Ha, I wear size 11 shoes. But I still feel pretty good about my life, despite that hardship

I wear size eleven shoes, have broken bones in both legs and survived PE's twice but thank Christ I don't have leprosy, or a brain tumour, or tuberculosis, or pancreatits or an attack of flesh eating bacteria.

Positive thinking is a crock I still feel like dog crap.

I did learn to walk properly again 5yrs ago after a stroke-like illness, I did recover my memories 2 yrs ago when I got amnesia after a cycling accident. I have broken a collarbone and a foot in the last 2 yrs, both of which are fully healed, I did survive my PE and by the end of next week I should be able to say I don't have cervical cancer too (biopsy this week) - so then I will be able to think my body can overcome anything!!!
But gee i am glad I don't have size 11 shoes or my life could have been a whole different ball game;)

I have size 13 (U.K) shoes....and I'm a banana!



Does that count? =D.

Ha, Larsing you made me laugh!

There's this great book called "Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America" by Barbara Ehrenreich that I think is fascinating. I don't prescribe to being positive all the time, 24/7. That's not even remotely logical nor is it fair to yourself. It's ok to feel a 100 different emotions about your situation, whatever it may be. I do prescribe to not being a victim of circumstances and a big fat bummer for the rest of your existence because you get sick or have problems.

Stuart, those, my friend, are some big feet, even in the US. How very sad for you.

Larsing, you made me laugh too!

I do not have size 11 shoes either ... but the hubby wears 13 and a half, which is a problem because they stop making half sizes after 12 and a half.

So, folks, it could always be worse ... you could have size 13 and a half feet!

RMB ... will have to look at that book. Sounds fascinating!

larsing--- LOL (and thanks for your positive statement!)

For more positive thinking while feeling like:
1. Death warmed over
2. Road kill
3. Crap

http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Pulmonary_Embolism/forum/14424953-positive-attitudes

haha, yeah im lucky i stopped at 13...it's the limit to shoes over here without going to specialists :P.

I will say this- When I try to look at things in a less emotional way, I do feel better about my situation. I think there's a difference between having a general positive outlook on life from the practice of "positive thinking". I mean, I'd know people who are just Debbie Downers all the time, negative about everything, and they really are just miserable people all the way around.

I was in the middle of a terrible ulcerative colitis flare up a few years ago and I was really struggling with energy and fatigue, and I just felt like road kill for sure. And my friend's husband was trying to make small talk with me on the phone one day, which I hate anyway, and he could tell I wasn't very energetic, which I think he mistook for being "negative." I'd had an iron infusion the day before so you know, I was kind of wiped out since my blood counts were so low. So I literally didn't have the energy, negative, positive or otherwise to even talk. He asked me why I was so low key and I told him I was really unwell right now, and he said that there are studies that show if you practice positive thinking, that can can help cure illness. I thought, really? I'm sick because I'm not positive enough, so then it's my fault that I have an autoimmune disease??? Jack ass. Had I the gumption at that moment, would have said, here's a positive thought- I'm positive you can shove what it is you think you know up your a$$

By the way... women's size 11 feet are great for ass kicking.

Then there's that famous (or infamous) example of Norman Cousin's laughing his way out of a serious illness!!!

To think that I actually tried that!!!! Shows you how desperate people will be when doctors fail you and you have nothing else to fall back on. (Not PE, BTW)

What an crock!


Norman Cousins

William T. Jarvis, Ph.D.

Norman Cousins, a former editor of The Saturday Review, revitalized a popular belief in the power of the mind on the body in his book Anatomy Of An Illness (Norton, 1979). Cousins recounted his own 1976 New England Journal of Medicine article describing a self-healing experience alleged to have happened in 1964. Upon returning from a trip to the Soviet Union, Cousins said that he was experiencing stiffness in his limbs and nodules on his neck and hands, and that he was given a tentative diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative disease of the connective tissue. After suffering adverse reactions to most of the drugs he was given, Cousins decided, with the cooperation of his doctor, to take matters into his own hands. Recalling various accounts he had read about the power of positive emotions, and the value of vitamin C, Cousins checked out of the hospital and into a hotel, discontinued his medications except for intravenous injections of vitamin C, arranged for showings of laugh provoking films, and read humorous books. In time, he experienced a gradual withdrawal of symptoms and eventually regained most of his lost freedom of movement. Cousins' account gave no evidence of a confirmed diagnosis, or that his fortunate recovery was any more than a normal resolution of his symptoms over time. Nevertheless, he reported receiving some 3,000 letters from doctors praising his decision to pursue self-treatment and supporting his mind over matter healing ideas.

Cousins' story has become a modern urban legend among believers in the power of the will and seems to be generally accepted as authentic, but such a conclusion is unwarranted. The one thing that the Cousins case did illustrate, according to New York City University sociologist Florence Ruderman, PhD, is "a strange readiness" on the part of doctors "to abandon the canons of science" as well as "an eagerness for easy answers" and "a desire for gurus and celebrities who pretend to criticize but pander to medicine's worst features." [2] Ruderman wrote a penetrating critique of Cousins' testimonial under the title "A placebo for the doctor" that appeared in Commentary [3]. Sidney Kahn, MD, also published a detailed, critical evaluation of Cousins' story in "The Anatomy of Norman Cousins' Illness" in The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine [4].

