Identities from chronic illness: talking through symptoms, technology and care

Abstract

Living with a chronic illness can have a significant impact on an individual's identity. The physical and emotional restrictions generated by the illness can lead to a restructuring of the perception of one's own identity and interactions with the environment. The internalization of illness as part of a person's identity can lead them to perceive themselves as "sick" or "disabled." The body, like our identity, is not just skin; it is points of suture, of connection, of critique. The objective of this article is to talk not only about bodies, nor about technology, nor about care. It's about discussing identities framed between these points that resist and are constructed from a chronic illness. Illness is a process in which the body's health is absent for a period or forever. At this stage, the search for health, for the normality of the body and the subject, emerges; illness permeates the body to accept it in this new reality. We are talking about critical and hermeneutic research. Throughout the research process, it can be observed that the identity of the chronic renal patient is vulnerable. Thus, the sick body is new maps of identity, where there are unfinished, incomplete, evolved, and stagnant identities all at once.

Keywords: Metabolic disease, Cultural identity, Body, Cares