Nietzsche's Body: Health, Sickness, and Suffering

Comments · 326

• EV

  @evelienheerens2879 · 4 years ago

  I can relate to this. My first 20 years of life were an unmitigated hell. My mother was a psychopath and my suffering made her happy. I was starved, neglected and abused to a ridiculous degree. I stole to buy food to keep myself and my sister from starving to death. Pets got murdered and gaslighting was just how she communicated. I learned what shower gel was or how often one washes hair or what the difference was between shampoo and conditioner from a romantic partner at age 25, I usually wore the same clothes for 6 months on end without them getting washed. same for things like bedding. CPS got involved a few times but never did anything.<br><br>The next 20 years I lived on my own and all my chronic illnesses started surfacing. I was used to just sucking it up and ignoring it, so having invisible illnesses was not great, with doctors telling me it was in my head. That there was actual stuff that was in my head, such as PTSD, autism and dissociation was also unhelpful. Eventually my actual physical illnesses got serious enough that the doctors started looking in earnest again and I got Diagnosed with a genetic connective tissue disorder at age 35, and with about another dozen other rare diseases. &nbsp;I spent the next 5 years in court rooms suing everyone from the city to my insurance company to get the stuff i needed to survive and live on my own.<br><br>Now I&apos;m 41. I&apos;m wheelchair bound, in constant and debilitating chronic pain (I take morphine so I don&apos;t go into shock) and chronic fatigue keeps me bedridden most of the day for most days. Sometimes my digestive system quits on me and then I can&apos;t eat for 2-8 weeks. And yet, this is the best period of my life. I have never been more happy than I am now. I write books, and study stuff online. I live with my service dog and have meaningful relationships with people. I am mentally, the most healthy I have ever been, and even if my physical health is at it&apos;s lowest point and likely to only decline from here, at least it&apos;s getting acknowledged and I get access to care and medication. I&apos;m honestly doing great in a set of circumstances that would drive most people to suicide. I know it&apos;s weird but I think Nietzsche was right that relief attained in the face of suffering is happiness. It unburdens the soul.

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• YO

  @youronlyrealfriend · 4 years ago

  I&apos;ve been chronically ill since age 11 and the notion that health means nothing to people who don&apos;t get sick is a better articulation of how systemic ableism works than I&apos;ve seen in a lot of contemporary social justice literature.

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• HA

  @Harrow_ · 1 year ago

  As Schopenhauer said “With good health, everything has the potential to be a source of pleasure, and without it, nothing can ever be pleasurable again.”

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• PO

  @PokeDude1995 · 2 years ago

  Surprised no one in the comments made a link between how Schoepenhauer remarked how a person doesn&apos;t feel the health of his whole body as an example of his pessimistic view of existence, with Nietzche, who actually <b>COULD</b> feel the whole health of his body, having a more affirming view on life and health.

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• MA

  @markus_g31 · 3 years ago

  No one really knows that health is the most importamt thing that EXISTS.everyone takes it for granted.physical and mental disabiliti is literally HELL. When i can be normal again .man i cant imagine the heaven life will be

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• TH

  @thepursuitofecstasy1546 · 4 years ago

  I have struggled through most of Nietzche&apos;s works even though I have never been able to read them without crying. I have a hard time explaining why they affect me so viscerally. But this articulates some part of it. I spent a lot of my early years violently ill due to undiagnosed celiac disease, and this (along with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse during childhood) led me to develop OCD and severe body related phobias. I still fantasize about having no body, and I have almost starved several times because of the fear of eating. I want to see the value in what I have gone through. I want to live in the present, in that modest, divine gratitude that I see in Nietzche&apos;s work and that I occasionally experience when the fog of terror lifts and leaves mania in its wake. But the fear of my own body is still too overwhelming most of the time. I still have panic attacks and dissociation. I still can&apos;t read Nietzche without envying his &quot;health&quot; in terms of how he regards suffering (an ironic response to an author who has taught me so much about the follies of ressentiment). I will keep trying to learn this beautiful lesson. Maybe the learning is just never finished.

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• GR

  @grittysurrealism · 4 years ago

  Ive been disabled since i was 11 and have a migraine right now; this hit me in all the feels

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• TR

  @trotskyeraumpicareta4178 · 4 years ago

  &quot;A diet based on rice leads to buddism&quot;<br>He should have come to Brasil

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• CD

  @cda6590 · 4 years ago

  &quot;Virescit Vulnere Virtus&quot; - Strength growths with each wound

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• MI

  @michimatsch5862 · 4 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMBVfPXCVVw&amp;t=94">1:34</a> as someone with chronic pain, who is constantly experiencing suffering, nausea, and many more things this really hits home.

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• BE

  @beejash · 4 years ago

  This was a great video, and explained something very fundamental to Nietzsche’s entire project clearly. Nietzsche’s insight that the mind and its values are an extension of the body is what has drawn me to heavily to his work, and you conveyed this idea well. Cheers

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• WH

  @whysocurious7366 · 4 years ago

  I like that he wrote a book called “The Gay Science”.

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