Staying Positive While Living With a Chronic Illness - Comedy & Humor

Journal Entry from earlier this morning:

"Rough start so far, but determined to turn things around. Emo and in pain from ovulation. Didn't sleep as long/deeply as needed and am exhausted and ready to go back to bed even though I just got up. Also stiff, sore, nauseous. Woke up sad/angry about my life circumstances - about feeling rejected/misunderstood by both sides of my family, about money, independence, my health and stamina and sun sensitivity, disability. My brain started going down fast. Started crying, feeling overwhelmed, wanted to break down and start destroying furniture and shit. But this energy does nothing positive or constructive for me at all, and I know everything I'm feeling is valid, but I must channel the river of my emotions accordingly so as not to get swept away in a path of irreversible destruction. 

This day is mine, I claim it, to do with it as I please. I will focus on my blessings, all that I do have, and I will work my ass off to the best of my ability to get as much done as I can, and whatever my best is today, that's okay. It's okay to feel what I feel. It's not okay to wallow, to waste this precious gift of a day by crying and feeling sorry for myself, by focusing on what I lack. This days is mine, I claim and own it, here and now. I can make it into whatever I want it to be, whatever I choose to focus on. 

And I choose love and light and magick and art and creativity and laughter and adventure and service. 

This I choose. And so it shall be. 

Praise Jah!"

Living with Fibromyalgia means that I wake up pretty much every day already struggling before I even get out of bed. With either physical pain and other symptoms like nausea, vertigo, and arthritis, or mental/emotional pain due to chronic illness and disability, like anxiety and depression. Waking up feeling awful makes not only turning your day (and anyone's who happens to wake up next to you) around incredibly difficult, being overwhelmed by emotion can sap one of energy and deplete your immune system, which is already quite taxed for us "spoonies" of the world.

So, how do I turn shitty mornings, or anytime of day, around into something positive and productive, despite the fact that I live with a debilitating, life altering and life long illness?
In my previous post in this series, I discussed the benefits I receive from daily studies of psychology and philosophy. Today I'll be discussing the next cornerstones in my drug-free symptom management tool kit - Comedy and Humor. As I was writing the previously quoted journal entry earlier today, I put my favorite comedy bits on and you can see how it helped turn my mood from dark, stormy, destruction into one of determination and positive focus.

Simply Google "the benefits of laughter" and countless medical resources come up with articles detailing how laughter, like creativity, aids blood pressure and vascular flow, reduces stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, helps the pituitary gland produce endogenous opiates thus naturally reducing pain, increase memory and learning, bond partners/groups and the two halves of the brain, and workout the diaphragm, abdominal, respiratory, leg, and back muscles. Working out while laughing? What a fun extra side effect! I'll take all the extra exercise I can, since my stamina is still pretty low and I'm not able to be as active as I'd like. And as for the strengthening bonds thing, I can tell you firsthand that humor is one of the biggest saviors of my long-term relationship, which started shortly before the onset of my illness and has seen some serious tests over the 4 plus years we've been together now.

Check out this quote from Dr. William Fry of Stanford University on http://www.care2.com:

"Humor and creativity work in similar ways – by creating relationships between two disconnected items, you engage the whole brain. Humor works quickly. Less than a half-second after exposure to something funny, and electrical wave moves through the higher brain functions of the cerebral cortex. The left hemisphere analyzes the words and structures of the joke; the right hemisphere “gets” the joke; the visual sensory area of the occipital lobe creates images; the limbic (emotional) system makes you happier; and the motor sections make you smile or laugh.

So let’s laugh."

Word, homie! Let's laugh indeed, even in the face of seemingly overwhelming circumstances. 
One of my favorite ways to get my daily dose of comedy is through podcasts. Podcasts have become one of my favorite media sources because they are usually free, instantly accessible, and have very little advertising - which not only means less commercials to skip through, but more freedom to the podcasters to express themselves without censoring their beliefs or language.

Some of my favorite podcasts for comedy are: The Joe Rogan Experience (he also has very interesting guests on there, so you learn while you laugh), Bill Burr's Monday Morning Podcast, and The Duncan Trussell Family Hour (he also has interesting guests in addition to being very funny, and a few years ago overcame cancer in one of his balls and the loss of his mother - whom he had on as a guest not longer before she passed and it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed).

