ABSTRACT
Catriona Watson describes how she became unwell using an array of different terms and metaphors, some medical, some her own, some innovative hybrids. She emerges not as a person who is colonised by authoritative knowledge, but who is creative, exercising agency in producing her own unique account of her distress. Catriona’s account is organised around self-understanding, and enables her to negotiate a non-bipolar world and manage her health. It would be of little use to a clinician responsible for her care. Catriona’s engagements with the welfare bureaucracies are uncomfortable, because she is forced into partiality and evasion. This leads to moral injury. Overall, Catriona’s mental distress is painful and disabling, but not without value.
