There's Still a Person Underneath

I really enjoyed that this reading focused on a new genre that has arrived recently in our culture. I had never heard of pathographies before (and even Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize it as an actual word) but I really like that it’s transformed into a form of writing where people who suffer from illnesses can write about the experience in a narrative way. I thought it was interesting when she talked about how it’s come to be. The fact that it used to be done privately in journals or diaries but has now made its way into the public is pretty fascinating. It’s a topic we’ve grown comfortable with in talking about and reading, and so people are commonly writing about it, deserving of its own genre.

The way we used to view illness to the way we see it now is also something worth noting. Because medicine wasn’t as advanced back then as it is now, people viewed illness as a natural part of life, but because of modern medicine nowadays, we view it as isolated from the person, something to be corrected. To use the battle metaphor she so often discusses, a foreign enemy come to attack the person’s body. “But the person with the disease needs attention.” (223). Doctors tend to focus on attacking the ailment, curing the ailment, and forget that there’s a person underneath. “Disease can be treated and in some cases even cured; people, though, require healing.” (223). And that’s the fascinating thing that pathographies do, they place the person at the center of the discussion. The person writes their interpretation of the experience rather than just simply recording it. They see their self as a capacity for change (not just in how the illness is affecting them and altering them) but in how they respond to it. This transformative self, or the self-in-process as Rogers stated form the other reading, helps in that healing, as does the whole genre of pathographies.

Hawkins’s essay mainly focuses on physical illnesses, but I think it’s important to look at mental ones as well, especially when thinking about healing. I think it’s kind of scary the statistics of college students that will suffer from/already live with a mental illness, and it’s not something widely discussed throughout our campus. In fact, it’s not really talked about at all, and it still receives a negative stigma (take last year’s fight that CAPS had in trying to get another counselor for the department, it had to take so much energy and pleading). The influx of students CAPS was getting also says something: we all are going to struggle with this at some point or another. Last year was one of the worst semesters I have ever had, and I was way deep in depression and anxiety, still am too at times. Writing about it for other classes was extremely helpful for me in remembering that there’s still a person underneath it. I’m still me underneath it all. Illnesses in general really do place the focus on the disease, seeing it as not a part of the person. And that’s part of the stigma, we see it as something that needs to be fixed for the person to go back to “normal.” We don’t see it as something that we may now have to live with, something that is now and may be forever a part of us. We see it as a stranger, I know I did. I was not familiar with it at all, and it felt so strange for me to experience it then. But I think the significant thing to note is that, even if it’s something you develop, even if this illness comes into your life, you’re still the same person underneath, the only difference is that the illness has coincided with yourself, but it doesn’t have to define you.