Griffin begins with a gripping account of her own harrowing experiences with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a potentially life-threatening illness that has been misconstrued and marginalized through the label "psychosomatic." Faced with terrifying bouts of fatigue, pain, and diminished thinking, the shame of illness, and the difficulty of being told you are "not really ill," she was driven to understand how early childhood loss made her susceptible to disease.
Alongside her own story, Griffin weaves in her fascinating interpretation of the story of Marie du Plessis, popularized as the fictional Camille, an eighteenth-century courtesan whose young life was taken by tuberculosis. In the old story, Griffin finds contemporary themes of "money, bills, creditors, class, social standing, who is acceptable and who not, who is to be protected and who abandoned." In our current economy, she sees "how to be sick can impoverish, how poverty increases the misery of sickness, and how the implicit violence of this process wounds the soul as well as the body."
Griffin insists that we must tell our stories to maintain our own integrity and authority, so that the sources of suffering become visible and validated. She writes passionately of a society where we are all cared for through "the rootedness of our connections. How the wound of being allowed to suffer points to a need to meet at the deepest level, to make an exchange at the nadir of life and death, the giving and taking which will weave a more spacious fabric of existence, communitas, community." Her views of the larger problems of illness and society are deeply illuminating.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. First Edition; First Printing. Fine unread first edition (stated) first printing (complete number line) in Fine dust jacket with price intact. 328 pages, unmarked. Just a hint of age discoloration to the page block; X5X; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 328 pages. Seller Inventory # 45855
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0062514350
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0062514350
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0062514350
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0062514350
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Seller Inventory # Abebooks79154
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0062514350
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 1.15. Seller Inventory # Q-0062514350