LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with acclaimed author Rachel Weaver

LIVE! Unfixed: Uncut with acclaimed author Rachel Weaver

From Unfixed Podcast by Kimberly Warner

March 3, 2026 · 54 min

About this episode

Kimberly Warner interviews Rachel Weaver about her memoir and the challenges of living with chronic illness.

In this episode, Kimberly Warner sits down with novelist-turned-memoirist Rachel Weaver to talk about what it really means to live inside a body that won’t cooperate—and how you keep building a life anyway. Rachel shares what it felt like to release her memoir Dizzy after years of writing fiction (“it felt like I left my diary out”), and why hearing “me too” from strangers has made the exposure worth it. Together, Kimberly and Rachel trace the brutal, invisible reality of long-term dizziness and vestibular migraine: the brain fog, the relentless appointments, the medical gaslighting, and the deep loneliness of suffering that doesn’t show up on a scan. They also explore what illness clarified rather than simply took away—especially around self-reliance, relationships, and the slow, vulnerable practice of letting other people in. Rachel talks about the rare doctor who could read subtext, see her suffering, and keep treating her even when insurance refused to pay—restoring her faith in clinicians and in care. Threaded through it all is Alaska: the wild, quiet vastness Rachel returned to in her mind when her nervous system was overloaded, and the way landscape can become a kind of…

People in this episode

Host: Kimberly Warner

Guest: Rachel Weaver

Topics covered

  • memoir
  • illness
  • self-reliance
  • relationships
  • writing
  • medical gaslighting

Keywords

  • chronic illness
  • memoir
  • dizziness
  • vestibular migraine
  • writing process
  • medical care
  • self-improvement

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Dizzy

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