What do you think?
Rate this book
American Lives
Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System
Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten. What about on a scale of spicy to citrus? Is it more like a lava lamp or a mosaic? Pain, though a universal element of human experience, is dimly understood and sometimes barely managed. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System is a collection of literary and experimental essays about living with chronic pain. Sonya Huber moves away from a linear narrative to step through the doorway into pain itself, into that strange, unbounded reality. Although the essays are personal in nature, this collection is not a record of the author’s specific condition but an exploration that transcends pain’s airless and constraining world and focuses on its edges from wild and widely ranging angles.
Huber addresses the nature and experience of invisible disability, including the challenges of gender bias in our health care system, the search for effective treatment options, and the difficulty of articulating chronic pain. She makes pain a lens of inquiry and lyricism, finds its humor and complexity, describes its irascible character, and explores its temperature, taste, and even its beauty.
Huber addresses the nature and experience of invisible disability, including the challenges of gender bias in our health care system, the search for effective treatment options, and the difficulty of articulating chronic pain. She makes pain a lens of inquiry and lyricism, finds its humor and complexity, describes its irascible character, and explores its temperature, taste, and even its beauty.
204 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2017
70 people are currently reading
2362 people want to read
About the author
Sonya Huber
22 books156 followersSonya Huber is an associate professor of creative writing at Fairfield University. Her work has appeared in literary journals including Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Topic, Passages North, Main Street Rag, Literary Mama, Kaleidoscope, Hotel Amerika, Sports Literate, and other; in anthologies including Learning to Glow (University of Arizona Press), Young Wives' Tales (Seal Press), Bare Your Soul (Seal Press), Reading for the Maternally Inclined: The Best of Literary Mama (Seal Press), Mama Ph.D. (Rutgers University Press), and Campus, Inc. (Prometheus Books); in periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Psychology Today, In These Times, Sojourner, and Earth Island Journal; and elsewhere.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews
February 27, 2017
This is one of those books whose title immediately grabed me - I mean, it is just super brilliant. And lenghty parts of this collection of essays are brilliant as well. Sonya Huber writes about her struggle with chronic pain; she has an auto-immune disease that changed everything about her life. As somebody who also struggles with pain on a regular basis I could relate so much to the way she talks about her pain. She is impressively eloquent and has a brilliant way with metaphors. The parts where she directly addresses her anthropomorphized pain were absolutely stunning and illuminating. Here she really shines and these parts I adored.
I also appreciate the honesty with which she approaches her life and her pain and her limitations thats result from that pain; we need voices who are honest before everything and who show that there are different ways of living ones life without being patronizing.
But while I really appreciated parts of this book, overall there were issues for me. You can definitely tell that the essays were written and published seperately before; Sonya Huber repeats things a lot and the repetitiveness of this work did not always work for me. Even within the essays themselves, her style is mostly disjointed - this type of literary non-fiction is difficult to pull of. Oftentimes she excels but sometimes it fell flat for me and the non-sequitors made following her train of thought difficult. I think I would have appreciated this a lot more if the whole book had been one overarching essay - then the repetitiveness and the circularity of some of her arguments could have worked beautifully.
___
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
I also appreciate the honesty with which she approaches her life and her pain and her limitations thats result from that pain; we need voices who are honest before everything and who show that there are different ways of living ones life without being patronizing.
But while I really appreciated parts of this book, overall there were issues for me. You can definitely tell that the essays were written and published seperately before; Sonya Huber repeats things a lot and the repetitiveness of this work did not always work for me. Even within the essays themselves, her style is mostly disjointed - this type of literary non-fiction is difficult to pull of. Oftentimes she excels but sometimes it fell flat for me and the non-sequitors made following her train of thought difficult. I think I would have appreciated this a lot more if the whole book had been one overarching essay - then the repetitiveness and the circularity of some of her arguments could have worked beautifully.
___
I received an arc of this book curtesy of NetGalley and University of Nebraska Press in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for that!
May 24, 2019
This is the only book I've ever read that truly captures what it's like to live with chronic illness: the silent pain, the hidden losses, the process of grieving the "you" that once was and redefining your identity. Huber is incredibly vulnerable. She doesn't hide anything in an attempt to spare readers her pain. Instead, she invites them to experience it her using raw, lyrical prose that reads more like poetry. She delves into all of those invisible aspects of living with a chronic illness that abled/healthy people seldom think about or see, from losing the ability to complete formerly "simple" tasks to navigating the awkward, complicated dance of sex and parenting. She also explores the impact of mindfulness meditation and how Buddhism influences her experience of pain and her sense of identity. After half a decade of being chronically ill, reading countless self-help books and "sick lit" stories, PAIN WOMAN is the first book I've ever picked-up that makes me feel understood and seen. It pulled no punches, promised no cures. It didn't try to "fix" things. And, in the process, made me feel less alone and frustrated with my own "pain woman" when she reaches for the keys.
February 21, 2025
I cannot quite relate to this -far be it from me to minimise this author's Pain Experience but I make no distinction between some form of NormalMe and PainMe, there is no PainWoman versus NormalWoman battle going on in my head - they are all in me, I am in them "and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one so the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me" and this is eternity.