Here's some of my favorite comedy bits (all of which I've watched this morning). 
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do! 

I love this bit and have watched it probably dozens of times. This is my go-to when I feel especially down and have no interest in anything goofy or silly. But it perks me up everytime! 


The Stages of Grief by Robot Chicken. I find it to be a perfect metaphor for chronic illness/disability especially. Fucking hilarious!


Maybe you have to be sorta fucked up or have crazy family to truly appreciate "Billiam", but I love this man. He is probably one of my favorite comedians. 


Haha yes, at 30 years old, this is my life right now!


Fucked up thoughts, we all have 'em. Bill's just happens to be really funny. Maybe partly why I love this man so much is he makes me feel sane ;) 


One last Bill Burr bit. For recovering Christians like myself. I laughed so hard the first time I saw this one I teared up :)

More Robot Chicken, some of their Star Wars Parodies (some of my faves, go Seth Green!)

I could list dozens more of my favorite comedy bits, but I think I've given you enough to mull over here for now. 

What are some of your favorite ways to laugh, or do you have any favorite comedians or podcasts?

Thanks for reading!
*Love & Light*
Renata Carmen

Please, if you find any value from this blog, please consider making a donation to the PayPal link at the top right of the page. I don't create these posts expecting anything but to help/entertain others, but I am a disabled mechanic/artist who is not currently receiving SSI/SSDI and when I'm flared up it's hard if not impossible for me to get my hustle on. I'm also working on adding Bitcoin here! :) 

Some Good Ole Fashioned Humor - How it Feels to Have an Autoimmune Disease

After my last angry rant (and thank you to all who have watched and provided constructive feedback), I have decided some comedic relief is in order. Plus I've been in a bit of a funk (thanks fluctuating progesterone levels) so I could use it myself.

In my constant quest to keep up a positive attitude, I think of random "memes" in my head, and think that other people who are chronically ill, homebound, and/or have an immune mediated disease would also appreciate these random funny thoughts.

I hope these help pick you up as much as they help my wonderful boyfriend/caregiver and myself!


When I'm in the middle of a flare and someone asks how I'm feeling:




How it feels when dealing with medical professionals and other people who aren't familiar with autoimmune/"invisible" diseases:

What I have the overwhelming urge to do anytime someone who isn't homebound complains about being bored, or when a medical professional claims diet & health aren't related:

Pain scale for those with Chronic Illness:

 Anytime someone refutes the medical value/efficacy of Cannabis, and Plant/Holistic Medicine in general:

An example of my internal dialogue when I'm struggling to make myself feel better:





How I feel when my boyfriend's being extra patient as my caregiver, especially when I've been depressed or angry:




I do believe that laughter and a positive mindset are pertinent to health.
Venting is important, but getting stuck in bitterness, resentment, or sadness are never conducive to creating a fulfilling or meaningful life, and stress hormones are some of the strongest immune-suppresents known to mankind. So if anything we need to be happy for our immune systems' sake!
Hopefully I've helped you achieve your daily dose today. I've looked at these a few times and am still laughing at them!
What do you do to make yourself feel better when you're down?

Love and Light :)
Renata Carmen

Please, if you find any value from this blog, please consider making a donation to the PayPal link at the top right of the page. I don't create these posts expecting anything but to help/entertain others, but I am a disabled mechanic/artist who is not currently receiving SSI/SSDI and when I'm flared up it's hard if not impossible for me to get my hustle on. I'm also working on adding Bitcoin here! :) 

Going Stir-Crazy from being Homebound!!! (And, How to Get Over It)

There is no way for me to properly explain the loneliness and isolation that comes with being chronically ill and homebound as a result. Perhaps I’ve been feeling extra bummed out lately because of the Elimination Diet I have been working on for the last 13 days (not that anyone’s counting!). I have wanted to write about it, along with my discoveries about the Gut and Vitamin D and all these amazing things I have been experimenting with to manage my illness, plus I have a ton of old writing and poetry to go thru and post, but I have been so bogged down. Just so exhausted and “blah”, not having the energy to do anything but sleep and wallow. I'm just so freakin' sick and tired of being sick and tired!! It's making me feel like this:

