Illness of the Gendered Body, Freud’s The Uncanny, and “Being-in-the-World”

The communicative and therapeutic practice of pathography, or illness narrative, is an emerging area of study within the field of medical humanities and interdisciplinary humanities. In a broad context, medical humanities is defined as an interdisciplinary approach to the interaction between the arts and health (Kirklin and Richardson XV). Medical humanities, while drawing on the practices of narrative analysis endemic to literary and media studies, is viewed as both a pedagogical avenue and praxis modality for engaging with the lived experience and treatment of the ill patient. One interpretation of medical humanities is concerned with an enduring interdisciplinary approach in which the reflective apparatus of the humanities is inserted into pedagogical processes for students of healthcare in order to approach the goals and workings of their practice in a critical way (Shapiro et al. 192). This critical reflection is typically attuned to the agency and phenomenological perspectives of the patient and rejects medicine’s tendency to fragment both the bodies and the stories of the ill (Charon 90). The study of illness narratives, in this sense, is critical as it centers a therapeutic approach for patients. We understand that illness “is among the most exposing experiences of the mortal life” and therefore “narrative medicine is present when a person urgently comes to face or question or embrace his or her identity” (Charon et al. 110). This article explores the relationality between identity and narrativity that is critical to the emerging study of illness narratives. It particularly focuses on the intersections between illness, the body, and gender by turning to a specific case study of a medical disorder known as hyperandrogenism.

In March 2015, a post titled “Breaking Down Emotionally Over PCOS” was uploaded to the online health forum SoulCysters.net. The opening lines of the post, from a woman using the handle htr12, read: “So I just found this site today, and i was diagnosed on October 31, 2008. I sort of gave up looking up info on PCOS for a month or so, because I just felt so hopless [sic]” (htr12). The author proceeds to tell her story of living with an endocrine disorder known as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). PCOS embodies an array of varying symptoms that produce medical complications, though it tends to be associated with a nebulous disorder called hyperandrogenism. Hyperandrogenism is a medical condition characterized by “excessive” levels of male hormones (androgens) such as testosterone, which when identified in the female body are associated with “masculinizing” symptoms including excess body and facial hair, male-pattern baldness, infertility, elevated sex drive, increased muscle mass, and absence of menstrual bleeding (Azziz et al. 3; Bazarganipour et al. 317).

The author’s adolescence was plagued with irregular menstrual cycles, as little as two to four periods a year, that she tried and failed to regulate with various brands of combined oral contraceptive pills. At the age of 18, htr12 recalls feeling distraught over the possibility that she might not be able to conceive in the future. This threat to future motherhood compelled her to seek medical attention. She was advised by various physicians to continue alternative contraceptive pills in order to find the “right one” despite jumping between not menstruating for over eight months and constant spotting. htr12 notes that “3 of the docs made me feel like i was crazy, and told me to just keep taking the pills [sic].” The author describes a deep yearning for motherhood, which became more urgent as she began planning her wedding. She decided to attempt a physician visit again despite her past negative experiences:

I made another appointment 3 months later and the doc. gave me a preg test (which was neg) and told me that since i was not married that she should not be having this conversation with me about my period irregularities. I went home in tears and never wanted to go back to a doc again [sic].

(htr12)

Sometime later, the author eventually received a diagnosis of PCOS, an endocrine disorder that commonly causes infertility. htr12 describes her emotional turmoil over the diagnosis and a potential inability...