Learning to be ill, learning to be well

This autoethnography tries to reimagine distress. For the medical team, simple diagnostic terms formed the basis of many interventions, mostly pharmaceutical, delivered over a long and unhappy decade. My argument is not that this is wrong (or right) but that many other stories might be told. Distress is presented using the anthropological concept of habitus. It is a way of making sense of difficult experiences. Thinking in terms of habitus decentres mood whilst linking distress to values, strategies and tastes.