The main reason why I’m homebound is due to a severe UV sensitivity, so you would think with the days finally getting shorter and cooler my mood would be perking up. Soon it will be snowy and cold and I will no longer be filled with constant pangs of jealousy and depression every time I see a beautiful woman showing off her long tan legs in short shorts or walking past my window to go sun by the community pool. Being half Mexican, I tan quite nicely, and have been a “Sun Worshiper” my whole life. I miss the sun in ways I didn’t know was possible, and even have dreams about the way it feels to stand in sunlight…the warmth of the rays as they soak into the skin, the relaxing, zen-like feeling that comes from absorbing sunlight after several minutes, the almost magical way my hair lightens and skin becomes bronze…And it’s not just sunlight. I’m sensitive to any sort of UV light now, like HID or florescent, or even glares and bright lights. If I’m not aware of my environment, I could end up dizzy, nauseous, light headed, fatigued, and aggravating my arthritis. So no more indoor grows for me (*sniffle*), and if I’m well enough to go shopping, a lot of the time I have to be quick about it, or I start to feel sick from the lights. Obviously shopping online is my ideal way now (all praise Amazon!), but again, that is just another way in which human interaction is being cut from my life. I should have spent this summer hiking and climbing rocks and getting drunk by pools and riding bicycles along the paths of Boulder and dreading going to work. Not stuck inside my apartment like some freakish, depressed, vampire watching the world pass me by. I now understand the lonely people who would call the call centers I worked at in the past just to hear someone else’s voice.
So yes, I do get excited when I think about the coming holiday season, it’s my favorite time of year and I have been dreaming up recipe, décor, and party ideas. But there’s this pit in my stomach too. Being sick for the last few years has eaten away at my social life, and I’ve fallen out of touch from so many people. It’s just so fucking hard to talk to people when you’re going through something like this. You don’t understand what’s going on with your body or your mind, you just want things to get better but they won’t, and when people ask me how I’m doing I tend to just be a depressing mess in my response. I’m afraid a few old friends have reached out to me lately and my responses were very negative. I was so ecstatic to hear from them, to know that I’m being thought of and missed, but instead of saying that, all that came out was a verbal vomit of “woe is my life”. Its so difficult not to become a resentful, bitter shell of who you once were and push everyone away because you hate them for not being sick, for having their “normal” lives and “normal” problems, you hate them for complaining about being “bored” when they have NO idea what bored is, or for commenting on the weather (“How nice that the sun came back out!”). Then you hate yourself for being bitter and resentful, because you know it’s not right, and it threatens to become a self-perpetuating cycle of isolating anguish and despair. I used to be a social butterfly, always looking for the next adventure, always the one organizing parties and linking people together…but now I have hardly any friends that I see or speak to on a regular basis. Who will I invite to my holiday gatherings this year?

Luckily, even as I type this, I know I can change this, that I can make this better. It’s up to me after all. This is my life; I must take responsibility for my happiness. It’s true that not having a phone or a car sure makes being social that much more of a challenge, especially in my case. It’s true that this whole situation sucks and that I have been desperately struggling to communicate effectively, which has made maintaining my friendships even more of a challenge. But, to quote the late, great Jim Rohn, “Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.” I have to remember that I am so much more than my “meat vessel”, that I am divine infinite energy, and that I have work to do. There’s this voice inside that won’t let me give up, that tells me that I’m important, that even little me can make a difference. And that I shouldn’t worry about my social life, that those friends who are true will understand we all go through hard times that can make us sucky communicators, and they will still love and support me and come to any gatherings I organize. Hopefully through this blog I can help them to understand me better, and maybe I can help other “Chronic Badasses” to pick themselves off the floor as well.

And so, with that being said, I have work to do. I have friendships to patch up, a garden to water, dishes to do, a body and mind to heal, and this blog to improve. I have everything I need at my disposal. Truly, I am blessed. The Universal Search Engine makes it possible. There’s no better time to be homebound!