"I wish I sparkled. I wish my pain made me beautiful, made me more noble, or was a fashion statement."
That's me. Fashionable for life. Italian design, darling...
"Instead it is just pain, wordless and desperate for expression.”
Confusing stuff, then why is this at least 100 pages too long?
"I wish I sparkled. I wish my pain made me beautiful, made me more noble, or was a fashion statement."
That's me. Fashionable for life. Italian design, darling...
"Instead it is just pain, wordless and desperate for expression.”
Confusing stuff, then why is this at least 100 pages too long?
March 30, 2017
3.5 stars
I knew from the opening lines of the first essay, Pain Bows in Greeting, that I would like this collection.
The essays range widely from the near poetry of the above to magazine-type explorations of what it means to live with pain. Some spin out metaphors.
All are fascinating. Huber tells us what it's like to watch your body slowly decline, to mourn the healthy body you've left behind, to try and explain and quantify your pain in just the right way to doctors and specialists. You're frustrated in reducing your pain to a number on a ten point scale. You underestimate it so you're not labeled as a drug seeker. When yet another person suggests that doing yoga would help, you read "the implication: if you tried harder, you could fix it."
It's a window into life with pain that I'm grateful to have. As a medical interpreter I feel better armed to assist patients who are in chronic pain themselves. I also feel like I have the tools to be a better human. A theme that has come up in my reading this year is that when someone tells you their story, listen. Believe them. Huber gives you no other choice.
I like some essays more than others, but it's still an easy recommend to anyone who works with or knows someone in chronic pain, or just wants a beautifully written peek into that world.
Thanks to University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley for providing a review copy.
I knew from the opening lines of the first essay, Pain Bows in Greeting, that I would like this collection.
Pain wants you to put in earplugs because sounds are grating. Pain has something urgent to tell you but forgets over and over again what it was.
Pain tells you to put your laptop in the refrigerator.
Pain runs into walls at forty-five-degree angels and ricochets back into the center of the room.
The essays range widely from the near poetry of the above to magazine-type explorations of what it means to live with pain. Some spin out metaphors.
Pain twists me like the ends of a Halls cough drop wrapper. A few cunning turns transform a flat square of wax paper into a neat home for a lozenge. If I do not unroll pain, I carry it.
All are fascinating. Huber tells us what it's like to watch your body slowly decline, to mourn the healthy body you've left behind, to try and explain and quantify your pain in just the right way to doctors and specialists. You're frustrated in reducing your pain to a number on a ten point scale. You underestimate it so you're not labeled as a drug seeker. When yet another person suggests that doing yoga would help, you read "the implication: if you tried harder, you could fix it."
It's a window into life with pain that I'm grateful to have. As a medical interpreter I feel better armed to assist patients who are in chronic pain themselves. I also feel like I have the tools to be a better human. A theme that has come up in my reading this year is that when someone tells you their story, listen. Believe them. Huber gives you no other choice.
I like some essays more than others, but it's still an easy recommend to anyone who works with or knows someone in chronic pain, or just wants a beautifully written peek into that world.
Thanks to University of Nebraska Press and NetGalley for providing a review copy.
February 19, 2023
Breathtaking
April 21, 2018
Five stars and a high recommendation for those with rheumatoid disease and perhaps a very few other superheroes. I've given up on the capacity of the rest of you normies to see this thing, and I grow weary of your clueless reviews about disability memoirs.
December 30, 2018
Lordy. This book is one of my favorites of 2018. You should read it if you a/like good writing, b/like amazing essays, c/are in chronic pain, d/know people in chronic pain, e/are human, f/are not human but can read. There. That should cover it. Just trust me and read this book.
July 26, 2025
Huber sets out to accomplish something really ambitious but did not hit the mark for me. there were parts of this book that i underlined and highlighted and wrote down for safekeeping! I am grateful that books like this exist and create space for conversations about pain. however,
- i think Huber failed to avoid falling into the victim narrative trap. Pain memoirs are going to be uncomfortable for the reader, and they should be, but there are ways to go about writing agony without any sort of “poor me” tone — i live with chronic pain and arthritis and idk, found myself rolling my eyes a lot. 177 pages was a lot of space for every possible metaphor for pain she could think of. that’s great! a thorough and challenging writing exercise! but I don’t think repeating it to the point that the reader resents the her serves those in pain, or those who want to understand pain
- i felt like Huber only called upon disability justice politics when it was convenient to her argument. not every disabled writer needs to be an educator about disability justice, but Huber kinda claims to be one a few times. It never felt like disability justice got more than a sentence or two at a time, but there were 800 analogies made for arthritic pain. just feels weird to me! When disability justice was talked about, it felt like a means to Huber’s end of eliciting sympathetic reactions from her reader (I know these r bold accusations I just really do not fw this)
- I also felt like the attempts at illustrating pain through nontraditional formats and departures from prose were unsuccessful. I thought most of the descriptions were either too specific to her experience with pain to make sense to the reader or just overly verbose/abstract.
