Suleika Jaouad

sick yourself or when you're sitting next to the bedside of a loved one who's ill.

And, you know, I think ultimately that's what drew me to writing first as a reader and then later as a writer myself.

It's that, you know, when we dare to tell the unvarnished truth, be it in a memoir or in a work of fiction, we learn again and again that we're more alike than we are different.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I think that's been a core part of how I've endured these different experiences.

You know, physical pain is not something that we always have control over.

Suffering is something we do have agency over to some extent, you know, how we suffer.

Maybe the question isn't whether we suffer or whether we don't, but how we engage with that suffering.

And so for me, you know, creativity has always been my way of suffering on my terms.

And in a way that instead of feeling like I'm imprisoned by my suffering, unlocks not only the suffering for me, but often the world around me.

And how do you consider yourself?

My answer to that now is very different than it would have been 10 years ago.

But I think, you know, in general, we often conflate

the hero's journey with the survivor's journey, survivor of an illness or some other kind of heartbreak or difficulty that brings us to the floor.

And so when I first got sick, I really resisted the idea of anyone calling me brave or inspiring because I felt like

This is not a circumstance that I had chosen.

And I didn't feel brave or strong or inspiring.

I felt like I was in the belly of the beast and I was really struggling and I couldn't really see a way forward for myself.

What I do feel proud of and where I will continue