When I flip my attitude around, I realize how much I have to do, even if I’m too sick to work or leave my house often. I’m grateful for my garden, for my cat who acts as a lovely Companion, for my wonderful boyfriend/caregiver, my art and writing, for all the wonderful texts there are to read, more than could be read in ten lifetimes, and for the spiritual practices I’m developing. I feel like its super pertinent to have these things in one’s life, especially if you are chronically ill, disabled, and/or homebound. Another thing that helps me a lot too is creating and sticking to a “schedule” of some kind. It can be quite easy to become a complete POS who never changes out of PJ’s or puts deodorant on when you’re in this kind of a situation, and I have found that not only grosses out my boyfriend, I am nowhere near as productive, creative, or fulfilled as when I’m sticking to a sort of routine. I try to implement what Darren Hardy calls “bookends”; I try to have a routine I do every morning and every night. For me, this includes making tea, making a gratitude list and/or free writing/journaling, stretching and doing light exercise if I’m feeling well enough, creating a To-Do list for the day, and incorporating some of my current spiritual practices, like working with the Tarot. The To-Do list I have found is especially helpful; when you’re not working and you’re used to being a bread winner you can easily feel like you’re not doing anything of value. By creating a list of things I want to get done in the day, even if it seems miniscule, like checking the mail, doing the dishes, or making my Green Drink, I feel empowered and productive as I accomplish each goal and check it off the list.

Just because I’m not able to work or have a “normal” life, doesn’t mean I can’t have a meaningful, fulfilling, productive, creative, and successful experience in this Karmic Round. I just have to get off my ass and do something about it, and consistently. When I’m feeling “blah”, like I have recently, I have to turn that energy around. It’s absolutely pertinent if I want to get anything done or to feel good about myself. I do that by making myself laugh or become inspired. There’s tons of great podcasts, music, and blogs out there to help turn that frown upside down. Even though I’m not Christian (not that I have a problem with it if you are, I respect all people’s rights to pursue their own spiritual paths), this song in particular has been helping me a lot lately, and maybe it will help you too, so I’ll end this post with it, and a HUGE thank you for taking the time to read this.

I’d love to know how you make yourself feel positive and fulfilled, despite any disabilities you may have.

Love & Light


Please, if you find any value from this blog, please consider making a donation to the PayPal link at the top right of the page. I don't create these posts expecting anything but to help/entertain others, but I am a disabled mechanic/artist who is not currently receiving SSI/SSDI and when I'm flared up it's hard if not impossible for me to get my hustle on. I'm also working on adding Bitcoin here! :) 

Living with Chronic Illness - Making a Heaven out of Hell

First off, I would like to give my sincerest apologies for falling off the face of the planet for the last few months.

What have I been up to, one might ask?

Well, to be honest, I am ashamed to say I have been mostly doing this:

Which I think anyone would do in similar circumstances, but you don't get a lot done, and you're likely to miss any opportunities that come your way (like a call from the Blue Man Group or about the part as Scared Inmate #2).

For the last few years I have been battling debilitating chronic illness, and until about a month ago was eluded in reaching a diagnoses.  During that time, I have been told that I'm mentally ill, had doctors give up on me, had friends, family and acquaintances think its all in my head or I'm lazy, racked up medical debt, and had unnecessary invasive medical procedures. To put it lightly, I have been through the ringer, and despite the denial of everyone else, my physical condition has continued to decline. When I developed my UV sensitivity and my eyeballs started hurting, I knew things were going haywire and needed to be addressed asap. So I said screw these doctors I'm working with and saw a dermatologist and ophthalmologist. It was the ophthalmologist who finally diagnosed me. She was the only one who was willing to admit she doesn't know everything, and the only one who pulled out a laptop to conduct research with me. The ego of the majority of most medical professionals is impossible to comprehend until you have experienced it.

Ya'all need to take some freakin' communication courses!!!
(I'm not from the South, but ya'all is such a fun phrase, don't you think?)

It has been very hard to process, as there are no "cures" for this rare and misunderstood genetically inherited autoimmune disease, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada, or VKH for short. All you can do for immune diseases is manage them, and if you're lucky and play your cards right you will get to live a "relatively normal" life, with a "close to average" lifespan.  This is a very heavy thing to lay on anyone, but especially someone who is under 30 (not by much, but still!) and naturally active and independent. Which is why I started working at 15 and prefer to turn my own wrenches. Seriously homie, get your dirty paws off the MR2. Thanks.

