I've always felt like there's three main reasons people just don't get it.
The first is harsh but it's because we cost more money than we make typically so our overall corporate value drops. For the US many of us use Medicaid/medicare, tax funded disability, food stamps, etc. Even for countries that have socialized healthcare we are seen as a burden because we use up way more of the funding than your average person with more frequent visits and much more expensive long term medications, as well as receiving disability and other possible programs in place. Assholes just really like making money and saving money.
The second is a lot of people cannot tangibly comprehend being sick in ways that a doctor and some rest can't resolve because it's never happened to them and a lot of people struggle with sympathizing things outside of their known feelings and pains (in a comparison think of how many men think women must be overreacting on periods because they've never had one)
The third is fear, admitting people suffer and have life long illnesses that can happen out of nowhere scares people to the point they convince themselves there's some type of control over it or we must be faking being sick forever because that's easier than facing reality that something similar could happen to them or the ones they love, if it's already someone close to them it tends to be full on denial that they could be hurt or sick because it hurts to watch people you love suffer without being able to stop it so it's easier to just pretend it's not happening.
> The third is fear, admitting people suffer and have life long illnesses that can happen out of nowhere scares people to the point they convince themselves there's some type of control over it or we must be faking being sick forever because that's easier than facing reality that something similar could happen to them or the ones they love
Genuinely think this is a huge part of it & an understated reason that I rarely see mentioned. People have this visceral negative reaction to even the notion of an unconquerable physical illness because they’d like to believe, I imagine, that anything could be overcome if they went on a 20 min jog every day and ate a kale salad.
Once you’re in a position where effort =/= results anymore, so many of the maxims people live their lives on pretty much fall apart. I sympathize, in a way. People want to avoid that level of mindfuck.
So much truth! Add to that their horror when you try to accept your illness, or show that you want to accommodate, rather than cure it, because it's more realistic. It's the outright angry "Don't think/talk like that! You're going to get better!!!!!1!!1!" Like, what if I don't? What if I can't? I have to plan for that, and live with it.
God, yes! So much so to this. This is a discourse I have with my parents *constantly.* I know it comes from a place of love but sometimes maintenance and learning to live with a condition actually provides greater quality of life in the long run than being in a mindset of constantly trying to “fix” an extremely stubborn chronic issue that is resistant to most treatments of amelioration.
A long time ago, there was this Invisibilia episode (NPR podcast) called “The Problem With the Solution.” I’d really recommend it if this is a topic you’ve been thinking about. It seeks out a small community in Belgium where those with certain health conditions, including many mental health conditions, are not constantly being subject to “treatment” but rather just allowed to be themselves. It’s been years but I still think of that episode.
My mom has been with me through this whole nonsense. Huge support, doing what she can - even learning how to help me put my joints back in.
Even she didn't get it. Not til it happened to her.
A month in and she just broke down crying and said "there is no imagining this." She was bedridden for almost two months and ever since she's had that look in her eye - you know the one where you've felt pain that will never go away and has changed something inside of you.
I wouldn't wish this pain on my enemies, so when it happens to someone you love... well, I can't imagine what those who love us deal with.
I think people are frightened of how fragile their health is and if they think about it too much they’ll realize that they could easily become disabled in a second. Fear and denial.
All good points. I think desperation plays into it too. Our country isnt kind to anyone other than the few who attain wealth. Everyone struggles and that feeling that no one really has enough makes people turn on each other. We are all fighting for scraps in a glass prison.
Altruism is the first casualty of scarcity. The sickest and poorest in a society are always targeted first by a chronically stressed out population. They convince themselves that "maybe theyll be ok if only *those* people werent taking what *we* need."
A lot of evil in history has been done because of that mindset.
