My Quest through Chaos: My Narrative of Illness and Recovery

Abstract

Stories of people trying to figure out who they are following illness are both popular amongst readers and vital to the author’s recovery. This article is an illness narrative and an exploration of illness, narrative, recovery, and critical disability studies. Using my own experience of having a massive stroke as an 18-year-old, the article considers narrative structures present in a series of journal entries, video diaries, letters, and blogs to reflect on the importance of narrative throughout my recovery. My story has evolved through the dominant narrative structures of the illness narrative as outlined by Frank (1995) chaos, restitution, and quest. These narrative types display the relationship between narrative and culture, and emphasise the complexity of illness. Telling illness narratives is a valuable means of recovery when the body becomes what the individual never expected it would—damaged. 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. This article connects the (my) autobiographical to the social, political and cultural.