to close, this passage really got me:
“A few months later, with another dip in health, I am in my therapist’s office, and I am crying about my mothering and baked goods again. ‘I should be a better mom. I should be making cookies.’ I have been trying to support my new reality by following more disability activists on Twitter, and as I think about what I’ve been reading, sitting in the soft chair across from my therapist, I have an idea. ‘Wait,’ I say, looking at her. ‘That’s really ableist of me.’”
i’m sorry but you cannot make me care about a white woman pretending to be a martyr for having applied theories disability justice to her own life once
- i think Huber failed to avoid falling into the victim narrative trap. Pain memoirs are going to be uncomfortable for the reader, and they should be, but there are ways to go about writing agony without any sort of “poor me” tone — i live with chronic pain and arthritis and idk, found myself rolling my eyes a lot. 177 pages was a lot of space for every possible metaphor for pain she could think of. that’s great! a thorough and challenging writing exercise! but I don’t think repeating it to the point that the reader resents the her serves those in pain, or those who want to understand pain
- i felt like Huber only called upon disability justice politics when it was convenient to her argument. not every disabled writer needs to be an educator about disability justice, but Huber kinda claims to be one a few times. It never felt like disability justice got more than a sentence or two at a time, but there were 800 analogies made for arthritic pain. just feels weird to me! When disability justice was talked about, it felt like a means to Huber’s end of eliciting sympathetic reactions from her reader (I know these r bold accusations I just really do not fw this)
- I also felt like the attempts at illustrating pain through nontraditional formats and departures from prose were unsuccessful. I thought most of the descriptions were either too specific to her experience with pain to make sense to the reader or just overly verbose/abstract.
to close, this passage really got me:
“A few months later, with another dip in health, I am in my therapist’s office, and I am crying about my mothering and baked goods again. ‘I should be a better mom. I should be making cookies.’ I have been trying to support my new reality by following more disability activists on Twitter, and as I think about what I’ve been reading, sitting in the soft chair across from my therapist, I have an idea. ‘Wait,’ I say, looking at her. ‘That’s really ableist of me.’”
i’m sorry but you cannot make me care about a white woman pretending to be a martyr for having applied theories disability justice to her own life once
October 17, 2017
A very insightful collection of essays about the experience of living with chronic pain. Huber uses a lot of different essay forms to discuss parenting with pain, how to describe pain (and the inability of a scale to convey “pain” to her medical team), what it is like to be a patient with chronic pain and not have access to a coordinated care team, negotiating a partnership (both emotional and physical) with a lover, and how her writing changes depending on her pain level. Most of the pieces were previously published in blogs and journals, so they overlap on occasion, but this is a must-read collection.
January 1, 2023
Brilliant
Incisive, thought provoking. Huber’s words create a necessary vocabulary for naming what society, what medicine denies in spite of its presence in almost half of the population, what it ignores in so many women because there are no easy answers. Penetrating, considered, deeply felt and researched, this book was a revelation.
Incisive, thought provoking. Huber’s words create a necessary vocabulary for naming what society, what medicine denies in spite of its presence in almost half of the population, what it ignores in so many women because there are no easy answers. Penetrating, considered, deeply felt and researched, this book was a revelation.
March 14, 2019
UPDATE: reread in March 2019, still 5 stars :)
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
I initially decided to pick this one up because I read a great review on Bitch Media by Gila Lyons (https://bitchmedia.org/article/pain-w...) & I was instantly captivated by the cover - I loved the bright colours & how the triangles made a pattern on the page.
I'm not sure what exactly I expecting going into this book as I knew basically nothing about chronic pain, but I absolutely loved reading this & probably took a bit longer than usual to finish it because I didn't want it to be over. This isn't a feel good book - though it did make me pause & think about appreciating my young & able body while I can because I won't always have it - but I loved Sonya Huber's voice & the way she chronicles her life with pain & her discussion on pain itself.
I highlighted so many passages while reading this & I feel like I need to go over my favourite parts again [the first entry, "What Pain Wants" is one I can see myself coming back to over & over again] because there is so many things that I loved about this book that should be highlighted, but because I never make it to the end of long reviews, I am going to end it here by simply saying this is one of the best nonfiction books on a subject that I don't know much about that I have read in a long time, & if this sounds like something you would like then you should go read it immediately.
I would recommend this to those who are looking for a book dealing with health issues/chronic pain but I also think this would appeal to a wider audience of those who enjoy reading memoir like books / essay collections of other peoples lives as well.
Thanks again to University of Nebraska Press & NetGalley for providing me an advance review copy to read :)
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
I initially decided to pick this one up because I read a great review on Bitch Media by Gila Lyons (https://bitchmedia.org/article/pain-w...) & I was instantly captivated by the cover - I loved the bright colours & how the triangles made a pattern on the page.
I'm not sure what exactly I expecting going into this book as I knew basically nothing about chronic pain, but I absolutely loved reading this & probably took a bit longer than usual to finish it because I didn't want it to be over. This isn't a feel good book - though it did make me pause & think about appreciating my young & able body while I can because I won't always have it - but I loved Sonya Huber's voice & the way she chronicles her life with pain & her discussion on pain itself.