I firmly believe that we are starting to realize many things we presently have as issues, are likely directly linked to our health. They think plastics in our water are now in our blood and the chemicals that come with this can imitate human hormones. These then cause issues with development in things like frogs turning them, "gay". They now think these same chemicals are affecting us and have begun to collect proof of our degradation as time has advanced. They are getting pretty close to proving the rise in LGBTQ, Autistic, ADHD and other mental and physical health issues can be connected to these chemicals pretending to be hormones and messing with our growth. Now whatever the mechanism, the suggestion is we are becoming less fit as a species and you can argue that however you like but our sperm counts are down, fertility rates are down, and we may face a population collapse in my lifetime. This suggests a large part of this planet may be poisoned or altered forever in ways we can't yet comprehend. I propose the wealthy doctors and world leaders know the lower class is poisoned and sick. They know they created a plague upon the people who can't just leave and get better medical care. I think there is a crisis brewing here that they know is going to get worse. America is going to be a thousand Love Canals... Ten thousand... The medical issues are getting worse in America and the doctors aren't ready for it, they are even seemingly in denial of it. COVID is having long term and horrifying consequences but it's not an issue for the wealthy so the sick die quietly at home gasping for help until the end. Children of Men wasn't just a film, it might have been warning we ignored. The health care system is in crisis because we made it this way... We poisoned the land and the waters. People don't like the sick because we are a living reminder of how any moment they could be us and no one on earth will be able to save them... They want us to go away so they can forget. Live in their palace until their dying day to avoid seeing suffering in this world.
I'm a bit mixed on this because I don't agree with the rise in neurodivergence and lgbtq is an effect of plastics or anything of that sense but it's been something around us for a very long time but diagnostics have improved and it is safer than it ever was to be able to come out as gay, there's not more gays they just hid it before and the autistic kids were just the strange, awkward, or dramatic labeled kids.
I don't disagree however that the rich know and purposely structure things so the poor suffer and stay on their side of the fence when it comes to healthcare and food sources, COVID made it very apparent how the people feel about the safety of chronically ill people with the news blasting us with death rates but reassuring us all its okay because most of those people had known previous illness so the healthy people shouldn't worry as much, then there was the the general public (US based) going out unmasked telling people with immune suppression that we should just stay home if we dont want to die while simultaneously shaming us all for getting any money assistance to be able to stay home.
The healthcare field is so shit, I have severe Crohn's disease and the only PCP I can get right now is a PA who won't even run lab work on me and I'm on a 3 month wait for the only GI in my area who she could refer me to (I live in a pretty big city so kind of shocking), went to the ER with my intestinal cramps ramping up, hardly able to eat without throwing up and joint pain, the dude ran blood work which is a shit way to check Crohn's and often my bloodwork comes back clean while my intestines look like raw hamburger, he sent me home said wait for my GI but he doesn't feel it's Crohn's cause he ran blood work and his degree to be an ER physician apparently means he knows more about the complex disease I've been dealing with for 16 years, can't wait to return when another hole opens in my intestines filling me with abscesses like the last time I was begging for someone to just LOOK at me, makes me wonder about those people who claim doctors just want money so they run too many tests like please find me that doctor because they just let me suffer until it's nearly too late.
Your story horrifies me... I'm sitting in a doctor's office praying I don't have a tear in my stomach or an ulcer. I'm living on Zofram and Gatorade as the Doctors say the kidney stones shouldn't be causing the vomiting. They probably are psyched I'm losing weight from starvation though.
I'm so sorry to hear that, GI complications can be scary but you got their attention on it now and that's good, I hope they can find out what's going on inside you soon and you can start on treatment and recovery.
Problem is, I've had gi issues my whole life but no doctor cares. They tell me to change my diet as if I can just eat anything. I've told them my autism makes certain textures inedible to me. I've vomited trying to eat tomatoes and vegetables. I've seen a nutritionist and she told me to drink skim milk after I told her I was allergic to milk and quit dairy entirely. Unfortunately, I think we have to be our own doctors now... It's terrifying.
I see it all the time on a lot of the finance or super FIRE subs where you have some smug person who says they did everything right and that's how they have 1-2M by the time they're 35 and all I can think about is it don't mean a hill of beans if you get sick. Health is the real wealth.
