Never second best?

Abstract

The present study is based upon narrative, life‐history interviews with 20 polio survivors. The study focuses on the forming and reconstruction of identity with the late effects of polio as an important turning point for self‐understanding. In childhood and youth, the identities are described as adjustment‐oriented. The subjects inhabitated a dual world; the internal one, feeling different, and the external world, behaving as non‐disabled. As adults, before the onset of the late effects of polio, they were all somehow in the “normal mainstream”; by confirming important aspects of their normal identity on par with other non‐disabled people by means of marriage, parenthood and paid work. Their admittance to hospitals due to late effects of polio restored polio as an illness, but also enabled the emergence of the personal and emotional voices of the subjects through exchange of mutual awareness with other polio survivors. This appears to contribute to personal growth. The clinical implication from the study is that it is important to focus on the emotional and cognitive impact of early experiences in a narrative perspective in order for survivors to contribute to reconciliation with their life history.