I highlighted so many passages while reading this & I feel like I need to go over my favourite parts again [the first entry, "What Pain Wants" is one I can see myself coming back to over & over again] because there is so many things that I loved about this book that should be highlighted, but because I never make it to the end of long reviews, I am going to end it here by simply saying this is one of the best nonfiction books on a subject that I don't know much about that I have read in a long time, & if this sounds like something you would like then you should go read it immediately.
I would recommend this to those who are looking for a book dealing with health issues/chronic pain but I also think this would appeal to a wider audience of those who enjoy reading memoir like books / essay collections of other peoples lives as well.
Thanks again to University of Nebraska Press & NetGalley for providing me an advance review copy to read :)
May 28, 2019
I don't like leaving this book without review but I also don't know how to explain how much this book meant for me and how much it helped me articulate this awful chronic/invisible/undiagnosed illness journey I've been on for a year and a half.
April 10, 2021
Ever wonder what it feels like to live with chronic pain? Sonya Huber shows us from every angle in this important collection of wide-ranging essays. In her essay "Vital Sign 5," she says that 47 percent of the U.S. population lives with some kind of chronic pain, and that 30 percent are undertreated or untreated. The degree to which the usual 1-10 pain scale was helpful in treatment of chronic pain? Zero. I know several people living with chronic pain, and have had it myself (luckily only for months, not years), and I think they would see themselves here and feel less alone. And for those of us who are their friends and family or coworkers, this collection educates us about what it feels like and how to be there for them. Alas, I am one of those people who have asked, "Have you tried acupuncture?" (Not helpful.)
The opening essay, "What Pain Wants," was stunning, and "The Lava Lamp of Pain" shows how unprepared, and often callous, health care practitioners can be when treating people with chronic pain. I also loved "Dear Noted Feminist Scholar" and so many more. Most of all I appreciate the author's courage in facing chronic pain with a spirit of curiosity, as a part of herself, not something separate. She is willing to look into the dark places and find some kind of light there, some kind of meaning, and she takes us with her. It is a journey well worth taking.
The opening essay, "What Pain Wants," was stunning, and "The Lava Lamp of Pain" shows how unprepared, and often callous, health care practitioners can be when treating people with chronic pain. I also loved "Dear Noted Feminist Scholar" and so many more. Most of all I appreciate the author's courage in facing chronic pain with a spirit of curiosity, as a part of herself, not something separate. She is willing to look into the dark places and find some kind of light there, some kind of meaning, and she takes us with her. It is a journey well worth taking.
July 26, 2020
Sonya Huber's essays on living with the chronic pain and body degeneration of rheumatoid arthritis and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis.
This is an excellent window into what it's like to live with chronic pain and to grieve the loss of your previous, non-pain self. The author doesn't hide anything and definitely doesn't sugarcoat. She grapples with descriptions of pain using poetic language and metaphor but she also describes it with brutally clear happenings like when she realized that she was going to have to buy a cane to maintain her mobility. I absolutely love her idea for a T-shirt to wear on the bad pain days: "Excuse my inability to process your spoken language. I won't be able to meet your cognitive expectations of me today." I need a sign of that for my office door.
This is an excellent window into what it's like to live with chronic pain and to grieve the loss of your previous, non-pain self. The author doesn't hide anything and definitely doesn't sugarcoat. She grapples with descriptions of pain using poetic language and metaphor but she also describes it with brutally clear happenings like when she realized that she was going to have to buy a cane to maintain her mobility. I absolutely love her idea for a T-shirt to wear on the bad pain days: "Excuse my inability to process your spoken language. I won't be able to meet your cognitive expectations of me today." I need a sign of that for my office door.
January 24, 2025
As a person with chronic pain, I have never felt so seen. She articulated my thoughts, feelings, and pain in a way that I have never been able to do. I love you, Sonya.
A few of my favorite/relatable quotes:
"If I rate my pain a two or a three, do I mean that I thought about death only two or three times in the past week? I don't mean suicide, exactly, but rather the fact that death will be a solution to this. This won't last forever. Death is a comfort instead of the ultimate fear."
"Illness has forced me to let go."
"It just is."
"Pain is a screaming infant I must attend to before anything else."
"These days "me" is quite permeable."
"My parts are doing the best they can."
A few of my favorite/relatable quotes:
"If I rate my pain a two or a three, do I mean that I thought about death only two or three times in the past week? I don't mean suicide, exactly, but rather the fact that death will be a solution to this. This won't last forever. Death is a comfort instead of the ultimate fear."
"Illness has forced me to let go."
"It just is."
"Pain is a screaming infant I must attend to before anything else."
"These days "me" is quite permeable."
"My parts are doing the best they can."
August 30, 2017
This is a book of essays written by someone who has chronic pain. It was fascinating to read someone else's descriptions of something that is fairly indescribable. There was much that I could identify with and that I found fascinating and to compare my own experiences to someone with an ability to thoughtfully put it into words and convey something ineffable was an interesting experience. If you suffer from CP it's insightful and if you don't it might give you a glimpse into something that you wouldn't be able to parse on your own.
