Introduction
When people talk about their medical illnesses, they rarely begin with symptoms alone. They begin with a story, “I think I caught it from a colleague”, “It is probably just stress”, “I knew this would happen, I have been run down all week”. These explanations come quickly, almost instinctively. Almost immediately, people begin to interpret what is happening. They ask where it came from, what it means, and what it says about their bodies or their lives. These explanations often draw on familiar ideas, about stress, immunity, responsibility, or even luck, that circulate in everyday conversations and media. In this way, an illness is never just personal. It is shaped by shared ways of understanding that help people make sense of what might otherwise feel uncertain or out of control.
At first glance, an illness appears to be purely biological, a disruption in the body that can be measured, diagnosed, and treated. But this is only part of the picture. When something feels wrong, the question is not just what is happening, but why it is happening. That question opens the door to interpretation. People begin to connect symptoms to recent events, habits, environments, or emotional states. A cold becomes the result of exhaustion. A headache becomes a sign of stress. A more serious diagnosis can prompt deeper reflection about lifestyle, chance, or even fairness.
These interpretations are not always medically accurate, but they are meaningful. They help people situate their illness within the broader context of their lives. In doing so, they transform a set of symptoms into something more understandable and, at times, more manageable.
The Familiar Stories We Draw On
The way people explain their illness is not created from scratch. It draws on shared ideas that circulate through everyday life, through family conversations, cultural beliefs, media, and past experience.
Some of these stories emphasise responsibility, the sense that an illness results from overwork, poor habits, or neglect. Others lean toward chance or inevitability, framing their illness as something that simply happens, beyond individual control. Still others emphasise resilience, casting their illness as something to push through, endure, or overcome.
These patterns are often so familiar that they go unnoticed. Yet they shape how people understand not only their illness, but themselves. To see an illness as preventable may bring guilt or self-blame. To see it as random may bring relief or frustration. To frame it as a test of strength may encourage perseverance, but also discourage rest.
In this way, illnesses are never interpreted in isolation. It is understood through shared ways of thinking that give shape to personal experience.
Storytelling as a Way of Regaining Control
Illnesses can be deeply unsettling. It interrupts routines, introduces uncertainty, and challenges the sense that life is predictable or controllable. However, stories help restore a sense of order. By identifying a cause, “I have been overdoing it”, people can make their illness feel less arbitrary. By placing it within a sequence, “First I felt tired, then this happened”, they create a sense of structure. Even when the explanation is incomplete, the act of telling a story can make the experience feel more contained.
In this sense, storytelling is not just descriptive, it is practical. It helps people manage uncertainty, reduce anxiety, and regain a sense of agency in situations where control feels limited.
This is particularly visible during periods of widespread uncertainty, such as a pandemic, when official information may shift and clear answers are not always available. In these moments, personal and shared stories become even more important as people try to navigate what is happening around them.
How Stories Shape What We Do
The stories people tell about their illness do not stay at the level of explanation, they influence action. If an illness is understood as a personal failing, individuals may respond with guilt or try to correct their behaviour. If it is seen as a contagious threat, they may become more cautious, attentive to boundaries and protection.
Paying attention to how people talk about their illness offers a different kind of insight, one that goes beyond symptoms or outcomes. It reveals how individuals experience uncertainty, how they position themselves in relation to responsibility and risk, and how they navigate the emotional and social dimensions of being unwell. It also highlights the diversity of these experiences. The same condition can be understood in very different ways depending on context, culture, and personal history.
Listening to these stories does not replace medical knowledge, but it adds something essential, an understanding of how illnesses are lived, not just how they are measured.
Conclusion
Before an illness becomes a diagnosis, a statistic, or a case to be managed, it is first a story of a person’s reality. It is something people explain to themselves and to others, something they fit into the broader narrative of their lives. These stories shape how illnesses are understood, felt, and responded to.
An Illness may begin in the body, but it takes shape in the stories we use to make sense of it. Within those stories, we begin to see not only what it means to be unwell, but what it means to be human.
This article reflects my broader interest in narrative theory and health, which sits at the heart of my doctoral research. My PhD explores how people use stories to make sense of their lived experiences, particularly in moments of uncertainty and change. I am interested in how narratives are not just ways of describing what happens, but ways of shaping meaning, helping people understand themselves, their relationships, and the world around them.
Over time, I have become especially drawn to how storytelling can provide a sense of coherence when life feels disrupted, and how these everyday narratives quietly shape how people experience health and illness.
References
Holloway, I., & Freshwater, D. (2007). Vulnerable storytelling: Narrative research in nursing. Journal of Research in Nursing, 12(6), 703–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987107084669
Jovchelovitch, S. (2007). Knowledge in context: Representations, community and culture. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Knowledge-in-Context-Representations-Community-and-Culture/Jovchelovitch/p/book/9781138042896
Moscovici, S. (1984). The phenomenon of social representations. In R. M. Farr & S. Moscovici (Eds.), Social representations (pp. 3–69). Cambridge University Press. https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=1164372
Murray, M. (2000). Levels of narrative analysis in health psychology. Journal of Health Psychology, 5(3), 337–347. https://doi.org/10.1177/135910530000500305
Murray, M. (2001). Narrative psychology and narrative analysis. In J. A. Smith, R. Harré, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking methods in psychology (pp. 95–112). SAGE Publications. https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=1621955
Murray, M. (2002). Connecting narrative and social representation theory in health research. Social Science Information, 41(4), 653–673. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018402041004008
Walsh, P., Owen, P., & Mustafa, N. (2021). The creation of a confidence scale: The confidence in managing challenging situations scale. Journal of Research in Nursing, 26(6), 483–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1744987120979272
Author Bio
Marissa Brits is a doctoral researcher in narrative theory and qualitative inquiry, and an ESL teacher. Her work explores how people use storytelling to make sense of lived experience, particularly in contexts of uncertainty, identity, and change. She is especially interested in how narratives shape understanding across cultural and linguistic contexts, and how people use stories to interpret health, illness, and everyday life.
Published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license for mental health awareness with editorial review.