ABSTRACT
Often, when I am writing, as in this piece, I have in the back of my mind the words of sociologist Arthur Frank: to let stories breathe. Here, I’m trying to give breath to those stories that are commonly ‘off limits’ in professional life. I also take to heart Johnny Saldaña’s warning that if we write with a message or moral in mind, we are likely to end up with something heavy handed and uninspiring. This chapter, then, is an attempt to respond to the editor’s request to interrogate, trouble and reveal some of the limitations of autoethnographic writing while holding in balance that stories need to breathe and that, to a certain extent, they chart their own course.
