The Healing Power of Storytelling: An Exploration into the Autoethnographic Process

Abstract

I came to an epiphany as a writer and a person through autoethnography, a research and writing process that analyzes personal experience in the interest of understanding cultural experience. Drawn to a course by pure chance, I was given the opportunity to explore the genre of autoethnography by writing and researching through my experience with major depression.To write the full twenty-eight page manuscript of my autoethnography titled “Depressed—Proceed With Caution: An Autoethnography of Depression” I dove into my elephant-like memory for stories and read literature written by others who have lived with major depressive disorder. In the process, I learned more about depression, in myself and in others, than I ever expected to. I also saw the benefits of reading stories of another’s experience. Writing through my experience of depression was healing in a way that other writers cite. In myself, I have experienced a much-needed change in perspective through my research and self-reflection. In others, I have seen raw emotion in response to the pain found in my narrative accounts. My hope is to bring my story to a larger audience, to bring peace of mind to those who desperately need its light