What Is a Chronic Illness?

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Narratives about self shape the actuality of our lives.

Attention to narrative elements like character, theme, and perspective can sharpen our life stories.

Therapy can be a space for creating and editing autobiographical narrative.

Humans love stories. From oral storytelling to novels to movies and television—we make sense of our world through narrative. Through stories, we seek to understand ourselves and be understood by others. Stories are especially important in identity construction. That is, we define ourselves in large part by the narrative we tell about who we are. As identity is profoundly changed by illness, how do we work with our narrative to reflect this shift?

Illness and narrative choices

For most people, illness is a “biographical disruption.” It’s an unexpected and often devastating event that blows up life as we’ve known it. We become acquainted with pain, fear, loneliness, and limitations. The people we were before illness could count on our bodies to work. The people we were before illness understood suffering as an abstract concept rather than as a lived experience. The people we were before illness had freedom in moving through the world that we took entirely for granted.

When illness strikes, we experience deep grief. We mourn for the things we have lost, especially our pre-illness identity. The grief is necessary, as we can never be who we once were. As we go through the grief process, we have to make a narrative decision: Is illness the end of our story, or is........

© Psychology Today