I, too, suffer from chronic, invisible illnesses.
I have fibromyalgia. I have a permanent back injury. I have depression and anxiety, and I work hard to keep those under control. I strive to take good care of myself, and to manage my conditions. I avoid aggravating them. I also make every possible effort to stay positive and to do the things in life that I enjoy doing.
The fact is, though, no matter what good care I take care of myself or how positive and proactive I am, I cannot heal or cast off my invisible disabilities.
The debilitation is real.
The exhaustion is real.
The misconceptions are real.
And the judgement? Many people would not be willing to believe how real, and how consistent, and how very, very toxic that is.
The critics are only right about one thing: I don’t look sick.
That’s because I’ve been faking being well for years.
This post reminds me of the lessons I’ve been doing with my Year 8 History class about Medieval Europe and the Black Death.
My students were very interested in the plague, and surprised by the fact that this was when quarantine, social distancing, and the wearing of masks became the go-to modes of dealing with contagious disease. They were also surprised by the time it took the Europeans to understand the importance of basic hygiene, and how very long it took to develop good medical knowledge.
These lessons were highly relevant in These Times, and helped the kids to understand why we’re being reminded to wear masks, wash and sanitise our hands, and keep away from other people. It was good to be able to discuss how relevant history can be.
We all agreed we are incredibly thankful for modern medicine, science, vaccines and health care.
It does strike me as bizarre, however, that with all the scientific and technological advances we’ve made, we still have to remind people to wash their hands. Some things, it seems, never change.
This illustration is simply that, a suitable illustration – the Flagellants followed the first wave of the Great Pestilence and aren’t mentioned here. from https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
In this time of Covid 19, when we don’t know why it seems to affect men more than women, and some ethnicities but not others, it is interesting that back in the 14th century the tsunami of the Great Pestilence of 1348 was followed by lesser waves that differed in many ways from the original. The first of these, in the England of 24 Edward III (January 1360 to January 1361) was called the secunda pestilencia and appeared to affect mostly the very young, babies and adolescents. Women were not affected in the same way.
The Chronicle of the Greyfriars of King’s Lynn notes: “…In that year [1360] began a plague among Londoners at about the feast of St Michael, where at first infants…
At a time when my state is still in lockdown, we’re back to teaching online and trying to tick all the boxes that go with that while at the same time dealing with all the other demands of life.
It’s very easy to become consumed by the job. It’s very easy to rationalise going those extra steps to create whizz-bang lessons that will engage and interest the students and hopefully keep both them and myself motivated despite the malaise that I have dubbed ‘online learning fatigue”.
I have learned over recent months how important it is to set limits for myself. I have consciously tried to avoid overburdening my students with work, and sought to develop learning activities that they can complete offline. I’ve tried to remind them to get up and walk around, to drink water, to get sunshine on their face and on their back.
Ironically, I’m not always so great at managing my own stress. In the midst of trying to be Super Teacher or Little Miss Motivator, I still have to remind myself to do those same things.
This post from Nerdome appeared in my feed at an opportune moment. It’s a good read, providing some quick tips and good insights about managing stress.
Those who spend more time with their works tend to suffer from stress more than the other. The mental and emotional burden that is often attributed to the demands of work can affect our productivity and efficiency with our task that would often lead us to troubles than not. This is one reason why it is very important for workaholics to undertake stress management to avoid compromising their career.
You don’t have to be in a special place to apply stress management. In fact, you can do it anytime and anywhere if you feel like it. You can do it while at your work desk, in the comfort room, or even out in the lobby. The idea here is to control your mind to relax so that you can continue fresh with your task — emotionally, physically, and mentally. Here are some tips that will surely help you out.
The title of this blogpost caught my attention this morning.
“What?” I thought. “How could anyone think that?”
For me, the novel is most certainly not dead. There is still nothing as wonderful as escaping into a book and finding myself immersed in its setting, caught up in its action and carried away by the story.
Short stories and novellas are fabulous when life is busy, because I can achieve those escapes in the time I have available. But when time to read is more plentiful, a good novel is a marvellous thing.
The novel will never be dead as long as there are great books to read. I’m fairly confident that, given the quality of the new books I have been reading, it’s not likely to be happening in the foreseeable future.
And on that note, I take exception to the original writer’s suggestion that self-published books are rubbish, and therefore partly to blame for the demise of the popularity of reading. Blame the obsession with screens of whatever size, and with the Internet and social media, and I’ll gladly concur, but leave Indie authors out of it. As I’ve said plenty of times before, I’ve read some absolutely brilliant self-published books, and I’ve read – or attempted to read – some tragically bad traditionally published ones. Let each book stand or fall on its own merits, I say.
