding pieces of origami. There is a blackboard on the wall with multiplication problems scribbled on it, and a shelf with a globe and some books on it. A leafy tree can be seen from the classroom window.

Credit: Upasana Agarwal

Oralism is the huge, entirely avoidable barrier that Deaf people are forced to face, by Mohd. Aqil Hajee with Shruti Vaidya and Atiya Hajee

Laying it out: Strong Language — a Comic by Antara Telang

What ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ taught me about my illness, by Bevu Bella

At a community library read-aloud, disability manifests as absence, by Purnima Rao

 

Featured image credit: Alia Sinha