LifeIsItsOwnQuest commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
Heya Boundlings. This is a little uncomfortable, but PB is a safe space and if anyone can help me out, it's you lovely folks 🫶
I'm chronically ill. It's not a secret, it's even in my bio. But lately I've been struggling with feeling like my body is an adversary - like I'm a dark closet a monster might lunge out of at any moment. My partner and friends are mostly healthy folk, and it's hard not to feel like a broken doll among them (as much as they try to make me feel included and accepted it's hard with stuff like this).
I've been wondering if reading memoirs, essays or self-help books by other chronically ill folk would help, but I'm not sure where to start. It's not a genre I read a lot of - I read and enjoyed How to Survive a Bear Attack by Claire Cameron last year and I've read poetry collections like Courtney Bates-Hardy's Anatomical Venus that have helped a bit, but other than that I'm at a loss. At this point I'm not much in the mood for science or psycho-therapy - I'm more interested in feeling seen, finding hope and moving forward than "fixing" anything.
TL;DR: please rec me your memoirs and related texts about accepting chronic illness, finding hope in the midst of it all, etc.
Thanks Boundlings 💜 take care of yourselves.
(P.S. Please refrain from giving health or lifestyle advice in the comments here. Your intentions are probably good, but I have doctors and specialists dealing with that side of things and their advice is enough 😵💫 thanks!)
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LifeIsItsOwnQuest commented on a post
Every time I worry deeply about sth that I think might happen, I think about this quote:
"Anticipations of evil, she knew, must inevitably increase her wretchedness, if indulged; besides, they could not avert what she dreaded...and she also considered, that the ills she feared might never come to pass. Why, therefore, unnecessarily torment herself? Why sharpen the sting of real sorrow, by yielding to the terrors of imagination?"