"One pain is less'ned by another's anguish"

So says Mr. William Shakespeare in his iconic Romeo and Juliet.

Schadenfreude is defined as pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. I was not made aware that such a term existed until I became familiar with the Broadway musical Avenue Q. Listening to those lyrics makes it very clear that schadenfreude is something I experience in my every day life. Coming to this realization led me to another one.

I live with unexplained chronic headache pain. For the past five years, my family has been fighting alongside me to try to get some answers and relief. While I suffer from my debilitating pain I am not able to go to school, work more than 12 hours a week, participate in a social life or do anything but sit on my couch with morphine coursing through my veins. Despite how depressing this may sound, I have been able to find enough joy in my life and enough humor in my situation to keep my mother and I giggling in the waiting rooms of doctors' offices.

I love spreading joy. I do not love being in pain. And then I remembered schadenfreude.

The point of this blog will be for me to have an opportunity to vent some of my daily frustrations, share some of my joys and to, hopefully, allow someone, somewhere to gain a sense of pleasure in the fact that they are not experiencing my pain.