Social media helped me face cancer, says Chocolat author Joanne Harris
Social media can be a force for good when it becomes a place for honest discussion about illness, author Joanne Harris is to argue in a candid radio interview.
Harris, known for her bestselling 1999 book Chocolat, suffered panic attacks when she became famous and would pass out in public. She will tell host Lauren Laverne this morning[Sunday]today she is glad she overcame her nerves and shared the news she had been diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, the writer said that she felt “so connected to the world” because she had “shared so much online”.
Harris said she initially posted on social media about her illness so she would not have to tell people individually about her recovery was progressing: “But then I realised that, actually, as I was getting feedback, there were a whole lot of people who were also going through the same experience and who felt empowered by the fact I’d come out and talked about it. People are very afraid to say, ‘I have been diagnosed with cancer’.”
She added that the illness had not “been an entirely negative experience” because it was caught early, thanks to a routine mammogram. Harris uses the platform to repeat her social media message to attend mammogram appointments.
“It could save your life. It could have saved mine.”
Making light of her treatment on social media also helped her deal with her recovery.
“It’s one of the coping mechanisms the human mind has, to poke fun at something terrifying,” she said. “I brought out the funny side of some of the things that were happening.” Harris gave her cancer the name Mr C and created the hashtag GoodbyeMrC. “I would basically tell jokes about losing my hair, losing my eyebrows, losing my eyelashes, looking like a potato.”
When Juliette Binoche was cast to star in the Oscar-nominated film of Chocolat released in 2000, the actor stayed at Harris’s home in Barnsley, the author tells Laverne, sleeping in her daughter’s bedroom because there was no spare room.
The panic attacks began in America. “I would just pass out, suddenly and without any warning, at a premiere or a glitzy event. It was strange because I didn’t feel I wasn’t coping, but obviously I wasn’t.”
