Illness and narrative identity: examining past and future life story chapters in individuals with bipolar disorder, diabetes mellitus or no chronic illness

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether narrative identity challenges are specific to Bipolar Disorder (BD) as a mental illness or a reflection of living with chronic illness. Nineteen individuals diagnosed with BD, 29 individuals diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) and 25 controls without chronic mental or somatic illness identified past and future life story chapters which were self-rated on emotional tone and self-event connections and content-coded for agency and communion themes. Individuals with BD self-rated their past chapters as more negative and less positive, and their chapters were lower on content-coded agency and communion themes compared to T1DM and controls. There were fewer group differences for future chapters, but BD was associated with lower self-rated positive emotional tone and self-stability connections as well as lower content-coded agency and communion themes. The results indicate that narrative identity is affected in individuals with BD above and beyond the consequences of living with chronic illness. This may reflect distinct effects of mental versus somatic illness on narrative identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Bipolar disorder
• mental illness
• diabetes mellitus
• somatic illness
• narrative identity
• life story chapters

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to the participants for sharing their stories. We are grateful to Steno Diabetes Center at Aarhus University Hospital, Skejby, Denmark and the Danish Diabetes Association for helping with recruitment and diagnostic confirmation of participants with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. We also thank Julie Quist Pedersen for assistance with recruiting the control group.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

The full data set is not available, as national data sharing rules do not presently allow this.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.