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When Illness Becomes the Way: Stoicism as a Way through Chronic Illness and Disability

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This essay was originally published by Classical Wisdom after winning their Stoic Essay Writing Contest in 2022. You can read the original post here.

What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.

Marcus Aurelius[1]

We never know when our lives might be changed suddenly and irrevocably. 2015 was one of the most successful years of my career as a multidisciplinary artist and vocal coach. I was teaching privately and at our local university and collaborating with several other performing artists. My largest project was writing and performing libretto and music for an upcoming dance opera. After a three week intensive with the dance opera company, my collaborator came down with a virus. I gently hugged her aching body and said goodbye. The next day I was sick. I still haven’t recovered.

Stoicism has been of great help in managing my mental and physical health while living with chronic illness. I also believe Stoicism has the potential to shift how society views those disabled by chronic illness—from burdens to human beings capable of flourishing—and to offer the support necessary to make that happen.

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The Hum

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The album cover for The Hum. It reads: The Hum. Lia Pas. The image is of Lia's embroidery, "sensorium" with a purple navy tinge and dark purple navy bars on either side. In the centre of some bone white linen, there is a spine in thick satin stitch. Emanating from the spine are thick burgundy lines in an undulant oval shape. This oval is bisected across the middle. In the top half, there is a section outlined in burgundy filled with coiling blue lines and a similar section in the bottom half. The rest of the undulant oval is filled with fine coiling burgundy lines. The spine is very straight, the rest of the embroidery is very coiled and busy. Lia’s initials are stitched in fine thread the same colour as the cloth at the bottom right.

I have completed The Hum—a piece of music based on my hyperacusis and tinnitus symptoms. It’s just over 11 minutes long, and is a calm, ambient, and somewhat minimalist piece. Here is a 1 minute, 20 second taste of the recording:

You can buy the entire 11 minute recording on my Ko-fi page as an mp3.

Read on for more information about my long and gentle music reintegration and composition process for this piece.

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Creative Plans for 2024

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Note: This has been cross-posted on ko-fi and on Medium.

2023 was a very full year with a few big projects done in tandem with other organizations. It was also the year that I finally felt I had a career again for the first time since the 2015 onset of ME/CFS. Here are some of my plans for this coming year, with the caveat that they are all fate-permitting since I never know what my body might do.

Works in Progress

I have three main practices—embroidery, music, and writing—and have ongoing projects in each. My main embroidery project is a very large vagus nerve piece, my main music project is a composition/recording titled The Hum, and my main writing project is writing poems based on my notes from Deb Dana’s polyvagal theory audio course.

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‘sensorium’ selected for SK Arts’ permanent collection

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I’m very honoured that SK Arts has selected my embroidery sensorium (2016)—part of my symptomatology series—for purchase for their permanent collection.

sensorium is a depiction of the hypersensitivity and hyperexcitation of my nervous system due to ME/CFS and took approximately 60 hours to stitch. My main sensory sensitivity is to sound and vibration—hyperacusis—which can absolutely overwhelm me depending on the volume and timbre of the sound. My entire nervous system becomes involved, and though this symptom has improved with a lot of desensitization work it still affects me daily.

In the centre of some bone white linen, there is a spine embroidered in a thick satin stitch. Emanating from the spine are thick burgundy lines in an undulant oval shape. This oval is bisected across the middle. In the top half, there is a section outlined in burgundy filled with coiling blue lines and a similar section in the bottom half. The rest of the undulant oval is filled with fine coiling burgundy lines. The spine is very straight, the rest of the embroidery is very coiled and busy.
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SciArt feature on Art the Science

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I was recently interviewed by the Art the Science, a Canadian SciArt organization. I’ve focused on embroidery for the past few years, but have been doing science-based work for a long time. This interview gave me the opportunity to talk about how my practice has changed media while maintaining a science focus.

https://artthescience.com/blog/2019/12/26/creators-lia-pas/

Recent Embroidery Portfolio and Interview

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In August 2019 I had a couple articles about my embroidery work go up online.

First, The Cardiff Review published a portfolio of my anatomy embroideries with some of my writing about that body of work.

Second, Action for M.E. published a short interview about my symptomatology embroideries.

Both these online magazines are based in the UK and I’m very happy to see my work getting attention over there!