Illness as identity
"The "Standardized" Human: By claiming an illness as an identity, individuals find a socially acceptable defense against the brutal optimization demands of modern capitalism. If a person cannot keep up with work or school, being "lazy" is a moral failure, but being "chronically ill" protects their moral status."
I'm teaching a class in September called "who are you without your illness?" This is a phenomenon that I have personally worked with and worked with it in practice with clients. The gist of it is when our structure has been created around our illness, it can be quite challenging to let go of that structure. We literally do not know who we are and how to be without it. People disagree until they experience it...... and my work brings it to light.
I'm well aware of how this "identity" is sculpted by our medicinal institutions and pharmaceutical industries. I hadn't thought of it as a rebellion to capitalism, but it makes complete sense when I look at it through the microcosm and the individual in their relationship dynamics. Often people fall ill which allows them to cope with tolerating things. The body map I work with is incredibly telling and reveals a lot about the underlying contributing mechanisms. Sometimes when working with a client light is shone on a specific dynamic and how it is contributing to their health issues - it may be a friend, a partner, a job, etc. when that dynamic is changed or let go of, symptoms shift. Yup Susie, your right knee that keeps going out that started just after your parents divorced when you were 7 is about your abandonment issues from childhood that you have replayed in every relationship....... oh yes Bob.... the chronic stomach pain is literally because you are "stomaching" things you would rather not, but don't know another way to do it.
Looking at it through the lens of a response capitalism is super interesting.........the question of who are you without your illness is a really hard one to answer ....... because without it would you jump further into the big machine, which created pressures and a lifestyle that made you sick in the first place? Or would you have enough energy, time, and enthusiasm to create new ways outside of that structure?
What an entrapment we have gotten ourselves into? What a crazy and wild and dysfunctional pickle! Of course we over identify with our chronic conditions........we don't know another way to do it.
Class here for those who want to go on a wild ride with me.....🤪
