{"id":41950,"date":"2016-05-29T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T00:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/?p=41950"},"modified":"2016-05-28T07:47:19","modified_gmt":"2016-05-28T07:47:19","slug":"the-illness-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/the-illness-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"the illness memoir"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can, if you are hurting, keep you company.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps, however, the purpose of literature is not social, or therapeutic. That may be, in which case, I suppose we should house these memoirs, my own included, on the self-help shelf. But that seems a little too easy. The illness memoir, after all, is not a prescription but a description, offered not to cure but to accompany. <\/p>\n<p><small>Lauren Slater in Life is short, art is shorter (David Shields, Elizabeth Cooperman)<\/small><\/p>\n<p><!--- The best of the illness memoirs, especially those dealing with psychiatric illnessess such as depression, are offerings in spirit. They were written, I believe, not for the purpose of a peacock display, but to offer solace, to forge connection in times of trouble. I, for one, expect that my readers will be troubled; I envision my readers as troubled, as depressed, as guilty, mourning, maybe, a medication that failed them. I write to say, you are not the only one. ---><\/p>\n<p><!--- I write with the full faith that the reader I envision is hungry for my tale. I know it, because, having suffered psychiatric illness myself, I am always hungry for tales from the trenches, stories in which I can see myself, stories that might help me map my way. We must consider the illness memoir not only as, or solely as, an <em>Oprah<\/em> bid, but also as this: a gift from me to you. A folk cure, a hand held out. I look into my heart and I see a whore there. But I also see something else.  I can, if you are hurting, keep you company. ---><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can, if you are hurting, keep you company. Perhaps, however, the purpose of literature is not social, or therapeutic. That may be, in which case, I suppose we should house these memoirs, my own included, on the self-help shelf. But that seems a little too easy. The illness memoir, after all, is not a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/the-illness-memoir\/\" class=\"read-more\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1176],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41950"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42276,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41950\/revisions\/42276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}