Pain is stupid.

Don’t feel like reading? Listen to the audio version here:

This past week has been frustrating for me. I’ve been experiencing a lot of neck- and back pains, which has resulted in headaches, even migraines. Problem is, the migraine medication might take away the headache, but not the muscle pains. It’s been interfering with my sleep, and I’ve woken up almost every night because of the pain and stiffness in my body. I’ve had to get out of bed once or twice, go into the living room, and do some stretching and exercises. Even after that I’d still get just a few hours of restlest sleep. It’s been hurting during the day, but apparently the headaches only come out at night. I could make some sort of vampire joke, but I got nothin’.

I’ve been trying to not sit in front of my computer too much the past few days, and moving my body more, hoping it might help. So far, not really. My next massage appointment is on Tuesday – veeeery much looking forward to that.

Now, I’ve learned plenty of exercises over the years that I could do daily to ease the pain and keep it in check. I’ve just never managed to make it a part of my daily routine. However, I managed to finally roll out my yoga mat the other night, stretched, and did some exercises. And I was finally able to sleep through the night, which was a big triumph.

I’m fully aware that if I just spent ten minutes every day, or just before bed, lying or standing on that mat doing my exercises, it would have a very positive effect on my body. There’s a high chance that it would reduce the number of migraines as well as days and days of muscle pains and restless sleep. Be that as it may, actually doing it is a lot harder than it sounds. I’m sure most people can relate.

I also have some specific conditions that need to be in place before I can pull out my yoga mat and get down to business. For instance, the floor has to be clean – or at least vacuumed – for me to put the mat on the floor and lie down. Seeing dust all around me at eye level makes me extremely uncomfortable, and I get totally grossed out. So if the floor is not clean enough, I just can’t do it. I’d have to first vacuum, and that would make the process longer and more bothersome, and so I just can’t get myself to do it.

We all know that creating a new habit is very difficult, especially if it has to do with exercise, in my experience. I’ve never been good at or even particularly liked sports, never been super physically active, never joined any sports club or anything like that. I’d sit and draw, or write, or read, or play video games, stuff like that. Indoor sitting-activities. PE was always my least favorite subject. When I was around 15 (I think), however, my parents got my sister and me gym memberships, and I had periods of time when I went regularly, like 3-4 times a week. I really liked it. But after I moved out, I couldn’t afford paying for a membership, so I had to quit. I’ve tried joining again several times over the years, but my finances always seemed to change so that I had to cancel my membership because I just couldn’t pay for it.

I would love to start going to the gym again. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford it again in the nearest future – doesn’t look like it, though. Hm.

Do any of you have some good advice on how to start a new yoga/stretching/exercising routine for someone with back- and neck pains? I need all the help I can get.

Hope you’ve had a good week and are enjoying your weekend.

Why telling someone with depression to “be positive” can have the opposite effect

Don’t feel like reading? Listen to the audio version here:

Just smile more. 

Just be positive. 

You have so much to be happy about. Just be happy!

Just look on the bright side. 

You should be grateful for what you have.

At least you don’t have cancer.

 

I have been told all of the above while deeply depressed. And let me tell you – it did not cure my depression. Strange, right?

(In case you didn’t catch it, that last question was soaked in sarcasm.)

Although these comments probably come from good intentions, it can have the exact opposite effect on someone with depression. First of all, it creates a massive amount of guilt, feelings of failure, and pressure to just get better. Symptoms they already have that will now get worse. Thus, comments with good intentions (such as those mentioned above) based on ignorance and cluelessness can be very dangerous to someone suffering from depression. They just might push them over the edge.

It took me a long time to realize that what these people were telling me said more about them than about me and my mental health. The guilt and shame that came with feeling weak and useless because I couldn’t “just” fix it, because I couldn’t cure my depression simply by smiling and “looking on the bright side,” had a very negative impact on my way to recovery. I felt like I wasn’t trying hard enough, that I wasn’t strong enough, and made me feel like I should just give up. After being diagnosed with bipolar, being taken seriously by medical professionals – nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, specialists – and going into treatment, I discovered that I had something that couldn’t be cured by the magic power of “being positive.” I learned that the people who had given me all this advice had no idea what they were talking about. At first I was angry, until I realized that they didn’t do it on purpose. They just didn’t know. 

Most people don’t really know anything about mental illness. This ignorance is clearly portrayed in the media and the film industry. It’s been improving these past few years, but the stigma and stereotypes are still wide-spread and thriving, even in countries like Denmark. We are not taught about mental illness in schools – at least not as far as I know – unless we’re discussing geniuses in art or science. We might learn about the mental illnesses of Einstein and Van Gogh, but that’s about it. These people are considered far from normal; they were exceptional beings unlike “regular people.”

I had a substitute teacher that was supposed to be our Danish and history teacher for a year while our own teacher was on maternity leave. I think she lasted about a month, max. My classmates mainly consisted of bullies (and some were children of alcoholics), not really caring about learning. No teacher in our school wanted to be a substitute teacher in our class for even one hour; I once overheard someone say, “Oh no, I have to be a sub in 4.A today. (In grade four you’re about 10 years old.)

This poor, young, newly graduated teacher had been chosen to spent a year in hell. How had she been chosen for us? How could the school board be so cruel?

Long story short, she ended up quitting after about a month, and we were told she was just lying at home on her couch, crying. That’s literally what we were told. Then they made everyone sign a “get well” card for her. We never saw her again.

Nobody explained to us the psychological terror she had been exposed to from our class. No one explained the consequences this behavior can have on another human being. And no one explained the concepts of “depression” or “mental health.” This might have been the perfect opportunity for that. The boys in our class mainly acted as if they were proud of having broken her so quickly.