February 3, 2021
Sharp, witty, and delivered with beautiful, blunt-force honestly. This book should be required reading for anyone who considers themselves an ally to the disabled community and those suffering from chronic pain or illness.
December 19, 2022
I kind of can’t believe that I stumbled upon this book. I’ll be re reading very soon.
March 22, 2024
This is a stunning book. The most honest, fresh, interesting book I have ever read about chronic pain. For fans of personal essay and lyrical essay - and any one who experiences chronic pain or loves someone who does. Highly recommend.
September 4, 2025
File this under books that made me feel so incredibly seen to the point of simultaneous tears, discomfort, and euphoria. Sonya Huber my GIRL thank you for sharing the first accurate portrait I've seen of what it's like to live in chronic pain!
June 21, 2018
this is one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read about the experience, politics, and aesthetics of pain, written by somebody with the same chronic pain condition as me. much recommended to anybody who lives with chronic pain, anybody who has somebody with chronic pain in their lives, and especially to healthcare providers.
January 5, 2018
I really, really LOVED some of the essays in this book. At her best, Huber is eloquent, insightful, wise, surprising, and just flat-out entertaining. As I read several of these essays, I imagined discussing them with clever, curious friends whose opinions I always want to hear.
At some point I googled Huber and learned that she had a master's degree in public interest journalism. It's obvious that her sensibilities are shaped by training in reporting; she does it extremely well. However, she's clearly not a poet, and when she tries to be lyrical or poetic, well, it often doesn't work. One thing she does when she's trying to write lyric or experimental essays is makes grandiose, sweeping pronouncements full of ideas that don't withstand intellectual scrutiny. You can do that in poetry if the language is interesting enough: it's by no means true that we should all kill ourselves as Philip Larkin recommends in "This Be the Verse," but the strength of the language makes the idea seem legitimate. But I don't find the language in Huber's statement strong enough in terms of music or metaphor to make me entertain, even momentarily, the ideas she puts forth in these less conventional essays. It's annoying enough that I wanted the book to end so there wouldn't be any more of those sorts of essays, even though I really loved the other sort.
At some point I googled Huber and learned that she had a master's degree in public interest journalism. It's obvious that her sensibilities are shaped by training in reporting; she does it extremely well. However, she's clearly not a poet, and when she tries to be lyrical or poetic, well, it often doesn't work. One thing she does when she's trying to write lyric or experimental essays is makes grandiose, sweeping pronouncements full of ideas that don't withstand intellectual scrutiny. You can do that in poetry if the language is interesting enough: it's by no means true that we should all kill ourselves as Philip Larkin recommends in "This Be the Verse," but the strength of the language makes the idea seem legitimate. But I don't find the language in Huber's statement strong enough in terms of music or metaphor to make me entertain, even momentarily, the ideas she puts forth in these less conventional essays. It's annoying enough that I wanted the book to end so there wouldn't be any more of those sorts of essays, even though I really loved the other sort.
January 4, 2023
My latest read on the bias in medicine against women was a winner. Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays from a Nervous System is Sonya Huber's excellent essay collection about her experience with rheumatoid arthritis and chronic pain. Diving into both humorous and poetic language, Huber struggles to put her pain in words. In other essays, she outlines the politics and struggles of being a woman dealing with chronic pain, from the way she has to break down her own internalized views of motherhood, work ethic, and sex; to her relationship to her cane; to her experience with pain scales, dismissal, invisibility, and our broken health-care system.
January 21, 2017
(Review forthcoming, but this is a wonderful, wonderful book.)
October 7, 2023
"Rate your pain on a scale of one to one to ten. What about on a scale of spicy to citrus? Is it more like a lava lamp or a mosaic? Pain through a universal element of human experiences, is dimly understood and sometimes barely managed," writes Sonya Huber about her book "Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from A Nervous System. "
I've been lucky, most of my life, to be healthy and relatively pain-free. However, I did suffer serious pain for a number of years as a pre-teen and young adult. It would keep me from going to school or going to my after school job, or even going out with friends. My parents didn't understand. Thus, they dismissed me as a whiner and referred to my problem as "growing pains." Though, "Pain" held me in its grasp as I hung my head over the toilet.
Trouble is, only those who really know pain can appreciate its power and the way it takes control of one's body, mind, and soul.
No one knows this better than Sonya Huber, who has rheumatoid arthritis. In her mesmerizing collection of creative nonfiction essays, she shows how "Pain," holds her in its clutches, turns her into its slave. Huber anthropomorphizes "Pain," so it becomes relatable. In these essays, we watch Huber go about her day, trying to be a good parent, writer, and college professor. Yet, "Pain" holds on tight--refuses to let go. She shows how it "takes the keys from your life...and leaves you alone, helpless, and begging for mercy."
This inventive book is for all those who've either met "Pain" or know someone who has.