Cousins' writings have inspired a humor therapy movement. The biblical statement says that "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine," would likely be universally judged to be true purely on the basis of common experience -- and, to paraphrase Paul Milvy, "when observations drawn from subjective experience and reality are the same, there is no need for science." Heartfelt laughter surely must be the best remedy for depression which is one of mankind's most debilitating maladies, but the notion that laughter can overcome the biology of cancer, AIDS, infectious diseases, parasitic infestations, or other physical disorders is quite another matter.

The idea that emotions can control serious diseases is an enduring human hope, especially among people with a strong need to assert their individuality. In the 19th Century, the mind-cure notion was the establishing principle of Mary Baker Eddy's cult, Christian Science. In the 1950s, Norman Vincent Peal's "power of positive thinking" became a part of common language. More recently, Gilda Radner's It's Always Something and Bernie Siegel's Love, Medicine and Miracles presented persuasive rhetoric on the alleged benefits of positive thinking, but sadly, Gilda died. A 10-year follow-up study of Siegel's patients found no benefit [5]. Spiegel alleged to have found a beneficial effect for psychosocial intervention in breast cancer patients turned out to be a case of a false positive caused by an atypical control group [6].

Another favorite of the mind-over-body clique is a branch of medical inquiry called psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). That PNI is ideology-driven is revealed in its name which pretends to know the mechanism of action even before the clinical data has established that a true healing phenomenon actually occurs. The normal progression of scientific inquiry is to establish through clinical studies that something more than variations in the natural history of a disease or a placebo response is occurring before pursuing an explanation of the mechanism of action -- aspirin, for instance, was used for more than 70 years before its mechanism was determined. Otherwise, researchers are likely to deceive themselves by engaging in the fallacy of selective affirmation in which they accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative rather than pursuing objective inquiry. PNI studies that show raised immune factor levels need to address the questions as to whether such effects are of too short duration to have an effect, and whether the effects of raised immune factors is desirable--since such may increase the risk of autoimmune disorders.

The idea that we can control biology with our wills is so appealing that those who challenge the ideology are sometimes treated as if they had murdered Santa Claus. Some subdue their criticisms because they do not wish to be in the position of taking away the hope of terminally-ill patients. Neither do they want to induce a state of depression in the patient knowing that despair itself can cause a person to give up on life and perhaps die even sooner. This may help explain the apparent reluctance to criticize the obvious failings of many psychosocial intervention reports, or the concepts of PNI or humor therapy.

References

Cousins N. "Anatomy of an illness (as perceived by the patient)," New Engl J Med 1976;295:1458-63.
Holden. Cousins' account of self-cure rapped," Science 1981;214:892.
May, 1980, pp.54-60; response letters to the editor appeared in the August, 1980 issue, pp. 12-15.
1981;48:305-314.
Gellert, J Clinical Oncology, 1993). The often cited Spiegel study Lancet, 1989;2:888-91.
NCAHF Newsletter, Jan-Feb, 1994.

Well right, I mean if all it took was a chuckle and some vitamin C, we'd all be on easy street. I do feel physically better when I laugh and I do crack wise about my health all the time. I mean, if you didn't laugh about it, you'd cry your eyes out. I do think not being agitated and not being upset all the time will make handling your illness a little easier... maybe. I dunno.

In the end, we're all going to die whether we're positive or negative. I'd rather not be bitter and ugly my whole life, so I think you can strive for being positively realistic about your situation.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world.

There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.

The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

The power of positive thinking and optimism is highly over-rated. I'm sure there were millions of extreme optimists during the bubonic plague that ended up just as dead as the lowest pessimists. I doubt that viewing the glass as half full is much of a survival technique during a cholera epidemic or when various parts of your body start dropping off during a leprosy outbreak.
I personally find that succumbing to utter despair is a more rational approach to all these health problems.I subscribe to the view that it is always darkest just before everything goes totally black. Despair can be a warm and comforting mistress. It gives you carte blanche to be as unmotivated and as cheerless as you like and a freedom to tell those around you asking for a smile to take a hike off a steep cliff. At least it is a good excuse to stay warm in bed on cold winter mornings rather than bouncing up to greet the world with a cheery grin when you really feel that an asteroid crashing into earth and destroying all life wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. Thinking positively and exhibiting optimism at these times is a sure sign that you have become mentally unhinged.
It's a fine day here in beautiful Sydney, Australia after days of rain. The birds are chirping, my camellias are blooming but I'm sure the strong sun is just a melanoma trap for those foolish enough to venture outside and a slip and fall on that wet green grass is a real concern.
Some may say that I am unduly pessimistic but pessimism is my insecurity blanket and I huddle under it comforted and warmed by its loving embrace. Positively.

Larry

PS Just kidding - but I do have a positive disdain for preachers of positivism in the face of total disaster and motivational speakers of every ilk.

Motivational speakers... don't even get me started. Cultish, really.