Conjuring a Resilient Medical Narrative

Can the stories we tell ourselves, and the legends we pass on to our children, instill a sense of control, resilience, and even heroism in the face of disease and hardship?

“Storytelling is a fundamental part of being human. Stories let us share information in a way that creates an emotional connection. They help us to understand that information and each other, and it makes the information memorable.” -Christine Hennebury

One of the most important ways people make sense of the chaotic world around them is through the telling of stories. Every culture seems to have an origin myth. And within families, narratives are passed down through generations that can burnish a sense of who we are and from whence we came. Recently, the importance of cultivating a family narrative has been recognized, especially for building a sense of identity, control, and resilience in children. The more children know about their family story, the better equipped they will be to withstand stresses to their foundation.

I would go further, and believe that the stories we incorporate about our family medical narratives influence much about how we personally cope with and ultimately understand good physical and mental health. Can we to some degree write our own positive, and even heroic, medical stories? Can we share these with our children so they might too craft some meaning and courage when circumstances demand it?

Family narratives tend to follow three archetypes. The first is a story of ascendance. Your grandparents came to this country with nothing but a pocketful of change and a spare set of clothes. They sacrificed much, worked hard in the coal mines so I could go to school and become a teacher. I worked hard so that you could have the same opportunity. The second is unfortunately one of decline. We used to have it all, but now we’ve lost it, and there is great shame in that. And then there is the third type of narrative, which is the most genuine, nuanced, and edifying. Your grandfather was a businessman, respected in town, but also struggled with alcohol. Your grandmother was a tireless woman, who raised four boys despite being poor and living in a small house, and even though there was a lot of conflict, in the end they always stuck together as a family.

Children with the most self-confidence often possess an inter-generational sense of self. They build this identity in part by listening to the stories of those who came before them, the hardships overcome, the struggles and pains endured. When they are confronted with life’s inevitable plot twists, they can summon other family member’s stories, wielding them to write their own narratives of endurance and even resilience in the face of sorrow.

In the realm of health, can we resolve to create and share stories that build an adaptive foundation for understanding and coping with adversity? Can we achieve a better sense of well being if we see our darker medical issues illuminated by the perseverance of those who came before us? We cannot control much of what happens to us, and good health is as much determined by chance as it is by our own behaviors. But in my practice, and in my own life, I have seen family ailments that are as much dysfunctional patterns of symptom interpretation and legacies of reactive dread learned from the time we were children as they are genetically determined.

Perhaps like you, I have been anxious this year. The coronavirus is just the most obvious agent of suffering we face as a planet, but the old scourges of heart disease, cancer, and the like have not gone away. The themes I have played out in my mind at night have not always been helpful, and at times have been painful. Yet if we can harness some of the strength, endurance, and honest reckoning with ill fate that came before us, perhaps we can derive some comfort and understanding in the present.

Maybe I can borrow some chapters from my great-grandfather’s book, the ones in which he built by hand his own cabin in the woods, and kept walking amid the old trees, and appreciating the forest despite the worsening pains in his legs, and the general deterioration of his health. And when he could no longer chop wood, he still took joy in holding me as an infant, as the faded family pictures show. Or maybe I can summon the strength of my grandmother, who was addicted to smoking like most of her generation, yet despite her anxieties and fears endured surgery and chemotherapy for cancer, and still had the courage to walk to the market wearing a cap, engaging old friends and picking up the groceries to somehow conjure the best Sunday pot roast dinner you could imagine.

Our struggles, while unique, are universal. The tales we tell about them should be honest, acknowledging all that is good and terrifying. But if we can bend them to serve a greater purpose by grounding them in notions of courage, endurance, and hope, then perhaps our narratives will help us to live better in the present. And just maybe, those foundational stories can live on in the constitutions of those we love, well after we are gone.