Can the two narrative autoethnographic stories I perform here help me to therapeutically deal with the losses they describe? The first story speaks of my PhD defense and its aftermath. I consider the event a loss that is clothed in accomplishment; I work through my feelings by writing about them. The second story describes a medical loss. After attaining the PhD degree I finally acknowledge that I have Dystonia, placing me in the unfamiliar world of the chronically ill. I use therapeutic autoethnography to reflect on both stories, and I ruminate over how the stories are entwined but very different. They have each (re)shaped my identity; I am in the never-ending process of (re)storying my self. Although the artifacts garnered from living these stories may be construed as reminders of loss, I have found a way to minimize the two losses by working with both artifacts together.
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