Friday Favourites: March 30th 2012
Dear Audy,
For those of you following along with my cooking adventures this week, I can happily report that my hearty beef stew was delicious! I was following a fairly basic recipe, this being my first attempt at such a dish, however I wanted to add a little something to make it personal and that was chilli. Mmmm, spicy. Then my prince came home and added a little lime zest to the mix, something that I wouldn’t have thought of, but it took the stew from yummy to amazing.
Cooking from scratch is a lot of work, but I definitely think that it’s worth it. My tummy is feeling a lot better today after giving me grief for a couple of weeks. I’m actually looking forward to cooking more pots full of magic mushy food with the rest of my home-made beef stock. Yeah, I don’t really recognise myself either…
(source)
And now for the weekly collection of blog posts that have inspired me this week. Enjoy! I hope that you are able to find something here that makes you smile or think.
Don’t Be Sorry
on Kisses From The Fight
This post is moving and beautiful. Most of the things that Jess writes are. Go on over, read her blog and subscribe so that you don’t miss out on the wisdom that threads through everything that she posts.
Help Stop The Misinformation About Chronic Pain
on Shauna’s Life In Pain…And Other Fun Things
Education is a hugely important part of learning to cope with absolutely anything. If we already knew everything, already knew the best ways to cope with everything, then nothing would ever be a challenge. Living with chronic pain is most definitely a challenge and it’s only by educating ourselves that we can start to see ways to keep moving forward.
It’s certainly easier to cope when the people around us take the time to learn a little too. Supporting someone is fairly difficult if you don’t really understand what is going on for them. Time spent learning is never wasted, just something to think about the next time you are doing nothing and might want to gain a deeper understanding about the life of a chronically ill friend.
New Glasses, Renewed Perspective
on Life, CRPS & Everything
It can be hard to deal with declining health issues when living with chronic illness. It can even be hard to notice them. Last year I discovered that I need reading glasses and having them has made a lot of difference whenever I need to focus in one direction for a while. My case is nowhere near as severe as the one described in this story, however I could still relate and enjoy the positivity that comes through in this blog about acceptance and change.
Can Meat Make You Happy?
on That Paleo Guy
I found this post very interesting, especially in light of the fact that much of the health advice offered in the blogosphere is of the vegan persuasion. I don’t have anything against vegans, it’s just not the right lifestyle for me. Before adopting Paleo principles in my diet I often felt like I would never be eating healthily unless I cut out all animal products. This idea was just the result of not having exposed myself to enough modern information about food and the human body. I’ve read a lot in the last six months and now feel perfectly comfortable with pursuing a Paleo, rather than a vegan lifestyle (still, kudos to vegans, I admire the strength it takes to make severe changes and choices for one’s health, not sharing the same viewpoint doesn’t mean that I respect their motivations any less).
I had kind of figured that the mental health benefits that many report when taking on a Paleo diet were really the result of eating much, much less sugar. This assumption has arisen from my own experiences with cutting sugar from my diet and then observing how my body and mind react if I do happen to treat myself on occasion. The impact is pretty intense. A few times I have felt like a rabid junkie, strung out and desperate for a fix after only one sugary snack.
That’s the effect of a drug, not a food.
With that in mind it was interesting to read about a possible connection between eating red meat and better mental health. This isn’t really a conclusive study, however it’s interesting reading for anybody looking to change their diet to improve their health.
No More Silence: Mental Illness Should Be Talked About
on ABC Ramp Up
I think that there are a lot of similarities between how people respond to a person with mental illness and how people respond to a person with an invisible chronic illness. For a long time, it was believed that chronic pain without a physical cause that could be seen and found was actually a mental illness, rather than a physical one. We know better these days, but there are still plenty of working practitioners out there who haven’t stayed up to date on the topic.
Much like chronic pain, we can’t always see when somebody has a mental illness. It takes a little bit more effort to understand that entire diseases can exist outside our visual perception. Many people who suffer from chronic pain also suffer from depression and anxiety. These states of being don’t cause one another but they are deeply intertwined and either one has the ability to greatly influence the other.
- Glenn Mitchell, ABC Ramp Up
And now it’s time to relax into the weekend. I don’t have any plans, which is actually a relief after having to cancel on everything last week. I do have a few dreams about getting my house clean and buying some plants to start my thus far neglected garden. Pain management will come first though, I need to keep looking after myself so that I can regain my confidence and ability to get back out into the world.
Love & Beefy Leftovers,
Caf
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Great post Caf! It sounds like the stew was amazing. I changed up a few of my eating habits a while ago and it’s amazing at how much better I feel because of it. Have yourself a great weekend.
Heya Caf,
I love to come and read you, what a nice treat to see that you picked my blog as one of your favorites to share with others. That means so much, and I am in amazing company.
I hope for you this weekend to rest, check that pain level honey, and I am proud of you for putting your body first, for listening to yourself. For I know so well the attitude we get at times–of doing and doing, while ignoring ourselves, our crying bodies, and our mental anguish.
You know I am a huge fan, and you have blessed me with great reading here.
Gentle Hugs—-<3
When I was a seven a psychiatrist prescribed me Methylphenidate for a disease he couldn’t see- had no evidence for- but insisted existed.
Am I mentally ill? Or is he?
It’s likely that people can’t see “the mentally ill” because mental illness is, and always has been, a metaphor. It’s a convenient label for anything that resembles perplexing behavior, spiritual emergencies, trauma, deviant behavior, and philosophical dissidence. Mental illness is not a medical condition that’s “just like diabetes”. It an anti-intellectual construct that has always hurt societies more than it has healed.
Don’t fight so-called stigma of mental illness. This is a spurious slogan designed to conceal and validate a morally unconscionable tradition of Western thought: psychiatry.
Hi Melanie, thanks for your comment and I apologise for the delay in my response. I was saddened to read that you were put on medication at such a young age. I definitely agree that psychiatry has done some awful things and I worry that it will continue to go too far in the future. I think that reducing the stigma associated with suffering from mental illness could actually help by providing people experiencing symptoms with more information than just their doctor would. When I was first diagnosed with CRPS, I took all the pills they wanted to try me on because I didn’t know any better. It was only through learning from my own experience and the experiences of others who have share their stories that I had a choice about what to put in my body. Feeling open enough to talk about what I was going through opened me up to learning alternatives to medication, an option that rarely comes from doctors but would not be available if everybody who suffered mental illness was too ashamed to talk about what they’ve been through. I think that part of the stigma associated with mental illness is that the right pill should cure it – which anybody who has experienced it knows is often not true! When I think of fighting the stigma of mental illness, I think of tackling the shame rather than the ins and outs of specific conditions (or just “issues” for those that would rather not have labels) and how they should be treated. I think that shame often gets in the way of people seeking to overcome their struggles, whether the answer for them be modern psychiatry, spirituality, physical therapy or whatever else is out there in this vast world that I haven’t thought of!
Thanks again for your comment – I do love the ones that make me think!