StacySchumann

The Performance of Health is an essay I wrote about the harm perpetuated by the very systems meant to provide care. It examines the structural violence of medicine — how disbelief, dismissal, and delay become routine barriers, enforced by institutions and reinforced by doctors who do not listen.

The piece blends personal narrative with deep research on medical trauma and the systemic failures occurring in medicine.

It traces how patients learn to perform wellness — polished, polite, “credible” — simply to access care, and asks what becomes possible when we stop performing and begin reclaiming the systems our bodies inhabit.

Meghan O’Rourke’s The Invisible Kingdom offered a framework for situating these stories within a broader cultural reckoning with chronic illness and medical disbelief. Her book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, changed my life. When I later shared my essay, inspired by her book, an editor at STAT News called it powerful. That led to my acceptance to Goucher for an MFA in creative non-fiction.

I share it here as part of a broader effort to recognize patient testimony as knowledge — knowledge that must shape the future of care.

👉 Link in bio.

“Martinis with Marion “ [Substack]
  
Some books don’t just teach craft — they remind you how to live.  
  
Marion Roach Smith’s The Memoir Project did both. It pulled me back into forgotten memories, like the little girl in Hawaii who once told me she’d marry her brother — because God said it was okay. Her ability to wield a conversation so sharply, to debate a grown-up and win, was astonishing.  
  
It reminded me why I love nonfiction: truth is always stranger, and more fantastic, than fiction.  
  
Link to essay in comments. My first essay, The Performance of Health, is still linked in bio.

What once felt impossible is now real: accepted to Goucher’s MFA in Nonfiction. 
 
For more than a decade, neurological Lyme disease made reading and writing not just difficult, but often impossible. Yesterday, I learned I was accepted into Goucher’s MFA in Nonfiction — a nationally recognized and selective program that admits only a small cohort each year. 
 
When the email came, I was alone and thought it was just a note about missing transcripts. The subject line read Welcome to Goucher, but the words didn’t register. My husband was overseas and unreachable, so I called my kids, who celebrated with me, their voices anchoring me in the moment. The following morning, my husband called from Italy — proud, knowing how many weeks I had labored over this project. 
 
I don’t use curative language around illness anymore, so this isn’t about being cured of Lyme. What I can say is that writing has helped me metabolize complexity. Reading the work of writers like Meghan O’Rourke gave me the courage to begin my own story, with no clear idea of where it might land. When I sent the first draft to STAT News, an editor called it “powerful.” That word carried me further than I ever imagined. 
 
Goucher required 25 pages; I had only ten. I decided to try. That essay, now published on Substack (link in bio), became the foundation of my application. 
 
Personal narrative doesn’t solve systemic problems, but it can help us name them. It gives context to trauma and harm, and in doing so, it can create a kind of witness.  
 
That act of naming has power. 
 
And so does this moment: excited, grateful, terrified.

Right relationship in medicine is not built on speed or performance.
It is built on presence — on believing patients first, listening without rushing to fix, and co-creating care instead of extracting it.

✨ My new essay on Substack takes this further — exploring how care becomes repair when we honor complexity and move beyond the illusion of “optimization.”

[link in bio]

The Performance of Health is now live on Substack. It explores medical trauma, the survival performance demanded by care, and what it means to reclaim presence. 
 
A STAT News editor recently called my writing on this subject “powerful.”
This piece carries that same urgency. 
 
💬 Have you ever performed health in order to be believed? 
 
For me, it once looked like laughing at a cruel comment in a doctor’s office, just to stay in the room. It looked like sitting upright when I was dizzy, masking panic so I wouldn’t be dismissed. 
 
Writing this essay was my way of saying: I don’t do that anymore.
 
Have you witnessed this in your own life or with loved ones? 
 
Full essay: link in bio (I’ll also drop it in the comments).

This space once held my work with Well Scent. That chapter is complete.

Now, this page is where I share my writing — fragments, quotes, and essays on medicine, identity, and repair.

If you’ve been here since the Well Scent days, thank you. If you’re new, welcome. Either way, you’re invited to stay only if these words feel like home. Presence here should feel like resonance, not obligation.

If you do stay, I’d love to know who you are. If you’re staying, will you leave a word or wave, so I know you’re here? Engagement helps me see you, and it teaches this platform to keep showing my words to the people who want them.

And if this is no longer your place, unfollow with love. Social media works best when it reflects true connection.

Thank you for meeting me here — in this new chapter. 🤗

Health is not a lifestyle brand. When wellness is packaged and sold, those without privilege are left behind. Real care lives in equity, access, and community. What does care beyond commerce look like to you?

Lately I’ve been noticing how often care is performed rather than lived. I don’t want friendship theatre; I want verbs. Love, as action. Friendship, as practice. Have you noticed this in your own life?

If your health advice only works for the privileged, it’s not health — it’s performance.

This is my first post here as Stacy Schumann. I write at the intersection of medicine, identity, and repair.

My first Substack essay, The Performance of Health, is coming soon — it was recently called “powerful” by an editor at STAT News. Subscribe via the link in my bio to be the first to read it.