Staging health and identity: Exploring the role and perception of diagnoses in adulthood and language, starting from the performance Algo funcional

This brief article serves as an elaboration and research on the impact of receiving a diagnosis of disability or chronic illness in adulthood. The research begins with the viewing and analysis of the theatrical piece Algo funcional written and performed by Maisa Sally-anna Perk, presented at the Barcelona-based cooperative theatre Periferias Cimarronas. The cooperative is managed and directed by Black and African descendant artists and activists, who use performative arts as a tool for community building, access to leisure and the development of resistance actions. The play offers a representation of the author’s personal experience of living with functional neurological disorder (FND), and it is used here as a starting point for investigating, on one hand, the effects of receiving a diagnosis in adulthood on the construction and perception of an individual’s identity, and on the other, the forms of language used to express the correlation between disability or chronic illness and identity. This exploration delves, finally, into the ongoing debate between person-first language and identity-first language, specifically when talking about disabilities and chronic illnesses, addressing as well the relationship and intersection with other stigmatized identities.