DescriptionThis study examines the temporal dimension of subjective identification and disidentification. It is based on a qualitative analysis of the narratives of forty people who formerly identified with emotional disorder labels (i.e., anorexic, agoraphobic, bipolar, etc.) and no longer use the labels as a source of identity. I refer to this group as de-labelers. Using a grounded theory approach, my analysis of these narratives highlights three ideal-typical sub-narratives, each reflecting a different orientation toward autobiographical time, and consequently, a different attitude toward one's disorder identity: the recovery narrative (characterized by the optimistic expecting orientation that anticipates positive change), the disability narrative (characterized by the accepting orientation that assumes the status quo), and the disidentification narrative (characterized by ambivalence toward the disorder identity). Taken together, these three sub-narratives depict a chronology of the changing meanings of the disorder label over the course of the identity careers of eighty percent of these de-labelers. My simultaneous analysis of the existential, interactional, and cultural influences on
these temporal orientations (and their respective sub-narratives) suggests that individuals can exercise a significant amount of agency in temporally managing their disorder identities and may thus have considerable say in the meaning and duration of these identities.