Dancing With Monsters: Chronic Illness As Creative Transformation

by Kate Wolfe-Jenson

This is a book about monsters. Not the cute, laughably incompetent ones you see in animated movies, but the ones you meet in your own life: ugly thoughts, unexpected losses, inexcusable evils. At age twenty, Kate Wolfe-Jenson had already discovered her monster-mind. She was an expert at negative thinking and expecting disaster. Then she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Together, the monsters whipped her into a wild dance, MS tapping out fear and sadness and her monster-mind twirling it into depression, rage and grief. It seemed like the monsters would win. A decade after being diagnosed, she discovered that what she knew about the creative process could help her deal with the frustrations of living with chronic illness (and life in general). Through that understanding, she entered into a dance with illness and healing, rather than running from them. Through memoir, essay and fanciful stories, this book explores the landscape of chronic illness, describes its contours and invites you onto the dance floor.

168 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2008

Reviews

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have enjoyed going to a number of Kate's workshops and liked her web site, so I decided to buy her book. I choose the rating of three stars due to my opinion that the organization of the story was not so helpful to me. It was distracting to jump around in time. Kate presents a compelling and honest depiction of many aspects of her life and the progression of her disease. Kate's experiences in life are rich and deep.

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book several years ago, and it's been sitting in my Kindle cloud all that time. For some reason, I was going through that cloud looking for a book I hadn't read about chronic illness. Since I bought it, I've been diagnosed with kidney cancer, had surgery to remove part of that kidney, had a cervical laminectomy, a new hydrocephalus shunt implanted after forty-some years, and had another surgery to correct a lifelong foot deformity to make it "brace-able." I've lived with the effects of spina bifida since birth. I don't know anything other than disability, but I related to Kate's realities and efforts to make meaning from something that made no sense--her diagnosis at the age of twenty with multiple sclerosis and the progressive nature of its effects.

She used this book to tell her story and provided exercises to help others make their own meaning from whatever chronic illness they are living with. I didn't work through the exercises yet, because I wanted to soak up her story uninterrupted. I do plan to do those exercises, but to work through them much more slowly for learning and healing. I believe they will be helpful when I get to them, though.

[Claire Boynton · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read. I am interested in the metaphor of the ill health monster that follows us around. It's inspired some creative ideas for my work - but of cute monsters rather than scary ones. It's always helpful to read the experiences of people who also have chronic illnesses. I was uncomfortable with the exercises and skipped those sections.