‘I found what I had lost: myself’. Writing as a form of self-care in times of crisis

Abstract

This essay is situated within the broad area of autoethnography, particularly referring to the idea of ‘writing about writing’, which is grounded in the reflection of the process of writing and the contexts in which that writing occur. The author employs a personal narrative to reflect on the situation that she had found herself in during the Covid-19 pandemic and which can best be defined by the concept of trajectory. It is a biographical situation marked with chaos and disintegration, evoking identity changes. As a result, the trajectory set new directions for the course of the biography. In the discussion on the schemes of dealing with the trajectory of suffering, author refers to Paul Ricoeur’s narrative concept, in particular the refiguration phase, as a stage of redefining one’s own life situation. Finally, author comes to the conclusion that the process of writing this essay can be viewed as a form of self-care, which Audre Lorde defined as self-preservation.

Keywords

• experience
• narrative
• self-care
• trajectory
• writing