I grew up in a family that kept secrets surrounding illnesses and medical information. There was a certain shame around being diagnosed and nobody around me ever talked about it. When I was diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses early on in my childhood, I felt shameful about it. This shame led me to a lonely road of processing my diagnosis by myself.
Embody details stages of processing a chronic diagnosis. Separated into four sections, viewers are taken through denial, anger, grief, and acceptance, all feelings I have grappled with throughout my chronic illness journey.
I have denied that my doctors had diagnosed me correctly. I have been angry that I have to live with illnesses most people don’t even know about. I grieve the healthy body my illness has robbed me of. But I have also accepted that my illness is not my fault and does not make me less of a person. I still have these feelings of denial, anger, grief, and acceptance. Sometimes all of them at once. There is no right way to process a chronic diagnosis. All of these stages can be felt at the same time.
This book is heavily reliant on illustrations to evoke feelings in readers. Words are included lightly to show some of the thoughts I think about day to day while experiencing my own chronic illness. My work is very based on rough representation. I like to make images that roughly look like something recognizable but with enough abstractness for them to be able to be interpreted in different ways. I often find myself sketching out ideas early on in the process and sometimes I will include pieces of those sketches in the final product. My messy art style often allows me to add little pieces of myself hidden within the illustrations for those who may be paying attention.
