Whatever Our Souls Are Made Of: Reclaiming Identity from Illness

When illness or grief takes hold, it doesn’t just affect the body. It can start to rewrite identity. What begins as a diagnosis can, over time, become a defining role. This piece explores how patients often find themselves engulfed by medical labels, why that matters psychologically, and how reclaiming narrative (through tools like narrative medicine and identity reconstruction) can support real healing. With insights from recent research and echoes from Wuthering Heights, it’s about learning to say: this is part of my story, but it is not all of me.