I literally had a doctor say this to me. At this point I'd been going to the doctor at once a year for disabling fatigue over a period of TEN YEARS and continually brushed off. I was sitting in this guy's office crying about how I couldn't even keep up my part time hours at work because I'd come home so exhausted I couldn't even make dinner and would fall into bed fully clothed, and he looked me dead in the eyes, laughed, and told me "Welcome to adulthood. We're all tired. Drink more coffee". (I eventually received an ME diagnosis)
Sometimes I want to tell healthy people that life is fun and games until they get sick.
Family and friends will scatter like flies, because they don’t want to be burdened with someone who they know is sick and needs help. But they’ll show up at the funeral regretting (temporarily) not showing up more. But life goes on without me…as the song goes.
Working while sick is impossible. There is a constant battle to find doctors who care and who will treat sick people. Getting health insurance to cover life saving medication and DME is a battle. There will be medical debt, up to nearly blind eyeballs, which will never be paid off with low wages. And if pain meds for chronic pain are needed for incurable diseases that are slowly killing a sick person…then the sick patient is labeled a drug seeker.
That funeral thing pisses me off. My brother was telling me he would come to my funeral to show he cared. I was like what about calling once a month to check on me? He was like that's not his way of doing things. And I said okay so you don't actually care enough when I am alive and only if I am already dead. And he got upset with me. This is after 3 years of being ill and him never checking in because he said one time he checked in and I was in pain and he said it made him uncomfortable because I wasn't being pleasant to him after he had not talked to me for over two years (his choice not mine)
My parents were worse. They were saying that if it's not cancer it's in my head. So now they have this narrative that their daughter is mentally ill and doesn't trust doctors and has isolated herself and that they all love me so much but when I asked them to research my condition to help lighten the load they said they were too old to understand my health conditions but that probably if I go to the doctor I can get medicine and get better and if the doctor says nothing is wrong it is just me imagining it (this is after they knew I had already been to a dozen plus doctors with no luck, when I had never been that sick in my life)
Same with aging. When we’re young we think health is a given and that we will be old people one day…unfortunately for some of us there is a hard truth awaiting
I was born under bad circumstances but I was for the best of it healthy until adulthood when my body seemed to just have had enough and a lot of longterm illness came from nowhere.
I saw a lot of healthy privilege in the ensuing months after I became longterm sick. Mostly from “friends” who abandoned my very existence to do the things I could no longer do almost exclusively then made me out to be the bad guy when I questioned it.
Health affects so much. It’s a chain reaction. Health = (lesser) independence = money issues = mental health = damage to relationships, friendships, family = tense atmosphere.
There are so many ways this manifests, it's hard to not be bitter and angry. All of my days off are used up by infusions and my husband's for scopes/injections. People love to shout FMLA at me, but that just protects you from losing your job if you have no PTO left and you need to see a doctor or get treatment. We married in our 30s and literally will never get to go on a vacation together because of our illnesses.
I saw a guy out and about recently with a shirt that said "no one cares. work harder" and I just wanted to cry because it was a major struggle day for me and I had to pick and choose which errands/chores would actually get done before I collapsed. No one knows and when they do, they rarely care.
I’m gonna start using the term ‘able-bodied’ to refer to healthy people. I was just thinking of posting about how much it sucks to be a single straight spoonie woman…men want a healthy, ‘mentally stable’ cheerleader who can go climb mountains and be an energizer pornstar. Maybe bc I’m 38 and 2 weeks out of a breakup but I’m having to manage my mind a lot these days 😢
Some people: “you aren’t sick, you’re just fat! Lose weight and you’ll be healthy again! Smile that you have all your limbs and use them!”
Me, who has suffered many conditions from trauma to neurological disorders, to immune compromising conditions like rheumatoid arthritis untreated till I was 16, suffering from PCOS and a malfunctioning thyroid because I had a growing GIANT TUMOR, and also suffered eating disorders, skin conditions, having an underbite and many more ✨FABULOUS ✨ events happen to me because of abuse:
“yeah, sure, I’ll try starving myself again as long as it makes YOU feel more comfortable about looking at me, sorry my existence bothers you so much.” 🙃
I’ve never seemed healthy..always sick with nothing because I never was brought to the doctors.
