ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how women with mental health issues use the memoir genre to negotiate the liminal state in which they find themselves due to the negative ideological notions that patriarchal society has historically attached to disability, femininity, and non-whiteness. It explains how these women adapt memoir to create community, counter stereotypes, and offers ways to celebrate nonnormative bodies and minds. Historically, women have been silenced by being labeled crazy, overly emotional, and hysterical, which makes women’s memoirs about mental disability a subversive, political act. To fully support people who live with mental disability, we need to understand how systems of oppression interlock to create environments in which the humanity of those who are mentally impaired is disparaged. Elizabeth Young identifies narrative patterns in life writing about mental illness that include descriptions of symptoms, an acceptance of diagnosis and treatment, and the decision to tell one’s story.
