A Quest Through Chaos: My Narrative of Illness and Recovery — Page 8:
36 The narrative of recovery invariably includes aspects of grief and yearning for the past. The three illness narrative types I have discussed in this article are not separate entities in the search for an essential self. They are postmodern stages through which one passes and returns. There is power in sharing, and using writing as a means to work through pain invites creativity and innovation (Jones and Brabazon). While this article has predominantly focused on older forms of media, new media, such as blogs and virtual reality are providing people recovering from serious illness the chance to use narrative as a way to reflect on their recovery (Pajtas 13).
37 As a process of recovery, illness narratives invariably incorporate the chaos, restitution and quest structures. These narrative types display the relationship between narrative and culture, and emphasise the complexity of illness (Thomas-MacLean 1648). Narrative is vital, as the ill persons work out their changing identity and position in the world of health, continuing when they are no longer ill, but remain marked by their experience:
My interest in disability is largely due to my own experience with disability. Following a stroke, I have for the last eleven years lived with weakness and spasticity in the left side of my body and epilepsy. [Eight years ago] I made a documentary about my rehabilitation from stroke. During this exercise I began to notice that many able-bodied people who had not had similar experiences to my own were “reassuring” me that I looked and seemed “normal.” (Disabling Diversity 18 May 2008)
Disability and illness are not straightforward and warrant further investigation. Writing this paper has allowed me to think reflexively on my own illness and how it continues to affect my life, including my ongoing research and writing.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Melanie Rodriga, Christine Houen, Jena Woodhouse, Carleen Ellis, Amanda Ellis, Mike Kent, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.