Housebound recommendations?

[quility]

Hello friends,

A friend of a friend of mine, who just turned 40, has worsening health and looks like she might have to be housebound for the rest of her life. It sounds like they are doing a great job being supportive of her, but she is understandably struggling with sadness during this adjustment. While this is an understandable and healthy response, I want to give her resources to try to help adjust the stories in her head about not being able to go out to something more positive if possible.

I am looking for recommendations for stories about people who were happy living (almost) entirely inside. Ideally these would be real life biographies or auto-biographies, but I image that fiction could also be helpful.

She is also in a fair amount of pain some of the time.

"The Sessions" and the ending of "Minority Report" are the only things that are currently coming to mind.
I know next to nothing about Emily Dickinson... was she happy in her staying home?

Thank you for any recommendations!

Comments

[pameladean]

Emily Dickinson was fairly reclusive starting in her forties, but she chose to be so, and may have done it partly because she was experiencing an extremely rich creative period, so that being interrupted or interrupting herself was annoying. There is likely more to it than that, but she did partly get to choose her state. Even then she occasionally went out and about, occasioning a great deal of gossip.

During the time she was mostly staying home and writing and rewriting poems, she also carried on a huge correspondence; and was reportedly always willing to talk to the neighborhood children, whom she is said to have greeted with gingerbread and other goodies.

If your friend does have any creative leanings, Emily Dickinson's story might be interesting and comforting, but you know more about your friend than I do.

It's hard to get firm information, since she asked her sister Lavinia to burn her papers. Lavinia missed some letters, and also decided, mercifully, that the poems didn't count as papers to be burned. But information is spotty and often comes from third parties.

P.

[mplsfish]

My mom was almost totally shut in for about 5 years. She got fairly enthusiastic about message boards on topics she was interested in. She had on-line subscriptions as well. New York times is the only one I remember now. She also liked their message boards. Well moderated, she said. Lots of kindle books. But she was reclusive before she became disabled. And she did get out for doctor appointments twice a year and rare other things. She needed a lot of support to make these trips. In the modern world, in the city it would be a lot easier to be housebound than in the boonies or in the past. Amazon was another resource mom used a lot.

Her mother was also really reclusive in her retirement years, and I am leaning that way more every year. Best wishes to your friend. I sympathize with her frustration.

[quility]

Thanks for filling me in on the relevant bits. :)

She’s a friend of a friend so I’m not sure about creative leanings, but I will pass the idea along with that caveat. Much appreciated!

[quility]

Thanks for these ideas. :)

It sure is a challenging situation - but people can be amazingly adaptable, so I am hopefully.

Also - to be clear since I wasn’t - she lives with her husband and children - so she has help… it’s mostly the sadness that I’m hoping to chip away at…

[dreamshark]

Well, there's always Stephen Hawking, assuming you regard his life as inspiring rather than unbearably sad.

[quility]

Hmmm… I think that might be too big of a leap to see as positive from her situation… thankfully. Good idea tho! Thanks :)

[dreamshark]

Yeah, Emily Dickinson is probably a better idea.