In this article the authorin analyzes Finnish stories of heart diseases and depression collected during her one-year fieldwork in North Karelia. Through centuries this border zone suffered from recurrent wars and their traumas, such as separations, abandonment, etc. In addition, since the 1960s the government rural politics slowly emptied the area of its livelihood thus forcing thousands of people to leave. In such a context talking about illness in North Karelia amounts to remembering layers of local traumatic history, commenting upon them, acting in relation to them.