I feel sorrow for any reader who is so disillusioned by their reading that they believe the novel is a thing of the past. More than likely, they have simply been reading the wrong books.
If you’re interested in great Indie book recommendations, follow Book Squirrel.
I was curious. So I had a read and discovered that Walter is a professional book reviewer, even had a regular sci-fi column for The Guardian. He’s experienced and well-respected and fed up of the novel.
Why?
For Water, the novel lost its magic. It no longer has the same magical feel as it did when he was a kid, “spending afternoons at the local library, selecting books as though I was selecting magical portals to step through. Then I would rush home and lose myself in the magic for hours, days at a time.”
Walter recognises the influences modern-day phenomenons have had on us. Here are some of my favourite quotes from his piece. I’d recommend reading in full too. He’s an…
All writers get the same advice. Read the great writers; study the great works. Learn how seasoned, professional, and successful authors get the job done. All true, but I maintain that it’s also crucial for writers to read crap to learn what not to do.
Everything David Gittlin has written in this post sounds remarkably familiar to me, as my own experiences are very similar.
This is precisely one of the reasons that I developed some budget-friendly book promotion options for Indie authors via Book Squirrel – it costs a lot less per month to get your book seen by people than it cost me, or David Gittlin, or countless others for that matter, for the months of promotion paid for with very low return.
Of course, I don’t pretend that Book Squirrel is the entire solution. No one package ever is. But his options for book promotion definitely offer a few affordable opportunities, and provide some valuable parts of a good overall promotion plan.
The other thing to keep in mind that promotion will not always directly result in sales. It’s also about building familiarity with your book and brand, getting your name out there, developing some credibility and presenting opportunities for people to think about your book as well as to buy it. Realistically, very few people will immediately buy a book by someone they haven’t heard of: in fact, very few people immediately buy a book by someone they have heard of. Those readers who have a “one click” response to books and authors are worth their weight in gold.
Comparatively speaking, writing a novel is the fun, easy, first step of the self-publishing process. The second step, creating an attention-getting book cover, offers its own unique set of challenges. However, the most intimidating and difficult undertaking, to most authors, is the third step—marketing. The word strikes terror in many authors’ sensitive little hearts because they want as little to do with the outside world as possible.
If, like me, you enjoy reading Shakespeare, Milton, Middleton, Johnson and the like, and studying English history, this site offers a wealth of resources and texts for your perusal.
There are a variety of ways you can search – by title, author, key words, dates… the options are many and varied. There are both fiction and non-fiction texts included. What a fabulous repository of primary sources and original texts!
Thank you to the murreyandblue blog for the heads-up.
When I happen upon a new (to me) site that affords access to hundreds of sources, I am always eager to share it with everyone. Maybe a lot of you already know of this site but for those who do not, I stumbled on it by following a thread concerning Dugdale. Bookmark the link, it’s well worth it!
I love pumpkin. It’s my favourite vegetable. I love the colour and shape of them. I love the fact that they are all so different. If there were ever a type of vegetable that embraced individuality, the gourds and squashes would be it.
When I visited Canada, I loved seeing them decorating shops, gardens, front porches, letterboxes, streetscapes… they were everywhere. What really surprised me is how little pumpkin they actually seemed to eat, unless it was in a pie.
Speaking of which, I need some pumpkin pie. I adore pumpkin pie, but it’s really hard to get here in Australia.
While I’m daydreaming about that most delectable of desserts, please enjoy this rumination on ‘pumpkin’ via Sesquiotica.
It’s orange, except when it isn’t. And it’s big, except when it isn’t. But when it’s big, it can be very big, and it can keep getting bigger and bigger, sometimes until it’s too big and it just breaks right open. Hazards of competitive growing!
Medieval British history is my absolute favourite era to read and study, so this article really appealed to me.
Seriously, who isn’t going to be intrigued by a series of kings who faced various challenges and misfortunes, connected by a ruby that is said to be cursed? What a fascinating historical mystery!
I hope you enjoy this post from the murreyandblue blog. If you’re at all interested in English medieval history, you should definitely give that blog a follow.
“….It is said that Henry V wore it [the Black Prince’s Ruby] in his jewel-encrusted helmet at the battle of Agincourt, and Richard III did also at the battle of Bosworth….”
I found the above sentence in a post on the British Medieval History Facebook group. How very intriguing. It’s something I had never heard before. Did Richard really wear the priceless but cursed gem at Bosworth? If so, was he (as one friend has suggested) emulating Henry V? Or even the Black Prince himself?
The ruby is actually “a magnificent 170-caratredspinel, the largest uncut spinel in the world. This particular precious stone, known as ‘the Great Imposter’, has a traceable history dating back seven centuries and is rumoured to be cursed, as its consecutive royal owners have been dogged by…
WordyNerdBird 