I've been lucky, most of my life, to be healthy and relatively pain-free. However, I did suffer serious pain for a number of years as a pre-teen and young adult. It would keep me from going to school or going to my after school job, or even going out with friends. My parents didn't understand. Thus, they dismissed me as a whiner and referred to my problem as "growing pains." Though, "Pain" held me in its grasp as I hung my head over the toilet.
Trouble is, only those who really know pain can appreciate its power and the way it takes control of one's body, mind, and soul.
No one knows this better than Sonya Huber, who has rheumatoid arthritis. In her mesmerizing collection of creative nonfiction essays, she shows how "Pain," holds her in its clutches, turns her into its slave. Huber anthropomorphizes "Pain," so it becomes relatable. In these essays, we watch Huber go about her day, trying to be a good parent, writer, and college professor. Yet, "Pain" holds on tight--refuses to let go. She shows how it "takes the keys from your life...and leaves you alone, helpless, and begging for mercy."
This inventive book is for all those who've either met "Pain" or know someone who has.
September 11, 2019
Ik weet niet meer waar ik het tegenkwam, deze mooie verzameling van afbeeldingen en citaten over creativiteit en schrijven: Habits of Mind for Creative Nonfiction. Het bracht me wel weer in gedachten dat ik al een hele tijd een boek van Sonya Huber op mijn lijstje had staan: Pain Woman Takes Your Keys. Huber is professor Engels aan de Universiteit van Nebraska, ze is ook moeder van een zoontje, en ze heeft RA (Reumatoïde Artritis, alweer zo'n vrolijke auto-immuunziekte).
Dit is niet het zoveelste ego-document over het verloop van iemands ziekte. Dit is een verzameling essays en (proza)gedichten waarin ze probeert te onderzoeken en uit te drukken wat pijn is, en hoe ermee om te gaan.
Het boek begint met What Pain Wants.
Dat geeft meteen een andere kijk. Ze ziet pijn als een wezen waar je mee moet leven. Sommige zinnen zijn herkenbaar, andere zijn absurdistisch en tegelijk zo raak!
Pain wants to watch a different channel than you do on t.v.
Pain looks at you with the inscrutable eyes and thin beak of an egret.
Pain stubs out the cigarette of your to-do list.
Pain will first try to do some things on that list but will end up with socks on its antlers.
En van deze schoten mij de tranen in de ogen: Pain does not mean any harm to you.
Een deel van het boek gaat over de frustraties van het Amerikaanse gezondheidssysteem (en zij is nog goed af, met haar werk en een ziektekostenverzekering), en over het gebrek aan interesse bij medici voor pijn. Ze kunnen het niet meten, ze kunnen het niet genezen, ze kunnen er niks mee. Dus moet je bij de ene dokter flink doen, bij de andere zielig, maar kun je nooit werkelijk vertellen hoe het gaat want dan krijg je misschien die pillen niet waarop je nog redelijk functioneert. (Herkenbaar.) Ze is gewoon ontroerd als ze eindelijk van een pijn-inventarisatielijst (de McGill Pain Questionnaire) hoort die woorden geeft aan de ervaring van pijn. (Normaal zijn het cijfers: hoe zeer doet dit van 1-10?)
Huber geeft ook wat wetenschappelijke inzichten over pijn en chronische pijn. Hoe meer pijn je hebt, hoe gevoeliger de pijnsensoren afgesteld raken, des te meer pijn je voelt, het is een zelfversterkende cirkel.
De titel van het essay The Lava Lamp of Pain geeft prachtig weer hoe zij aankijkt (of probeert aan te kijken) tegen pijn. Ze geeft ook de geschiedenis van haar ziekte, de woede die ze in het begin voelde om alles wat ze niet meer kon, tot eindelijk de realisatie indaalt dat het zo blijft.
Het wordt nergens larmoyant, er staan zoveel prachtige zinnen in die ik tot schrijfveer of collage-veer omtover. Trouwens, de titel van het boek is daar ook een voorbeeld van.
Erg mooi vond ik ook Prayer to Pain dat eindigt met de volgende zin: You must look pain in the eyes like a child and tell it not to be afraid of itself.
Ze gaat tekeer tegen de maatschappelijke visie op ziekte en pijn, zoals die bijvoorbeeld blijkt uit medicijnreclames. Die vormen altijd een drama-in-drie-bedrijven: I) de persoon kan niet voldoen aan wat de normale sociale verwachtingen zijn II) het medicijn verschijnt ten tonele III) de persoon kan weer aan zijn normale sociale verplichtingen voldoen. En veel mensen volgen dat zelfde toneelstuk. Ze willen eigenlijk niet horen hoe het met je gaat, ze zeggen meteen: heb je al yoga geprobeerd, cactussap, of kurkuma? Wat tegelijk zegt: als je maar beter je best deed, zou het wel overgaan! Wat tegelijk zegt: je moet er tegen strijden! Maar ik wil niet in oorlog zijn met mezelf. Pijn is altijd een vraag zonder antwoord.
When I confess my pain, I am letting out a specter that makes other people unhappy.
Terwijl wat je nodig hebt, is je verzoenen met dat het is zoals het is.