This is all to say that ignorance isn’t bliss for those who are negatively affected by it. Mental health should be part of the school curriculum. It would be a great way to fight the stigma against mental illness, and might even get people to seek help sooner than they do now.

My main point with this post is this: don’t tell someone to “just smile” or “just be positive” or “just stop thinking that way!” Instead, try to listen. Try to learn. This way, your good intentions could actually be transformed into something helpful – into something positive.

I misread my favorite poem

Don’t feel like reading? Listen to the audio version here:

As has anyone I’ve ever talked to about it.

I’m talking about “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. When searching for the poem to introduce a blog post I wanted to write, I came across many articles about how this poem has been commonly and terribly misread. After reading a few of them, I realized that I had been fooled; perhaps because I wanted to read it the way I did. But certainly also because that was how it was analyzed when we talked about it in school.

One of the first points that struck me particularly hard is the fact that I googled “The Road Less Travelled by,” not “The Road Not Taken.” I legitimately thought that was the title. Turns out, so do thousands of others. It’s a common mistake – a mistake that stems from the wrong conclusions about the poem.

“Recall the poem’s conclu­sion: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.” These are not only the poem’s best­-known lines, but the ones that capture what most readers take to be its central image: a lonely path that we take at great risk, possibly for great reward. So vivid is that image that many readers simply assume that the poem is called “The Road Less Traveled.” Search­ engine data indicates that searches for “Frost” and “Road Less Traveled” (or “Travelled”) are extremely common, and even ac­complished critics routinely refer to the poem by its most famous line.”

Source

I, as many others, was convinced that the poem was about “taking the road less travelled by,” which “made all the difference.” Meaning that you shouldn’t necessarily choose the paved path in life that society seems to believe is “the right way;” you should feel free to choose your own path, even though it might be unconventional, different, frowned upon.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Here’s one reason why:

“The Road Not Taken” has confused audiences literally from the beginning. In the spring of 1915, Frost sent an envelope to Edward Thomas that contained only one item: a draft of “The Road Not Taken,” under the title “Two Roads.” According to Lawrance Thompson, Frost had been inspired to write the poem by Thomas’s habit of regretting whatever path the pair took during their long walks in the countryside—an impulse that Frost equated with the romantic predisposi­tion for “crying over what might have been.” Frost, Thompson writes, believed that his friend “would take the poem as a gen­tle joke and would protest, ‘Stop teasing me.’”

Source

He basically wrote the poem to tease his friend Edward Thomas.

If you read the whole article, or at least the first part before Orr starts to analyze and compare other poems to “The Road Not Taken,” it’ becomes clear that it’s much more ambiguous than even Frost apparantly claimed to have intended. Still, this particular point really brough it home for me:

“What is gained by “roads”? Primarily two things. First, a road, unlike a path, is necessarily man­made. Dante may have found his life similarly changed “in a dark wood,” but Frost takes things a step further by placing his speaker in a setting that combines the natural world with civilization—yes, the traveler is alone in a forest, but whichever way he goes, he follows a course built by other people, one that will be taken, in turn, by still other people long after he has passed.”

Source

As ambiguous as the poem may be, it’s quite clear that this common reading of the poem does not hold up. Since the first time I read it I’ve considered this my favorite poem, because of what I thought it represented. I was so sure of its meaning that I never once questioned it.

I just told my boyfriend about this, and he was very sceptical, and noted that this is just one way of looking at the poem. He said that it’s art and that making an analysis of poetry and fiction in general can never be objective and true. It’s all subjective. Still, for me, the meaning of this poem has definitely changed.

You are probably asking yourself: So what?

Well, I wanted to use the poem as an introduction to a blog post titled “How my view on life has changed.” And now I can no longer use it as an imagery for that.

Again, you might be asking: ….. So what?

I don’t know. It just feels weird. I’ve always felt a sort of connection to this poem, and now that connection is lost. However… is it possible for me to find a new meaning of it that might apply to me somehow? I think it is.

Let’s try and look at it this way: Frost teased his friend Edward Thomas because he equated Thomas’ “habit of regretting whatever path the pair took during their long walks in the countryside” as “an impulse […] with the romantic predisposi­tion for “crying over what might have been.” Maybe Frost just didn’t believe in regretting not going down a different road, that they’re all man-made anyway, that someone has already paved the way, and that no matter which way you choose, it won’t be that different, new, or original? If that is the case, then why be scared to take a different path than you or others expect of you?

It might seem silly to try to analyze a specific poem in a way that applies to me, my life, and my beliefs. And yes, maybe I am forcing it. Well, not maybe, I’m definitely forcing it. But isn’t that what we do when we analyze poetry and, heck, any piece of fictional literature? We all come from different backgrounds, have different experiences, different opinions etc. How can you expect everyone to read a poem in the exact same way?

Answer: you can’t. Yet, that’s what we’re mainly taught in schools, right? They say that there’s no right or wrong reading, yet then they correct you if your analysis doesn’t match with theirs. A bit contradictory, don’t you think?

I read the poem in the way I needed to read it. I took from it what I needed in order to feel better about myself and my life, to help me feel that it’s okay that my life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would. Taking a different path is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, life consists of thousands of roads not taken, which means thousands of roads taken. Maybe that’s what Frost is trying to say: you chose one road over the other, without knowing where either of them would lead. So it doesn’t really matter which one you picked, right? The outcome would have been the same, in the sense that both destinations would be unpredictable.

I suppose when I write the actual post, “How my view on life has changed,” I’ll use another quote as an example. I already have one in mind, a simple one, one with a meaning that everyone definitely agrees on. Play it safe. Take the really basic, super used, super worn road. Because that’s okay too.