Fighting a demon, mental diabetes, helplessness of a child. Language, self-narrative, and overcoming mental health crises

Abstract

The article examines the narratives of public figures about their experience of mental crisis. The goal was to apply narrative analysis to the stories of the subjects’ experiences and roles in relation to the disease. The results of the analysis have shown that in their statements both people make a revolution and transgress social taboos, exposing themselves to criticism from their professional environment, as well as from a multitude of observers, followers, fans. In their narratives, they strive to change the society’s archetypal perceptions of sick people, proving that they can adequately perform a range of professional and social functions. Both seek different ways to bring audiences closer to their experiences, appealing to feelings of alienation, entanglement, and undeserved suff ering. Mental health crisis is a dark force and an invasive element against the narrator’s healthy identity. However, above all, subjects are also bound together by the difficulty of finding a handy language for talking about mental health crisis – a language that is not trapped between medical nomenclature and colloquial expressions perpetuating hurtful stereotypes.