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Quote by Alanna Mitchell

“The point is that if you think you can pinpoint the cause, then you can fool yourself into thinking you can avert the cause. It's deeply egotistical. It's life played as a grand insurance policy. Our myth-making around cancer stems from the same impulse. Because we don't know exactly why most of it happens, we weave a makeshift wisdom around it, a false prophet, which seeps into the common story and feeds our hunger to understand why. The guilt is a byproduct, a way to assign blame and seek absolution. It's a lesser evil than the forces of randomness. And it gives us the illusion of control.”

Quote by Alanna Mitchell

Book:Malignant Metaphor: Confronting Cancer Myths
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Malignant Metaphor: Confronting Cancer Myths

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Alanna Mitchell

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“The predominant cancer metaphor is war. We fight cancer, usually valiantly. We attack tumors and try to annihilate them and bring out our arsenals to do that, and so on. It's us against cancer. This metaphor has come in for its share of criticism within the ethical, psychological and even oncological disciplines. A main concern is that when someone dies of cancer, the message that remains is that that person just hasn't fought hard enough, was not a brave enough soldier against the ultimate foe, did not really want to win. The cancer-is-war metaphor does not seem to allow space for the idea that in actual war, some soldiers die heroically for the larger good, no matter which side wins. War is death. In the cancer war, if you die, you've lost and cancer has won. The dead are responsible not just for getting cancer, but also for failing to defeat it.”

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Book:Malignant Metaphor: Confronting Cancer Myths
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“I cannot hope to make you understand how the world is truly made,' he told her. 'Metaphor, then: the world is a weave, like threads woven into cloth.' His hand came out of his sleeve with a strip of his red ribbon. 'If you say so.' 'Everything, stone, trees, beasts, the sky, the waters, all are a weave of fabric,' he said patiently. 'But when you think, it is different. Your thinking snarls the fabric, knots it. If you were a magician, you could use the knot of your mind to pull on other threads. That is magic, and now you see how every simple it is. I wonder everyone does not become an enchanter.”

MagicPatientMetaphorThinkFabricTreesEverythingStoneBeastsWeaveClothRed RibbonThe SkyEnchantersRibbonThe WatersMosquito KindenPrincess SedaUctebri The SarcadWasp Kinden
Book:Salute the Dark
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“For the first time, I understood the ancients' need to find explanations for why things happen. It's a quintessential human imperative. Random is not emotionally satisfying. Therefore, lightning was the bolt from an angry god. Crop failure was punishment for failing to honor the gods with a fatted calf. The plague happened because you took the Lord's name in vain or coveted your neighbor's wife. Going to church regularly and praying could forestall illness. And on and on.”

LanguageDiseaseMetaphorCancerRationalityMyths
Book:Malignant Metaphor: Confronting Cancer Myths
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“I know you're in a world of pain, but that pain will lessen. At the beginning you can't see that. You can only see your pain and you think it will never go away. But the nature of pain is that it changes— it changes like a sunset. At first, it's this intense red-orange in the sky, and then it starts getting softer and soften. The texture of pain changes as you work through it. And then one day, you wake up and realize that life isn't just about working through your incest; it's about living, too. - survivor of child sexual abuse”

SufferingHealingMetaphorTraumaRecoveryChild AbusePtsdEmotional PainChild Sexual AbuseIncestEmotional TurmoilOmplex Ptsd
Book:The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
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“My mom’s smile is genuine, A lilac beaming In the presence of her Sun. Indentions in the sand prove Time’s linear progression, Her hair yet unblighted, Carrying midnight’s consistency. Clear tracks fading as the Movement slips further In the past. Cheekbones High, soft, In summer’s hue, Hopeful. Each step’s unknown impact, A future looking back. My father’s strength: One whose Life is in his arms. Squinting past the camera, He rests upon a rock Like caramel corn half eaten, Just to the left Of man-made concrete convention Daylight’s eraser Removing color to his right. Dustin sits In my father’s lap, Open mouth of a drooling Big mouth bass; Muscle tone Of a well exercised Jelly fish, He looks at me Half aware; His wheelchair Perched at the edge Of parking lot gravel grafted Like a scar on nature’s beach, Opening to the ironic splendor Of a bitter tasting lake. I took the picture. Age 11. Capturing the pinnacle arc Of a son To my lilac Who Outlived him and weeps, Still. Their sky has staple holes – Maybe that’s how the Light Leaked out.”

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Book:From My Mother
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