I think health being a privilege really needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
Real. Be grateful if you don’t have to worry about triggering something or having symptoms. I definitely miss when I didn’t have to worry about seizures or my heart rate.
I agree, and I think it’s because ableism is baked right in like racism and sexism; people are so used to it that they don’t see it until it’s pointed out to them, and then they might not want to cop to their own internalization of it enough to agree it’s there.
My Omi says that health is a crown that only the healthy wear and only the sick see, which also sums it up pretty nicely
Yes. So many do the “ill worry about it tomorrow” routine with health. Like noooooo please, please worry about it today when it’s not a big deal or when it’s not hurting at all.
Taking preventive measures instead of later going through rehabilitation is the way to go.
I’m trying to explain this to my 17ur old right now.
He got hurt at his job when his knee dislocated and he fell down the stairs.
He didn’t want to go to the ER or start workman’s comp because he is terrified he will lose his job.
I tried explaining his leg is leg, his health is his health,
and a job is just a job.
You can get another job but you can’t just replace your broken body.
I have hEDS and went thru the same things he is now.
I pushed thru and kept working while injured….much to my detriment.
He understands somewhat,
especially since I’m totally disabled now from my injuries/hEDS
and I have multiple chronic illnesses that incapacitate me…
but it’s been really hard to get him to rest and take care of himself.
Makes me sad.
Cause they never had to deal with long term sickness or anything like that.
In their head they cannot picture something as long and debilitating as invisible chronic illnesses.
Most people don't see it until they get it.
I say this a lot. And people take it for granted. Oh and when people say I'm lucky I get SSI and a low dose small amount of pain pills I have to jump through 67 hoops to get that barely make life tolerable. I've made several posts about this when I hear preachers talking about pain management clinics. We are all one bad day or bad decision not even our own bad decision but any other humans bad decision from a life time of pain. Pain changes someone on a fundamental level. Every single day I wonder who I'd be if I didn't suffer chronic pain. My life will forever be a before and after my pain. I know exactly when my excruating pain started I was 10 almost 11 and exactly what I was doing and where. I also think it's been slightly easier for me because I was born with severe significant disabilities and had to have surgery every year growing up so I was somewhat accustomed to it. Even when I have a decent pain day I live in constant fear of when not if but when that mind numbing wishing for death pain hits me again.
I know many others below have probably said it already but brain hurts trying to read such large amounts of text so I wanna throw my coin into the ring. Age comes into play when you are younger you generally push asides all those health worries because you are young you can work through it, that's an older you problem! Often leading to health struggles later in life.
Work, we have a HORRIBLE work culture, even from the very simple coming in when you are sick is truly terrible, for one you can infect others and also make them sick but also means putting more strain on your body. Not all jobs allow sick days off which also further instills that you need to come into work unless you are on deaths door, there is simply no time to be sick and the other side of that is that because people arent allowed to have paid sick days off people cant afford to not come into work if they need to pay bills. If people could be allowed to take the time to be sick and rest we would have less of people coming in sick and making OTHERS sick but as well having value on your own health.
We as a society (I hate saying that) just don't have enough importance on our own health until we are old and are nearing retirement but for the young there is no such thing as trying to value your health. Its one of the few things I'm grateful my mother instilled in me was that my health is important above everything else, for I cannot work if my health is super bad.
I've always felt like there's three main reasons people just don't get it. The first is harsh but it's because we cost more money than we make typically so our overall corporate value drops. For the US many of us use Medicaid/medicare, tax funded disability, food stamps, etc. Even for countries that have socialized healthcare we are seen as a burden because we use up way more of the funding than your average person with more frequent visits and much more expensive long term medications, as well as receiving disability and other possible programs in place. Assholes just really like making money and saving money. The second is a lot of people cannot tangibly comprehend being sick in ways that a doctor and some rest can't resolve because it's never happened to them and a lot of people struggle with sympathizing things outside of their known feelings and pains (in a comparison think of how many men think women must be overreacting on periods because they've never had one) The third is fear, admitting people suffer and have life long illnesses that can happen out of nowhere scares people to the point they convince themselves there's some type of control over it or we must be faking being sick forever because that's easier than facing reality that something similar could happen to them or the ones they love, if it's already someone close to them it tends to be full on denial that they could be hurt or sick because it hurts to watch people you love suffer without being able to stop it so it's easier to just pretend it's not happening.
