A language of Ill Feelings: defining the undefined in Alice Hattrick’s Ill Feelings (2021)

ABSTRACT

In Ill Feelings (2021), Alice Hattrick shares their experience and history of ME/CFS, a chronic illness that not only dictates their own life but also their mother’s. Drawing on their own diary entries, medical documents, and literary and artistic material, Hattrick blends the voices of women whose illnesses cannot be cured in a standardized medical fashion, because their origins remain unknown. Hattrick’s narrative echoes the reactions of disbelief individuals dealing with Long COVID and other forms of post-viral fatigue have experienced. It is a defiant account of illness that resists the gendered nature of medical diagnosis and seeks to undo the structures that continue to question and condemn women patients to a life in hiding. In this article, I explore the ways in which Hattrick re-establishes truth to the illness narratives of women. Building on knowledge that has shaped the medical humanities, I argue that Hattrick redefines what doctors have termed their hysterical language, one they share with their mother, to create a network of support for women that encourages them to speak their language of ill feelings, find understanding, and thereby oppose institutional medicine.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical humanities
• illness narrative
• gendered illness
• medical discourse
• doctor-patient relationship

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For a more comprehensive definition of life writing see Kadar, M. (Ed.) (Kadar, 1992). Essays on Life Writing: From Genre to Critical Practice (pp. 3–7).

2. See Showalter, E (Showalter, 1985, pp. 138–139, 1997 pp. 50–51).

3. There is an important literature on pain metaphors. See, for instance, Biro, D (Biro, 2010);. Wohlmann, A (Wohlmann, 2022);. Mintz, S.B (Mintz, 2013).

4. For an insightful chapter on the ‘poetry of pain’ see Mintz, S.B (Mintz, 2013, pp. 17–52).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mylène Branco

Mylène Branco worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in English Studies at the University of Luxembourg. Her research interests include narratives of illness and disability, the medical humanities, the complex intersections between literature and science in speculative fiction, and Luxembourgish literature. In September 2021, she co-organized a conference with Dominique Carlini Versini titled ‘Feminism(s) in the Age of COVID-19 and Beyond,’ which they are currently working on turning into a special issue with the Journal of Gender Studies.