{"paper_id":"fc0dc4f0-a115-4253-b19e-2d70e1536835","body_text":"Abstract\nThis chapter examines the concept of healing as an alternative to cure in the context of endometriosis memoirs written by Lara Parker, Abby Norman, and Hilary Mantel. While dominant biomedical models frame cure as the total elimination of disease, such models often ignore the lived reality of chronic pain and the psychic trauma caused by medical misogyny and racism. Drawing on disability studies and trauma theorists such as Eli Clare, Cathy Caruth, and Lauren Berlant, this chapter argues that healing, understood as a spiritual, psychological, and narrative practice, offers a path toward reclaiming agency in a body that cannot be cured. Through close readings of memoir, the chapter explores how creative expression becomes a transformative tool for processing grief, resisting institutional erasure, and building feminist solidarity. Personal narrative, including the author’s own journal entry, is incorporated to underscore the role of storytelling in surviving the medical dismissal and psychic fragmentation caused by endometriosis. In rejecting both cure rhetoric and romanticized suffering, the chapter advocates for a feminist disability framework that centers chronic pain, narrative resistance, and collective healing. Ultimately, it suggests that while endometriosis may not be curable, healing through writing can offer new modes of visibility, empowerment, and justice.\nAccess this chapter\nTax calculation will be finalised at checkout\nPurchases are for personal use only\nSimilar content being viewed by others\nNotes\n- 1.\nI am forever grateful to Dr. Richard Doyle, one of my professors at Penn State, for helping me define this term.\nReferences\nBerlant, Lauren. 2011. Cruel optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.\nCaruth, Cathy. 1995. Trauma: Explorations in memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.\nCheong, Y., et al. 2008. Laparoscopic surgery for endometriosis: How often do we need to re-operate? Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 28 (1): 82–85.\nClare, Eli. 2017. Brilliant imperfection: Grappling with cure. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.\nCouser, G. Thomas. 2009. Signifying bodies: Disability in contemporary life writing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.\nDe Bres, Helena. 2021. Artful truths: The philosophy of memoir. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.\nEllis, Katherine, et al. 2022. Endometriosis is undervalued: A call to action. Frontiers in Global Women’s Health 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgwh.2022.902371.\nFrank, Arthur. 1995. The wounded storyteller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.\nGupta, Jhumka. 2014. Endometriosis is a social justice issue. Huffington Post, October 21. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/endometriosis-is-a-social_b_5986690.\nhooks, bell. 2001. All about love: New visions. New York: William Morrow.\nHossain, Anushay. 2021. The pain gap: How sexism and racism in healthcare kill women. New York: Simon & Schuster.\nKafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, queer, crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.\nMantel, Hilary. 2003. Giving up the ghost: A memoir. London: Picador.\nNational Institutes of Health. 2022. Estimates of funding for various research, condition, and disease categories (RCDC). https://report.nih.gov/funding/categorical-spending#/2022.\nNorman, Abby. 2018. Ask me about my uterus: A quest to make doctors believe in women’s pain. New York: Bold Type Books.\nParker, Lara. 2020. Vagina problems: Endometriosis, painful sex, and other taboo topics. New York: Griffin.\nPrice, Margaret. 2011. Mad at school: Rhetorics of mental disability and academic life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.\nRovito, Maria. 2020. Toward a new madwoman theory: Reckoning the pathologization of Sylvia Plath. Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 14 (3): 317–332.\nSaxton, Marsha. 2016. Disability rights and selective abortion. In The disability studies reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis, 5th ed., 73–86. New York: Routledge.\nWendell, Susan. 2017. Unhealthy disabled: Treating chronic illnesses as disabilities. In The disability studies reader, ed. Lennard J. Davis, 160–172. New York: Routledge.\nAuthor information\nAuthors and Affiliations\nCorresponding author\nRights and permissions\nCopyright information\n© 2026 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG\nAbout this chapter\nCite this chapter\nRovito, M. (2026). (Acceptance) This Is the Part Where I Refuse to Die: Narrating Endometriosis Against the Silence. In: Cripping Endometriosis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-15681-5_7\nDownload citation\nDOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-15681-5_7\nPublished:\nPublisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham\nPrint ISBN: 978-3-032-15680-8\nOnline ISBN: 978-3-032-15681-5\neBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)","source_license":"CC0","license_restricted":false}