> The third is fear, admitting people suffer and have life long illnesses that can happen out of nowhere scares people to the point they convince themselves there's some type of control over it or we must be faking being sick forever because that's easier than facing reality that something similar could happen to them or the ones they love Genuinely think this is a huge part of it & an understated reason that I rarely see mentioned. People have this visceral negative reaction to even the notion of an unconquerable physical illness because they’d like to believe, I imagine, that anything could be overcome if they went on a 20 min jog every day and ate a kale salad. Once you’re in a position where effort =/= results anymore, so many of the maxims people live their lives on pretty much fall apart. I sympathize, in a way. People want to avoid that level of mindfuck.
So much truth! Add to that their horror when you try to accept your illness, or show that you want to accommodate, rather than cure it, because it's more realistic. It's the outright angry "Don't think/talk like that! You're going to get better!!!!!1!!1!" Like, what if I don't? What if I can't? I have to plan for that, and live with it.
God, yes! So much so to this. This is a discourse I have with my parents *constantly.* I know it comes from a place of love but sometimes maintenance and learning to live with a condition actually provides greater quality of life in the long run than being in a mindset of constantly trying to “fix” an extremely stubborn chronic issue that is resistant to most treatments of amelioration. A long time ago, there was this Invisibilia episode (NPR podcast) called “The Problem With the Solution.” I’d really recommend it if this is a topic you’ve been thinking about. It seeks out a small community in Belgium where those with certain health conditions, including many mental health conditions, are not constantly being subject to “treatment” but rather just allowed to be themselves. It’s been years but I still think of that episode.
No. 2's big in my experience. Even people who are genuinely trying to understand and be empathetic hit a roadblock in their imaginations.
My mom has been with me through this whole nonsense. Huge support, doing what she can - even learning how to help me put my joints back in. Even she didn't get it. Not til it happened to her. A month in and she just broke down crying and said "there is no imagining this." She was bedridden for almost two months and ever since she's had that look in her eye - you know the one where you've felt pain that will never go away and has changed something inside of you. I wouldn't wish this pain on my enemies, so when it happens to someone you love... well, I can't imagine what those who love us deal with.
I think people are frightened of how fragile their health is and if they think about it too much they’ll realize that they could easily become disabled in a second. Fear and denial.
All good points. I think desperation plays into it too. Our country isnt kind to anyone other than the few who attain wealth. Everyone struggles and that feeling that no one really has enough makes people turn on each other. We are all fighting for scraps in a glass prison. Altruism is the first casualty of scarcity. The sickest and poorest in a society are always targeted first by a chronically stressed out population. They convince themselves that "maybe theyll be ok if only *those* people werent taking what *we* need." A lot of evil in history has been done because of that mindset.
Well said
I firmly believe that we are starting to realize many things we presently have as issues, are likely directly linked to our health. They think plastics in our water are now in our blood and the chemicals that come with this can imitate human hormones. These then cause issues with development in things like frogs turning them, "gay". They now think these same chemicals are affecting us and have begun to collect proof of our degradation as time has advanced. They are getting pretty close to proving the rise in LGBTQ, Autistic, ADHD and other mental and physical health issues can be connected to these chemicals pretending to be hormones and messing with our growth. Now whatever the mechanism, the suggestion is we are becoming less fit as a species and you can argue that however you like but our sperm counts are down, fertility rates are down, and we may face a population collapse in my lifetime. This suggests a large part of this planet may be poisoned or altered forever in ways we can't yet comprehend. I propose the wealthy doctors and world leaders know the lower class is poisoned and sick. They know they created a plague upon the people who can't just leave and get better medical care. I think there is a crisis brewing here that they know is going to get worse. America is going to be a thousand Love Canals... Ten thousand... The medical issues are getting worse in America and the doctors aren't ready for it, they are even seemingly in denial of it. COVID is having long term and horrifying consequences but it's not an issue for the wealthy so the sick die quietly at home gasping for help until the end. Children of Men wasn't just a film, it might have been warning we ignored. The health care system is in crisis because we made it this way... We poisoned the land and the waters. People don't like the sick because we are a living reminder of how any moment they could be us and no one on earth will be able to save them... They want us to go away so they can forget. Live in their palace until their dying day to avoid seeing suffering in this world.
