| dc.description.abstract | Metaphors are a convenient and intuitive means for understanding complex human conditions, but their use comes with both benefits and sacrifices. As in any written media, authors of texts pertaining to mental illness wield stylistic agency: they must juggle the tangible compromises that accompany each of their writerly choices. In this paper, I argue that Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is one such case in which mental illness is affected by the compromises of metaphorical representation. In OCD discourse, the human mind emerges as a system of interchangeable parts on which the individual can operate, and I highlight these implications in Hershfield and Corboy’s The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD. While these figures of speech are genuinely useful tools that reveal and add specificity to an invisible disease, the shortcomings of these representations are worth observing for their material influences on medical decision-making. However, this paper is far from the first source to acknowledge the impact of metaphor on illness. I use Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, Jay Dolmage’s Disability Rhetoric, and a slew of other rhetorical pieces to frame the effect of these OCD-related metaphors within a larger discourse on health and disability rhetoric. For instance, I contemplate the idea that sickness is an exile, the false characterizations assigned to the OCD individual, and the mechanical implications of current metaphors. Finally, I propose some next steps for how representations of disorder can improve, and I offer a less shame-inducing metaphor for describing OCD as a pathology. Despite my push for improved representation, I also emphasize the importance of celebrating current depictions of disorder for the progress they have made in illuminating unseen mental ailments, and I hope to reinforce a perspective in which empathy is only a starting point to allying with OCD individuals. | en |