(Please be aware that VKH affects your cognitive functions, so if I repeat words or make some other typo please be kind. This is partly why I haven't been writing. I will be checking this thing over several times before posting for errors, but will probably still miss a few. Thanks!)

But I'm freakin sick and tired of being sick and tired, and if you can't change a situation, you might as well change your attitude or perception of it, so now that I have spent nearly the last year feeling lost and depressed, I've decided to stop crying, start laughing, and do something about it. Perhaps its the Yaqi in me, but even through my darkest days there has been this voice coming from deep inside that won't let me give up on myself, that says I must fight, that I have work to do.

For people who have autoimmune diseases, the time period between onset and diagnoses is very pertinent to minimizing damage done to the body by the very mechanisms in place designed to protect it from harm. And unfortunately my experience has taught me that these diseases are highly misunderstood, as statistics show it takes an average of 7-10 years for people with autoimmune diseases to get proper diagnoses. 7-10 long, horrendous, tortuous years of bouncing from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist, pill to pill, racking up debt even if you have insurance because there's still co-pays and traveling to and from the various offices and taking time off to go to these appointments (if you're lucky enough to still be able to work), and the out of pocket cost of often unnecessary invasive procedures, or ones that could have been conducted better had the etiology of the symptoms been properly understood.  7-10 years of friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, all looking at you funny, wondering what is wrong with you, being worried about you, or thinking you're totally nuts, a hypochondriac, or an attention whore. 7-10 years of your life absorbed by worry, anger, anxiety, fear, depression, doubt, and struggle to adjust to continual changes and loss.

I have experienced all of this, but have been lucky as it has only been about 3 years for me, though technically my research and medical history have shown that the VKH started manifesting when I was a child and has flared on and off in until recently unrecognized forms. And that is what makes the onset of autoimmune disease so insidious. Its invisible. Its your immune system turning on your body, so it starts at the cellular level, sorta like cancer (its actually odd how similar cancer and immune diseases are, in fact the same medical treatments are used for both!), and often times it takes many years for displayed symptoms to show up as abnormal markers in lab results, which means you could be literally dying, but your blood and urine samples come up "normal". This is another aspect of the human body that seems to be misunderstood by doctors and is maddening. I have lost count of how many times I have had blood work pulled while I was in debilitating inflammatory pain but no abnormal levels of inflammatory markers show up, or had urine analysis come back within normal ranges despite the fact my kidneys were melting down.

If you have a chronic illness, especially an immune mediated one, or are close/have been close to someone who does, then what I am saying here is old news. But most people will be lucky enough to have no idea what it is like to be physically and/or mentally inhibited. They don't know what its like to be robbed of capabilities we take for granted, to have everything flipped on them, never to be put back the way it was, and its all up to you to make sense of it and somehow piece together a "life" out of it. All this, while the Real World continues to move on; the rent is still due, the car still needs to be fixed, the fridge won't fill itself. The Real World can be a cold and heartless one when you're struggling with your own mortality. The Real World forgets about the important things, like cherishing the present moment and all that you have, even if you can't do many of the things you once took for granted. And the Real World also forgets about questioning the status quo, about pushing boundaries, looking for alternative solutions, and not taking "no" for an answer. Its too tired from working all day to change the World. It just wants the nice house and paid vacation.