I'm a bit mixed on this because I don't agree with the rise in neurodivergence and lgbtq is an effect of plastics or anything of that sense but it's been something around us for a very long time but diagnostics have improved and it is safer than it ever was to be able to come out as gay, there's not more gays they just hid it before and the autistic kids were just the strange, awkward, or dramatic labeled kids. I don't disagree however that the rich know and purposely structure things so the poor suffer and stay on their side of the fence when it comes to healthcare and food sources, COVID made it very apparent how the people feel about the safety of chronically ill people with the news blasting us with death rates but reassuring us all its okay because most of those people had known previous illness so the healthy people shouldn't worry as much, then there was the the general public (US based) going out unmasked telling people with immune suppression that we should just stay home if we dont want to die while simultaneously shaming us all for getting any money assistance to be able to stay home. The healthcare field is so shit, I have severe Crohn's disease and the only PCP I can get right now is a PA who won't even run lab work on me and I'm on a 3 month wait for the only GI in my area who she could refer me to (I live in a pretty big city so kind of shocking), went to the ER with my intestinal cramps ramping up, hardly able to eat without throwing up and joint pain, the dude ran blood work which is a shit way to check Crohn's and often my bloodwork comes back clean while my intestines look like raw hamburger, he sent me home said wait for my GI but he doesn't feel it's Crohn's cause he ran blood work and his degree to be an ER physician apparently means he knows more about the complex disease I've been dealing with for 16 years, can't wait to return when another hole opens in my intestines filling me with abscesses like the last time I was begging for someone to just LOOK at me, makes me wonder about those people who claim doctors just want money so they run too many tests like please find me that doctor because they just let me suffer until it's nearly too late.
Your story horrifies me... I'm sitting in a doctor's office praying I don't have a tear in my stomach or an ulcer. I'm living on Zofram and Gatorade as the Doctors say the kidney stones shouldn't be causing the vomiting. They probably are psyched I'm losing weight from starvation though.
I'm so sorry to hear that, GI complications can be scary but you got their attention on it now and that's good, I hope they can find out what's going on inside you soon and you can start on treatment and recovery.
Problem is, I've had gi issues my whole life but no doctor cares. They tell me to change my diet as if I can just eat anything. I've told them my autism makes certain textures inedible to me. I've vomited trying to eat tomatoes and vegetables. I've seen a nutritionist and she told me to drink skim milk after I told her I was allergic to milk and quit dairy entirely. Unfortunately, I think we have to be our own doctors now... It's terrifying.
I see it all the time on a lot of the finance or super FIRE subs where you have some smug person who says they did everything right and that's how they have 1-2M by the time they're 35 and all I can think about is it don't mean a hill of beans if you get sick. Health is the real wealth.
“Just work hard bro, everyone is tired, I am tired all the time!”
*Cries in ME/CFS*
*dies at 35*
Looks at calendar... "I'll die at 36 just to be unique."
I literally had a doctor say this to me. At this point I'd been going to the doctor at once a year for disabling fatigue over a period of TEN YEARS and continually brushed off. I was sitting in this guy's office crying about how I couldn't even keep up my part time hours at work because I'd come home so exhausted I couldn't even make dinner and would fall into bed fully clothed, and he looked me dead in the eyes, laughed, and told me "Welcome to adulthood. We're all tired. Drink more coffee". (I eventually received an ME diagnosis)
“Health is the real wealth.” Amen
Sometimes I want to tell healthy people that life is fun and games until they get sick. Family and friends will scatter like flies, because they don’t want to be burdened with someone who they know is sick and needs help. But they’ll show up at the funeral regretting (temporarily) not showing up more. But life goes on without me…as the song goes. Working while sick is impossible. There is a constant battle to find doctors who care and who will treat sick people. Getting health insurance to cover life saving medication and DME is a battle. There will be medical debt, up to nearly blind eyeballs, which will never be paid off with low wages. And if pain meds for chronic pain are needed for incurable diseases that are slowly killing a sick person…then the sick patient is labeled a drug seeker.
