Quotessence
Home / Books / The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

Book by Meghan O'Rourke · 6 quotes · Autoimmune Disease, Chronic Illness, Health

Filter quotes by topic

AllAutoimmune DiseaseChronic IllnessHealthIllnessDoctors And PatientsNonfictionAutoimmunityChronic Illness StigmaDisabilityMedicalMemoirSocial Model Of DisabilityWellnessWomen

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness Quotes

“The medical uncertainty compounds patients' own uncertainty. Because my unwellness did not take the form of a disease I understood, with a clear-cut list of symptoms and a course of treatment, even I at times interpreted it as a series of signs about my very existence. Initially, the illness seemed to be a condition that signified something deeply wrong with me⁠—illness as a kind of semaphore. Without answers, at my most desperate, I came to feel (in some unarticulated way) that if I could just tell the right story about what was happening, I could make myself better. If only I could figure out what the story was, like the child in a fantasy novel who must discover her secret name, I could become myself again. It took years before I realized that the illness was not just my own; the silence around suffering was our society's pathology.”

HealthIllnessDisabilityNonfictionChronic Illness
Book:The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Create image

“The actual encounter was always confusing, eleven minutes of liminal contact in which I tried to conduct myself in a way that would make the doctor like me, in the hope they would take some true interest in my plight. But their day was full of tests to order, bureaucracy to cut through, an education that taught them not to say, "I don't know what's wrong with you." And so we stood together in a tiny antiseptic room, the doctor and patient, a world apart.”

Chronic IllnessDoctors And PatientsAutoimmune Disease
Book:The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Create image

“Autoimmunity is internalized by patients as an opportunity for the ultimate self-management project. But in fact it is a manifestation of a flawed collective project. If it is an indictment of anything, it is an indictment not of our personhood but of our impulse to see social problems as being about our personhood, instead of a consequence of our collective shortcomings as co-citizens of this place and time.”

Chronic IllnessAutoimmune DiseaseAutoimmunitySocial Model Of Disability
Book:The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness
Create image