Love Rx: Invisible Chronic Illness and the Rhetoric of Relationships (2012)

Undergraduate: Abigail Nix

Faculty Advisor: Jordynn Jack
Department: English

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Support groups offer a place for individuals, both patients and caregivers, to discuss a common health problem or condition, and they have been recommended for reducing stress and loneliness, empowering patients, and helping to improve patient self-management. With the use of the internet, support groups have been introduced in the form of blogs and forums, and among the groups that use these channels of communication individuals with chronic illness have embraced this method of sharing their experiences. This project examines patterns of communication and the rhetoric used in the discussion of invisible chronic illnesses and relationships. The mediums examined will be those of people interacting through chronic illness blogs and forums on the internet. I analyze the trends in these discussions through focusing both on rhetorical devices employed and the subject matter of the postings and responses. I argue that in this genre chronic illnesses have been personified and that, through the online discussion of chronic illness and relationships, patients and their spouses have created a ‘third person in the relationship’ identity for their illness.