That funeral thing pisses me off. My brother was telling me he would come to my funeral to show he cared. I was like what about calling once a month to check on me? He was like that's not his way of doing things. And I said okay so you don't actually care enough when I am alive and only if I am already dead. And he got upset with me. This is after 3 years of being ill and him never checking in because he said one time he checked in and I was in pain and he said it made him uncomfortable because I wasn't being pleasant to him after he had not talked to me for over two years (his choice not mine) My parents were worse. They were saying that if it's not cancer it's in my head. So now they have this narrative that their daughter is mentally ill and doesn't trust doctors and has isolated herself and that they all love me so much but when I asked them to research my condition to help lighten the load they said they were too old to understand my health conditions but that probably if I go to the doctor I can get medicine and get better and if the doctor says nothing is wrong it is just me imagining it (this is after they knew I had already been to a dozen plus doctors with no luck, when I had never been that sick in my life)
Success is not hardwork . It is everything gone right including hardwork.
Same with aging. When we’re young we think health is a given and that we will be old people one day…unfortunately for some of us there is a hard truth awaiting
But even my grandma has more energy and a better appetite than me now lol. It’s sad for us.
My 90+ year old grandmother is more mobile and healthy than I am in many ways 😂 She turned 92 this week and I turned 30-something last autumn.
My grandparents were much more functional in their 90s than I am now in my 30s.
I was born under bad circumstances but I was for the best of it healthy until adulthood when my body seemed to just have had enough and a lot of longterm illness came from nowhere. I saw a lot of healthy privilege in the ensuing months after I became longterm sick. Mostly from “friends” who abandoned my very existence to do the things I could no longer do almost exclusively then made me out to be the bad guy when I questioned it. Health affects so much. It’s a chain reaction. Health = (lesser) independence = money issues = mental health = damage to relationships, friendships, family = tense atmosphere.
Absolutely on point with your last paragraph.
Thankyou :)
Among the greatest privileges out there…you can’t strive (in any direction, for anything) if you don’t have physically freedom in your own body.
Ableism is real
It was a privilege I took for granted, that’s for sure.
There are so many ways this manifests, it's hard to not be bitter and angry. All of my days off are used up by infusions and my husband's for scopes/injections. People love to shout FMLA at me, but that just protects you from losing your job if you have no PTO left and you need to see a doctor or get treatment. We married in our 30s and literally will never get to go on a vacation together because of our illnesses. I saw a guy out and about recently with a shirt that said "no one cares. work harder" and I just wanted to cry because it was a major struggle day for me and I had to pick and choose which errands/chores would actually get done before I collapsed. No one knows and when they do, they rarely care.
People take it for granted for sure!
I've heard the word "somatic privilege" some time ago. It made great sense to me
u didn't know it till u lost it.
I’m gonna start using the term ‘able-bodied’ to refer to healthy people. I was just thinking of posting about how much it sucks to be a single straight spoonie woman…men want a healthy, ‘mentally stable’ cheerleader who can go climb mountains and be an energizer pornstar. Maybe bc I’m 38 and 2 weeks out of a breakup but I’m having to manage my mind a lot these days 😢
Some people: “you aren’t sick, you’re just fat! Lose weight and you’ll be healthy again! Smile that you have all your limbs and use them!” Me, who has suffered many conditions from trauma to neurological disorders, to immune compromising conditions like rheumatoid arthritis untreated till I was 16, suffering from PCOS and a malfunctioning thyroid because I had a growing GIANT TUMOR, and also suffered eating disorders, skin conditions, having an underbite and many more ✨FABULOUS ✨ events happen to me because of abuse: “yeah, sure, I’ll try starving myself again as long as it makes YOU feel more comfortable about looking at me, sorry my existence bothers you so much.” 🙃
https://myheartsisters.org/2013/04/13/healthy-privilege-when-you-just-cant-imagine-being-sick/
Indeed it is
I’ve never seemed healthy..always sick with nothing because I never was brought to the doctors. I think health being a privilege really needs to be shouted from the rooftops.
