Becoming Who I Always Was: A Graphic Memoir of Trauma and the Search for Identity

Maja Miłkowska-Shibata will share from her graphic memoir weaving together themes of growing up with a disability, navigating a dysfunctional home, and building a career within the healthcare field. The memoir follows her experience as a patient undergoing forearm-lengthening surgeries due to an infection in infancy, alongside the highs and lows of her professional journey in health sciences, which took her from Poland to the Netherlands, across South Asia, and eventually to the United States. Through this work, she examines the lasting effects of medical trauma, the intergenerational impact of addiction, and the complexities of navigating the healthcare system.
The genre of graphic medicine blends the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare, merging the principles of narrative medicine with visual storytelling. Moved by the power of visual storytelling to capture the complexities of personal experience, Maja strives for an intimate and authentic account of her journey. Her graphic memoir integrates written narrative with visual storytelling, including sequential art, illustrations, photographs, and archival documents, all presented in her own handwriting.