'Crip Time' & Cancer: Rethinking Time, Energy & Advocacy (Part 2)
Introducing: Shona
After cancer treatment ends, the pressure to bounce back can feel overwhelming. But what if your energy doesn’t return? What if the brain fog lingers, the pain persists, and “normal” expectations no longer fit?
That’s where the concept of 'Crip Time' could help.
Luan continues her discussion with Shona Edwards, Deputy Chair of Cancer Voices SA and co-founder of the University of Adelaide’s student Disability, Illness and Divergence Association. Together, they explore how 'Crip Time', a term from disability studies that offers a different way to think about time, energy and capacity, can resonate with people living with chronic illness or the long-term and ongoing effects of cancer.
This episode speaks to anyone still navigating life after cancer or chronic illness, and to those working alongside lived experience patient advocates, peer supporters or community leaders.
This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. If you haven’t already, listen to Part 1: Looking After You While Supporting Others: Patient Advocacy & Peer Support where Luan and Shona explore the emotional labour of advocacy, and how to make it more sustainable.
Do you resonate, relate or align with ‘crip time’?
In this episode:
Why “normal” timelines don’t work for people still healing
What crip time means, and why it can be a relief to discover
How it can help people after cancer reframe their recovery and survivorship
Why invisible impacts like fatigue, brain fog and pain don’t fit neatly into linear time
How advocacy and peer support roles can amplify these impacts, demanding more energy from those with lived experience
How supportive care and advocacy structures can better account for the fluctuating needs of advocates
Why solidarity and community are essential to making space for difference
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