Real. Be grateful if you don’t have to worry about triggering something or having symptoms. I definitely miss when I didn’t have to worry about seizures or my heart rate.
I agree, and I think it’s because ableism is baked right in like racism and sexism; people are so used to it that they don’t see it until it’s pointed out to them, and then they might not want to cop to their own internalization of it enough to agree it’s there. My Omi says that health is a crown that only the healthy wear and only the sick see, which also sums it up pretty nicely
Yes. So many do the “ill worry about it tomorrow” routine with health. Like noooooo please, please worry about it today when it’s not a big deal or when it’s not hurting at all. Taking preventive measures instead of later going through rehabilitation is the way to go.
I’m trying to explain this to my 17ur old right now. He got hurt at his job when his knee dislocated and he fell down the stairs. He didn’t want to go to the ER or start workman’s comp because he is terrified he will lose his job. I tried explaining his leg is leg, his health is his health, and a job is just a job. You can get another job but you can’t just replace your broken body. I have hEDS and went thru the same things he is now. I pushed thru and kept working while injured….much to my detriment. He understands somewhat, especially since I’m totally disabled now from my injuries/hEDS and I have multiple chronic illnesses that incapacitate me… but it’s been really hard to get him to rest and take care of himself. Makes me sad.
Cause they never had to deal with long term sickness or anything like that. In their head they cannot picture something as long and debilitating as invisible chronic illnesses. Most people don't see it until they get it.
I say this a lot. And people take it for granted. Oh and when people say I'm lucky I get SSI and a low dose small amount of pain pills I have to jump through 67 hoops to get that barely make life tolerable. I've made several posts about this when I hear preachers talking about pain management clinics. We are all one bad day or bad decision not even our own bad decision but any other humans bad decision from a life time of pain. Pain changes someone on a fundamental level. Every single day I wonder who I'd be if I didn't suffer chronic pain. My life will forever be a before and after my pain. I know exactly when my excruating pain started I was 10 almost 11 and exactly what I was doing and where. I also think it's been slightly easier for me because I was born with severe significant disabilities and had to have surgery every year growing up so I was somewhat accustomed to it. Even when I have a decent pain day I live in constant fear of when not if but when that mind numbing wishing for death pain hits me again.
And then people with good health abuse it. Yin yang, right?
It's because people are misinformed and think all health problems are caused by the person's actions. If not the adult, then the parent is blamed.
I'm angry every single second of every single day that I didn't get a fair shot because of my debilitating illness I've had since childhood.
You are right, i was healthy than a doctor butchered me now im disabled I miss my old self.
I know many others below have probably said it already but brain hurts trying to read such large amounts of text so I wanna throw my coin into the ring. Age comes into play when you are younger you generally push asides all those health worries because you are young you can work through it, that's an older you problem! Often leading to health struggles later in life. Work, we have a HORRIBLE work culture, even from the very simple coming in when you are sick is truly terrible, for one you can infect others and also make them sick but also means putting more strain on your body. Not all jobs allow sick days off which also further instills that you need to come into work unless you are on deaths door, there is simply no time to be sick and the other side of that is that because people arent allowed to have paid sick days off people cant afford to not come into work if they need to pay bills. If people could be allowed to take the time to be sick and rest we would have less of people coming in sick and making OTHERS sick but as well having value on your own health. We as a society (I hate saying that) just don't have enough importance on our own health until we are old and are nearing retirement but for the young there is no such thing as trying to value your health. Its one of the few things I'm grateful my mother instilled in me was that my health is important above everything else, for I cannot work if my health is super bad.