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It's not just him, or even the particularly powerful, of course. This attitude to illness is so widespread and so damaging. https://twitter.com/Sisyphusa/status/1247457266980343808
I always remember this advert for Beecham's that infuriated me at least 20 years ago. There was a young besuited man in a workplace full of other (horrible) suited men. He was eager to make a good impression, but shock horror, he was ILL!
An older horrible suited man gave him Beecham's (or, I don't know, told him to go out and buy it because handouts are for losers) and said "This sorts the men from the boys."
This annoyed me on multiple levels.
1) It was stupidly sexist
2) It made no sense on its own terms! If you're GOING to be a macho dickhead about your ability to keep working when ill, then it's the illness, not the remedy that sorts the men from the boys!
1) It was stupidly sexist
2) It made no sense on its own terms! If you're GOING to be a macho dickhead about your ability to keep working when ill, then it's the illness, not the remedy that sorts the men from the boys!
If the remedy makes you feel BETTER then it's no particular indication of manliness to keep going! If it doesn't, then what's it for!
3) That's a stupid way to think about illness!
3) That's a stupid way to think about illness!
But that is how we're encouraged to think about illness.
My mum used to be one of those people who would only stay home from work if she couldn't stand up. She wouldn't bully or shame us if WE were ill, but that's still what she modelled.
My mum used to be one of those people who would only stay home from work if she couldn't stand up. She wouldn't bully or shame us if WE were ill, but that's still what she modelled.
In fact, I guess, seeing as she'd been a sickly kid herself, she was fairly easygoing about children staying home when unwell. But I think she had this sort of idea that when you grow UP and you go to WORK you have to make up for it by running yourself into the ground.
And there's this sort of underlying idea that the illness would actually GO AWAY if you ignored it hard enough. That you would actually recover faster by denying yourself the rest you needed.
So, I was never quite as hardcore about it as she was, and fortunately I was mostly writing at home anyway rather than dragging myself into an office to infect my luckless coworkers with whatever bug I had anyway, but I did semi-believe that for years.
Then one day, I got flu. Real flu. And that flu's the reason I've been yelling ARE YOU INSANE at the "just a flu" crowd because even if it WAS...
The flu itself lasted about 2 weeks. I didn't fully recover for 5 months.
The flu itself lasted about 2 weeks. I didn't fully recover for 5 months.
At first it seemed like just a 24 hour bug. And I seemed to be over it, if still wrung out. And my mum, who to this day blames herself, encouraged me to push through and get on a goddamn plane because we were going on holiday!
(I'm so sorry. This was 10 years ago!)
(I'm so sorry. This was 10 years ago!)
This meant getting up early and lots of travel and was an absolutely terrible idea, which rapidly became apparent. Not that I entirely got the hint. For days I could barely move, but then, quite suddenly I seemed again to get better.
I didn't do anything dramatically stupid. Just put some music on and danced a little. Went outside to explore the town I'd come all this way to see for an hour or so.
After an hour in the cold air I could already feel I'd made the wrong decision.
After an hour in the cold air I could already feel I'd made the wrong decision.
I started throwing up again and this time it didn't stop. And there's a thing where vomiting dehydrates you and dehydration, cruelly, makes you nauseous. I got into that cycle hard.
I couldn't even keep down water.
I couldn't even keep down water.
That was the point where I got scared, because I wasn't getting better and it was suddenly apparent that by myself I *couldn't*. I wasn't inches from death, but unless someone DID something there was really nothing to stop me getting worse and worse until I was.
My parents tried to call the owner of the holiday flat to ask for advice. They thought they'd got a doctor coming. What turned up was an ambulance. They automatically went into "Oh fuck, sorry, she's not that ill, no, go away mode."
I'm like "... put me in the ambulance."
I'm like "... put me in the ambulance."
They put me on a drip. That was all I needed! By the time I actually got to the hospital I was already noticeably better. After an hour on a drip IN the hospital I was like "Holy crap, why do people bother with heroin when there's INTRAVENOUS WATER."
I was out within an hour and a half! And yet if I'd been unable to get that simple treatment I do wonder if I'd be here. And Incidentally - you know where all this was happening? Italy. And the south of Italy at that. I will always be grateful to the Italian healthcare system.
So after that I did start to recover properly, and while I was doing so I reread Sense and Sensibility. You know, the one where Marianne gets a mild cold and "imprudently" wanders around in the wet grass and then sits around with cold wet feet, which nearly kills her.
You know, which these days we're encouraged to laugh at. Silly Jane Austen, getting wet doesn't cause illness! Silly delicate 19th Century heroines, they sure couldn't hack the cut and thrust of an office dedicated to sorting the men in suits from the boys!
