If you’re chronically ill and open about it—your experience and your feelings—and other people find that depressing, annoying, boring, or whatever else we fear, that is the epitome of a them-problem. They are, for whatever reasons of their own, unable to sit w the discomfort of your difficult experience. Maybe they can’t handle the possibility that illness could happen to them, or the specter of death, or the gnawing guilt over the way our society discards the sick, or the fact that they can’t fix you or any of it. Normal as those responses may be under the circumstances, they’re theirs to sit with, to process, and to work out. They don’t belong on your side of the proverbial emotional fence. You’re allowed to tell the truth.
Growing up my parents taught me that if you’re too sick to [insert responsibility here] then you’re too sick to [insert something that makes you happy here].
It took me a really long time to unlearn this. When I would get sick or have a “bad day” I would deprive myself of anything that made me happy. Watching movies, eating something I enjoyed, going for a walk, playing video games or just browsing online looking at funny cat videos. I wouldn’t let myself do these things because I was always told that if I’m too sick to go to work, or do homework, or go to school then I must be too sick to play Mortal Kombat or watch Unsolved Mysteries lol.
Whenever I wouldn’t feel good, which I later learned as an adult was due to sleep deprivation caused by my ADHD and depression (and of course the depression itself would cause me to feel like shit), my parents would tell me “if you’re not throwing up, then you’re not sick.” And when I would stay home from school (or even work in my later teen years) my parents would make sure that I didn’t have any “fun.” No TV, no movies, no games, no going outside, no arts and crafts, no books, no nothing. Just lay in bed and feel miserable.
I’m happy to say that I no longer do this to myself. Now when I’m having a bad day or I’m sick (cold, flu or whatever) I allow myself to do the things (within reason lol) that I actually love doing. If I’m not too sick to step outside for a few minutes then I’ll go for a walk. I’ll watch my favorite movies and if it’s a bad day or a cold (something that doesn’t hinder my appetite too much) I’ll eat my favorite foods. I don’t guilt trip myself anymore for having a “sick day.”
Just because you’re sick (whether physically, emotionally or mentally) doesn’t mean that you can’t do things you enjoy. You’re not any less sick because you watch TV. You’re not any less sick because you’re playing video games.
Actually you SHOULD be doing these things when you’re not feeling good because they make you feel better. The better you feel, the faster your heal.
Yeah, those rules are useful for when parents aren’t sure a little kid is actually sick, or just pretending; malingerers will generally go, “Okay yes, I would rather spend the day at school than be super bored.” And when they go to school everything’s fine.
But we’re grownups now! You’re the boss of yourself! And if you know that you’re actually sick, that if you went to work you’d be miserable and unwell, then you pass the test those rules were supposed to be.
At which point: Take care of yourself and cheer and comfort the sick as much as possible.
I don’t have access to photoshop right now so had a friend make this because it’s a big chronic illness mood
Reminded again by this post, as an adult I am impressed in some different ways by the fact that when I had some horrific GI symptoms as a kid? The go-to explanation was always “stress from school”.
(It really was a pretty stressful experience, what with the bullying and all. The main thing causing those problems was unrecognized celiac, however.)
I mean, doctors were taking it as a given that the educational system is regularly stressful enough for kids that they will develop things like frequent otherwise unexplained vomiting and explosive cases of the runs in response. (Plus migraines, and you name it.) Whether it’s “just” from the direct physical effects of stress, or some weird psychosomatic ploy to try to avoid a stressful environment, and/or best attributed to mental health problems brought on/aggravated by school stress.
This evidently seemed totally reasonable, to the point of being the default assumption whenever they encountered a school-aged kid dealing with health problems which they couldn’t immediately figure out. (Then no further investigation required…)
This seems disturbing enough, on its own.
What really gets me, though, as an adult? The answer to this was never once “Gee, if this stressful environment is making children sick, maybe we should figure out how to change the situation to be less stressful!” Or even trying to make some changes to take pressure off the individual kid who is barfing in their office here and now. No, they apparently need to just get over it, if they are not actively milking it to avoid going to school like they should be doing.
Of course, I understand a lot more about institutions now. It’s still seriously messed up, how accepted and enabled some of the harm coming out of bad ones can be.
+ Chronic pain too. I talked about this a bit when I did my podcast interview. How my brain starts over-analyzing all the steps. And you don’t think about it but it really is that many steps you just don’t have to take that into consideration when your body and mind work like they should.
The TL;DR is that this is why I sometimes “forget” to eat. Food has just become rather low on the hierarchy of needs.
Well said, with the hierarchy of needs observation. And a lot of people who haven’t experienced this just don’t understand how that’s possible.
That can also make for a great combo deal: seriously limited energy/ability, on top of existing executive function problems and tendencies to get stuck.
(Including limited energy to put toward working around it, but yeah.)
That said, at least IME this example sounds more like a straightforward executive function thing than the getting stuck kind of inertia. Chronic illness/pain can really complicate both.
parents not believing their disabled child is actually disabled and forcing them to go beyond their limits is abuse.
parents calling their disabled kid a burden or a problem to them is abuse
parents using the disabled kids story to their advantage and making it more about themselves is abuse.
stop excusing abuse just because the victim is disabled.
Dude I totally needed to hear this. My mom HAS chronic health issues but for the longest time, denied anything was wrong with me. She’d tell me I was making it up to get out of school or doing chores, that I was lazy, that I should write a book of excuses, etc. Even after being diagnosed, she still expects more from me than my body is capable of doing. Because SHE was able to power through it when she was young, I should also be able to power through it is the way she looks at it.
Im so sorry you have to go through that, it isbt fair and no persons experience w illness is the same. You are your own person with your own personal struggles w illness. Fuck her.
Youre doing the best you can, keep going. I believe in you.
Refusing to allow their child to do things the child is capable of (or could do with assistance) is also potentially abusive.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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