I’ve written before that I have had to change my healing-metaphor from time to time. There’s the shift I made from thinking of myself as a “migraine warrior” to becoming more of a “gentle gardener” in order to make peace with my pain. Then there’s the shift from thinking of healing as “an uphill battle” to something more “tidal” rather than linear, more of a tooing-and-froing process than a one-track path to a fixed destination. I’ve also dabbled in power plays, suggesting my migraine-brain is more of a nuclear-power-reactor rather than a traditional coal-fired-plant.
Well.
Today, I came across an article which reminded me I could make another tweak in my metaphors for healing:
Illness narratives are broken – and they’re failing women like me | Emma Hardy | The Guardian
Ms Hardy (author of Periodic Bitch) writes that she was diagnosed with a chronic illness called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD. There’s no ‘cure’, only ways to improve the quality of her life with the disorder. She notes that the predominate narrative trope in the West is the “hero’s journey”, an adventure which shifts the traveler’s outlook (and potentially their whole life) after several trials and tribulations (my words not hers); “they take on their biggest challenge and overcome it. They return a hero.”
As Ms Hardy notes, “Many of our stories about illness follow a similar narrative arc. […] someone gets sick. The person does not want to be sick. The illness is eventually accepted, bravely fought, and our hero either gets better, or they don’t, and they die. This is a narrative structure that relies on closure. It values transformation over endurance. But it has nothing in common with how chronic illness actually plays out.“
She notes that she IS feeling better than she used to when she was first diagnosed, but where she finds herself is not a conclusion: “The neat moral lessons of the hero’s journey do not help me when my body will not re-enact that story. A neat ending does not help me live my messy middle.”
Hardy referenced a book which gave her an ah-ha moment. It was a book which I had read before, and rushed to re-find; “Meander, Spiral, Explode” (2019) by Jane Alison. The book offers multiple alternatives to the neat character arc of a hero’s trajectory which might better reflect the complexity of lived experience and make for a more interesting story, or a more realistic healing journey:
+ Meander: a flowing, winding, exploratory form that mirrors the twists and turns of nature, such as a curving river or a snake in motion.
+ Spiral: a narrative journey which turns back on itself, in a coiling, self-reflective manner.
+ Explode: when stories suddenly break apart with an unexpected, intensity.
But there were also other forms she mentions; waves, branching, cellular, radial and fractal patterns that can emerge…
Returning to Ms Hardy, she found that the spiral-metaphor resonated most with her situation: “It’s a pattern fit for recurring illnesses, or looping obsessions, or stories told over years as the Earth spirals around the sun.”
For me, my healing journey meanders.
I immersed myself in getting better as if it were my full-time job. No, not job, a mission. No, not a mission either; an experiment. My healing experiments threw a wide net over mind-body-soul-creative activities. I investigated options this-way-that, I named my pain, I stopped to smell the roses and drink a cup of tea. I made a healing wand, turned to Tarot cards, journalled, took up Tai Chi Walking then Belly Dancing…
Now, when I look back on my journey, I laugh at all the places I have visited, all the postcards I could have sent home.
No wonder I’m tired!
But I’m OK with that.
Pivot, turn, bend, sway, meander…
…onwards and upwards…
or not.
Chronic pain is like that.
The journey continues.
We’re all heroes, regardless of the genre.
And now that I have this new awareness, the next time I hit a roadblock, I’ll throw myself a Block Party!
Take care taking care out there,
Linda x
Ps – How do YOU metaphorize your healing journey?
The Mindful Migraine 
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