I have not always been in pain, but it looks as if I will be in some form of pain from here on out. That’s not to say that I am negative or have lost hope for cures or treatments, but rather that I am attempting to come to terms with it, to recenter my life around my own experience.
En is het ook niet zo dat al die auto-immuunziektes erop wijzen dat de wereld als geheel er bepaald niet gezonder op wordt?
Chronic pain technically has no positive utility for the individual body, but I believe this pain has meaning for the larger body politic, the community. The causes of autoimmune syndromes have not yet been knit together, but the alarm addresses our toxic world, reacting to the stress doled out to the bodies of women and children in particular, the way we carry and echo inflammation, the violence within and beyond families and economies. Our silent pains are the stretch marks on physical bodies stretched beyond their carrying capacity.
Waar ze ook een hekel aan heeft is mensen die maar te pas en te onpas overal Dankbaar voor zijn.
What we hear as God might be the shadow of America that asks us to smile and wave as our personal ships go down. Het enige waar ze dankbaar voor is (en ik net zo) is dit: I am grateful to be alive and to have a brain that makes meaning after meaning after meaning.
Ze komt erachter dat creatief bezig zijn (in haar geval schrijven) helpt om zich tijdelijk los te maken van de pijn. Ze was bang dat ze niet zo goed en helder meer zou kunnen schrijven, omdat pijn ook je cognitieve vermogens aantast, tot ze erachter kwam dat blogposts die ze met pijn schreef, juist veel meer reacties kregen. Het voelt als schrijven met een macrolens in plaats van een groothoek.
Al met al is het een inspirerend en waardevol boek dat ik hier het liefst in z'n geheel wil citeren. In elk geval zullen er nog heel wat zinnen hun weg vinden naar kunstwerken. Wat Huber zelf veel mooier verwoordt: Because my pain has no external expression other than a few gently twisting knuckles, it depends upon me for expression and metaphor. In fact, if I don’t feed it metaphor on a daily basis, my pain devours me.
Dit is niet het zoveelste ego-document over het verloop van iemands ziekte. Dit is een verzameling essays en (proza)gedichten waarin ze probeert te onderzoeken en uit te drukken wat pijn is, en hoe ermee om te gaan.
Het boek begint met What Pain Wants.
Dat geeft meteen een andere kijk. Ze ziet pijn als een wezen waar je mee moet leven. Sommige zinnen zijn herkenbaar, andere zijn absurdistisch en tegelijk zo raak!
Pain wants to watch a different channel than you do on t.v.
Pain looks at you with the inscrutable eyes and thin beak of an egret.
Pain stubs out the cigarette of your to-do list.
Pain will first try to do some things on that list but will end up with socks on its antlers.
En van deze schoten mij de tranen in de ogen: Pain does not mean any harm to you.
Een deel van het boek gaat over de frustraties van het Amerikaanse gezondheidssysteem (en zij is nog goed af, met haar werk en een ziektekostenverzekering), en over het gebrek aan interesse bij medici voor pijn. Ze kunnen het niet meten, ze kunnen het niet genezen, ze kunnen er niks mee. Dus moet je bij de ene dokter flink doen, bij de andere zielig, maar kun je nooit werkelijk vertellen hoe het gaat want dan krijg je misschien die pillen niet waarop je nog redelijk functioneert. (Herkenbaar.) Ze is gewoon ontroerd als ze eindelijk van een pijn-inventarisatielijst (de McGill Pain Questionnaire) hoort die woorden geeft aan de ervaring van pijn. (Normaal zijn het cijfers: hoe zeer doet dit van 1-10?)
Huber geeft ook wat wetenschappelijke inzichten over pijn en chronische pijn. Hoe meer pijn je hebt, hoe gevoeliger de pijnsensoren afgesteld raken, des te meer pijn je voelt, het is een zelfversterkende cirkel.
De titel van het essay The Lava Lamp of Pain geeft prachtig weer hoe zij aankijkt (of probeert aan te kijken) tegen pijn. Ze geeft ook de geschiedenis van haar ziekte, de woede die ze in het begin voelde om alles wat ze niet meer kon, tot eindelijk de realisatie indaalt dat het zo blijft.
Het wordt nergens larmoyant, er staan zoveel prachtige zinnen in die ik tot schrijfveer of collage-veer omtover. Trouwens, de titel van het boek is daar ook een voorbeeld van.
Erg mooi vond ik ook Prayer to Pain dat eindigt met de volgende zin: You must look pain in the eyes like a child and tell it not to be afraid of itself.
Ze gaat tekeer tegen de maatschappelijke visie op ziekte en pijn, zoals die bijvoorbeeld blijkt uit medicijnreclames. Die vormen altijd een drama-in-drie-bedrijven: I) de persoon kan niet voldoen aan wat de normale sociale verwachtingen zijn II) het medicijn verschijnt ten tonele III) de persoon kan weer aan zijn normale sociale verplichtingen voldoen. En veel mensen volgen dat zelfde toneelstuk. Ze willen eigenlijk niet horen hoe het met je gaat, ze zeggen meteen: heb je al yoga geprobeerd, cactussap, of kurkuma? Wat tegelijk zegt: als je maar beter je best deed, zou het wel overgaan! Wat tegelijk zegt: je moet er tegen strijden! Maar ik wil niet in oorlog zijn met mezelf. Pijn is altijd een vraag zonder antwoord.