I was frustrated at first by the time that went by between my onset of latest symptoms in 2011 and my diagnoses in July, but I have come to understand that it has been a massive blessing in disguise. The time spent chasing medical ghosts when I first got sick, combined with my lack of transportation, a lag in medical coverage when I was no longer well enough to pursue my career, my UV sensitivity and other physical disabilities, and living in a place over a mile high that gets more than 300 days of annual sunshine, all played a role in the delay in my diagnoses. I cursed each and every one of them more times than I care to admit, but again, the delay was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. It has forced me to think outside-the-box, to research biochemistry and the inner workings of the body more thoroughly than I would have if I had doctors thinking for me and feeding me pills, and to question the efficacy of those pills and the very nature of our medical industry as a whole.
In short, I feel that I have unwittingly avoided a path that probably would have exacerbated the situation rather than helped, and I have re-discovered knowledge that humans have cherished since time immemorial but has been blown asunder by the "Pharmocratic Inquisition" that's developed a stranglehold on the Western Medical System for the last 150 years or so. I have also discovered some fascinating correlations between disease and environment, which I look forward to discussing at length on this blog. It seems those of us with autoimmune disease are the "canaries of the world", and the toxicity of our industrial lifestyles that has been poisoning the planet since the onset of the Industrial Revolution are traveling all the way up the food chain, back to us, the creators of said destruction. Karma at its finest, no?

My thesis is this: Cancer, autoimmune diseases...they may have some genetic pre-dispositons, but their underlying roots are Environmental, meaning, toxicity or imbalance. Currently, "we don't know" what causes these problems in the body, and we are "searching for The Marker Gene and The Cure! Cut off your breasts now, before its too late!" (Donate Now!). Yet, after years of technical research into these matters, everything seems to be tied to be same basic concept: Everything in Nature has a natural state of stasis, and is always trying to maintain that balance. Throw it out of balance in some way (i.e. stress), and it will do whatever it can to regain that original state. Just because you have a marker for a disease, does not mean it will manifest, and not having a marker does not mean you are in the free and clear. Fun Fact: Only about 5% of women who get breast cancer have a genetic marker for it. That means around 95% of women with breast cancer have no family history of it! Doesn't it seem odd, then, that we are so focused on genetic markers, and aren't focusing more heavily on other factors? Could it have anything to do with gene patents and the gargantuan amount of money to be made thru this new industry?? Or maybe that looking deeper would reveal an even deeper set of problems humanity has yet to tackle? Hmmm....
The Human Body is an amazing organism that has evolved from various bits and pieces throughout the millenia...some mitochoncria here, some intestinal flora there...and, sorta like a high security office building, it needed a way to identify the folks who were supposed to be there doing their job, from the trespassers who were there to infiltrate the system from the outside. Our bodies developed all kinds of mind-bogglingly complex systems to do exactly that, ranging from the equivalent of armed security guards to ID cards to filters. But, a guard can be tricked or blinded, ID cards can be faked, and filters can become compromised from too many particulates and stop working. In the same way, our bodies can be infiltrated by organisms that don't belong there, that throw us out of balance, and can only handle so much stress in one life-time. In a very strained body, something will eventually have to give, and in a "perfect storm", you get Cancer, or Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada.

My story (and the story of my father, who is also a VKH Fighter and from whom I inherited the genetic pre-disposition) is a text-book perfect example of a body that has been pushed too far. And the more research I do, the more this seems to be the case with anyone suffering from chronic illness.

I plan to tell my story on this blog, so that others may learn from it, and to share my personal discoveries and knowledge with others, to help further unite the community of those living with chronic illness, and to help shed some light on these mysteries and hopefully help fuel the drive for new research into fields neglected by The Status Quo. Cannabis is a prime and obivous example. Its 20-fucking-13 people, why in the fuck aren't we using this plant like crazy in medical studies??? Why is there still a stigma about it in our society? I lost 4 friends to overdoses before they turned 25, ALL of them were caused by legal, pharmaceutical drugs. You ever hear of anyone dying from a cannabis overdose!?.

 I am using myself as a guinea pig, re-discovering the Lost Knowledge of Plants and Fungi, and have found some rather promising potential so far. The most exciting part is I have just barely scratched the surface.

I look forward to this exciting and rewarding adventure! I hope you will join me and share your constructive thoughts and ideas as well. Because "none of us is as smart as all of us".

Thank you for reading!
*Love & Light*
Renata Carmen 

Please, if you find any value from this blog, please consider making a donation to the PayPal link at the top right of the page. I don't create these posts expecting anything but to help/entertain others, but I am a disabled mechanic/artist who is not currently receiving SSI/SSDI and when I'm flared up it's hard if not impossible for me to get my hustle on. I'm also working on adding Bitcoin here! :)