Silly Marianne, if she'd just toughed it out then ...
...except that's exactly what she DID do. She DOES try to be macho. She bullshits that's she's not really ill, or if she is will definitely be fine tomorrow, and has to be bullied to even try any remedies.
...except that's exactly what she DID do. She DOES try to be macho. She bullshits that's she's not really ill, or if she is will definitely be fine tomorrow, and has to be bullied to even try any remedies.
Which is NOT PRUDENT.
I was painfully aware that Jane Austen would not think I had been prudent with my own illness. That in fact, I had almost NEVER been prudent.
And I thought, Jane Austen's right. She's right about everything. We should just do as she says, always.
I was painfully aware that Jane Austen would not think I had been prudent with my own illness. That in fact, I had almost NEVER been prudent.
And I thought, Jane Austen's right. She's right about everything. We should just do as she says, always.
And if there was any risk of my forgetting that lesson, well ... as I say, even when I was over the flu itself, I wasn't back to normal. I had ME-like symptoms for five months. I feel profoundly lucky they did, eventually, go away. For a while it looked like they wouldn't.
And you know. I was 29/30. I had no underlying health conditions. And yet.
So after that, when I was even a little ill, I tried to play by Jane Austen rules.
KEEP WARM! REST! GO TO BED, PREFERABLY!
So after that, when I was even a little ill, I tried to play by Jane Austen rules.
KEEP WARM! REST! GO TO BED, PREFERABLY!
I DON'T CARE IF YOU THINK YOU CAN STILL DO THE THING! I DON'T CARE IF CAPITALISM WANTS YOU TO DO THING!
DON'T!! DO!! THE THING!!!
LIE DOWN!!
YOU IMPRUDENT IDIOT.
DON'T!! DO!! THE THING!!!
LIE DOWN!!
YOU IMPRUDENT IDIOT.
"But maybe a little exercise now would actually help to --"
NO!!!
Get another blanket and shut up.
NO!!!
Get another blanket and shut up.
And lo and behold it turns out that even a cold treated this way lasts about half the time a cold treated "normally" does.
Normally.
Our normal is to harm ourselves and endanger others.
It's ... imprudent.
Normally.
Our normal is to harm ourselves and endanger others.
It's ... imprudent.
Like many people who've had bad flu, I get irritated with people who describe a bad cold as flu. and yet at the same time, I get it. Because a bad cold is actually horrible! It deserves rest and kindness!
But our culture has this ingrained idea that a cold should be NOTHING! It should be an opportunity to "sort the men from the boys"! So it makes sense that people who KNOW they need rest are tempted to label their illness something that still evokes a little more consideration.
And like the Beecham's ad, this attitude doesn't make sense even in its own terms. Even if a human being's only value was to work and make money, they can't DO that as well if they - and all the colleagues they needlessly infect - are sicker for longer.
Because on some level capitalism is the breeding ground for this attitude, the surface on which its germs linger, the water supply spreading it through our civilisation, but it's not the actual thing itself.
On some level, it's a not about money, it's a stew of puritanism and toxic masculinity and suffering for suffering's sake and denial and terror.
I'm sure the boarding school system has as much to do with it as the demands of the bottom line. Lying down with a warm blanket when you're ill is something a GIRL, a weepy fainty frilly girl in a Jane Austen novel - would do. You know what we do to boys who act like THAT.
And perversely, Marianne IS overemotional and histrionic! She IS illogical! Which DOES make her fragile! - because it means she lacks the hard-headed commonsense to take her illness seriously. Her irrational feelings won't let her see reality when it's staring her in the face.
If there were any logic to the kind of culture Johnson represents, illness wouldn't be "for weak people". Pigheadedly refusing to take care of yourself because you're terrified of even briefly facing your own mortality would be for weak people.
Childishly believing a scary thing goes away if you ignore it would be for weak people. Selfishly endangering others because any departure from normal routine throws you into panic would be for weak people.
Strong people, resilient people, PRUDENT people, would be the ones who admit that a problem exists and act swiftly to solve it before it gets worse.
Which means lying the fuck down when you're sick.
And not fucking "taking it on the chin" when there's a pandemic.
Which means lying the fuck down when you're sick.
And not fucking "taking it on the chin" when there's a pandemic.
I am pleased to say that I converted my mother to the idea of Jane Austen Rules. She too has been amazed to discover that it turns out, if you take care of yourself, you get better faster! If I can do the same for you, that would be something.
When you're ill - with anything, anything at all - ask yourself if Jane Austen would approve of your behaviour, and if she wouldn't, change it. Keep warm. Stay hydrated. Rest. This sorts the [non gendered negative] from the [non gendered positive.]
Be prudent out there.
Be prudent out there.