When I confess my pain, I am letting out a specter that makes other people unhappy.
Terwijl wat je nodig hebt, is je verzoenen met dat het is zoals het is.
I have not always been in pain, but it looks as if I will be in some form of pain from here on out. That’s not to say that I am negative or have lost hope for cures or treatments, but rather that I am attempting to come to terms with it, to recenter my life around my own experience.
En is het ook niet zo dat al die auto-immuunziektes erop wijzen dat de wereld als geheel er bepaald niet gezonder op wordt?
Chronic pain technically has no positive utility for the individual body, but I believe this pain has meaning for the larger body politic, the community. The causes of autoimmune syndromes have not yet been knit together, but the alarm addresses our toxic world, reacting to the stress doled out to the bodies of women and children in particular, the way we carry and echo inflammation, the violence within and beyond families and economies. Our silent pains are the stretch marks on physical bodies stretched beyond their carrying capacity.
Waar ze ook een hekel aan heeft is mensen die maar te pas en te onpas overal Dankbaar voor zijn.
What we hear as God might be the shadow of America that asks us to smile and wave as our personal ships go down. Het enige waar ze dankbaar voor is (en ik net zo) is dit: I am grateful to be alive and to have a brain that makes meaning after meaning after meaning.
Ze komt erachter dat creatief bezig zijn (in haar geval schrijven) helpt om zich tijdelijk los te maken van de pijn. Ze was bang dat ze niet zo goed en helder meer zou kunnen schrijven, omdat pijn ook je cognitieve vermogens aantast, tot ze erachter kwam dat blogposts die ze met pijn schreef, juist veel meer reacties kregen. Het voelt als schrijven met een macrolens in plaats van een groothoek.
Al met al is het een inspirerend en waardevol boek dat ik hier het liefst in z'n geheel wil citeren. In elk geval zullen er nog heel wat zinnen hun weg vinden naar kunstwerken. Wat Huber zelf veel mooier verwoordt: Because my pain has no external expression other than a few gently twisting knuckles, it depends upon me for expression and metaphor. In fact, if I don’t feed it metaphor on a daily basis, my pain devours me.
October 20, 2020
A collection of essays on chronic illness and pain from someone I share a diagnosis with. These essays really distill down what it is to live with pain, and I found some of her takes on pain really beautifully written - the idea of pain as a separate organism that shares your body and isn't actually trying to hurt you was gorgeous.
If I had one issue with the book, it's that because these essays were first published in other places, at times they can feel a little repetitive when read in one sitting; certain ideas and phrases reoccur, which wouldn't be a problem when spread out in a variety of publications, but are more glaring when condensed into one book. At the same time, the repetition brings to mind the monotony of pain itself - the same thing, day in, day out. With that mindset, the repetition didn't bother me.
If I had one issue with the book, it's that because these essays were first published in other places, at times they can feel a little repetitive when read in one sitting; certain ideas and phrases reoccur, which wouldn't be a problem when spread out in a variety of publications, but are more glaring when condensed into one book. At the same time, the repetition brings to mind the monotony of pain itself - the same thing, day in, day out. With that mindset, the repetition didn't bother me.
August 20, 2023
czułam się cudownie zrozumiana przez tę książkę i polecam ją każdej osobie żyjącej z chronicznym bólem, bo w społeczeństwie tak skupionym na całkowicie sprawnym, zdrowym ciele jako jedynej opcji można zapomnieć, że to nie jest standard dla wszystkich ciał i pomyśleć, że to z nami jest coś nie tak, że nie jedliśmy wystarczająco zdrowo, nie robiliśmy wystarczająco często yogi, za bardzo stresujemy się pracą i dlatego nasze ciała są nieposłuszne i nie są takie, jak te "normalne", a może tylko nam się wydaję, że coś jest nie tak, bo przecież każdego coś czasami boli i może przesadzamy. autorka w esejach porusza wiele aspektów życia z przewlekłym bólem od pracy, rodziny, życia seksualnego, braku zrozumienia przez społeczeństwo, wstydu związanego z mówieniem/pisaniem o swojej chorobie po wizyty lekarskie i niestety częstą niekompetencję lekarzy w leczeniu chorób przewlekłych.
January 27, 2024
It's hard to put into words how profoundly this collection resonated with me. I have never read any text about chronic illness that made me feel as seen and understood as Sonya Huber did from the very first essay. I wanted to underline nearly every page in the book. Huber portrays the experience of chronic pain so authentically: the fluctuations that track changes in barometric pressure, the frustrations with the one-to-ten pain scale, the self-flagellating shame about one's productivity. She explores a fascinating range of styles in these essays, from the more straightforwardly memoiristic to the experimental. The way she describes illness and creates metaphors for pain is so poetic. My favorite essay was "The Cough Drop and the Puzzle of Modernity." I will be thinking about this book for a long, long time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 85 reviews