Modern people are in love with the idea of being sick

I was scrolling through twitter earlier today when I encountered a twitter thread that claimed that, "modern people are in love with the idea that they are sick". It went on to say people love telling others that they have a physical or mental illness and that it must be the only way that people can feel special. The author clearly had disdain for these hypothetical people, calling them "pathetic". What's worse is that there were hundreds of comments agreeing with this sentiment. This got me wondering, where was all of this coming from and was there any validity to it?

Let's first examine the above statement. Modern people are in love with the idea of being sick. Are they? It's true that we've seen a spike in films and books containing characters that suffer from mental and phyical illnesses where said illness play a key role in the central plot within these stories. It's also true that mental disorders such as depression and axiety have been romanticised in online spaces, such as tumblr, for over a decade. There does seem to be a sort of morbid fascination with suffering. But this fascination is only a fantasy, a fetishisation of sorts. Once it's real, your loved one gets cancer, you're struck with anxiety at the thought of walking to the postbox or you've been unable to shower or care for yourself for over a week, it all becomes quite horrible and the fantasy subsides. I think that's fairly normal and human, to be attracted to something in theory and not in reality. So to answer the question, yes we kind of are in love with the idea of being sick, but we're not really in love with it when it actually happens.

Now let's suppose there are some people in the world that do relish in the idea of having something wrong with them. They might use it to get pity from those around them or use their illness as an excuse for not achieving as much in life as they feel they should. Maybe it actually does make them feel special. The comments on this twitter thread would have you believe that this behaviour is pathetic and disturbing. Some proclaimed that they had chronic illness and boasted about how they didn't let it hold them back or define them. As commendable as that is, however, it's no reason to shame others who may not have been able to do the same. Personally, I feel it's rather extreme to wish chronic illness on oneself just to have an excuse to be lazy, and therefore it's unlikely that this is what's going on in the minds of hypochondriacs. If you think about it,we currently live in this hustle culture where everyone has to work 40+ hours a week and is encouraged to do "side hustles" in order to live up to to the idea that anyone can be the next Steve Jobs if they just work hard enough. That's a hell of a high expectation to be placing upon ourselves, especially when you factor in the pressures of just being a human being, grocery shopping, cleaning, showering, taking care of family, going on dates, seeing friends, etc. It's a lot. Is it any wonder that some people would rather have an illness to blame for not meeting these expectations instead of simply admitting that it's just too much for them.

Further, when we adress the concept that people wish to be ill so that they can recieve attention and pity, this doesn't make sense either. When young people self-harm, the old addage was that they were "just attention seeking" and they'd "grow out of it". What people fail to realise is that their attempts to downplay these serious behaviours disprove their own hypothesis. Healthy people that lack attention do not attempt suicide, self-harm or fake chronic or serious illness. Such behaviour is inherently pathological and indicative of deeper emotional problems, often related to past traumas and personality disorders. Besides, only someone really desperate would aim to recieve pity from others, rather than admiration. Surely those who go to such lengths to recieve just an inkling of human attention actually deserve to be treated with compassion, rather than disdain? Can't we just help meet the social needs of those around us when we recognise they're suffering instead of shaming them and pushing them further away?

Then there are those who genuinely suffer from chronic illnesses. Who are we to say whether their illness is genuinely holding them back in life or not? Everyone has a different lived experience of their illnesses and it's impossible to compare one chronically ill person to another. Two people may suffer from the exact same illnesses but display different symptoms and at different levels of severity. A single young man living at home with helpful parents might be able to do quite well in life and may not be impacted too significantly by his chronic illness, even finding that he's actually able to do a university course part time or work out regularly in spite of it. A divorced woman with three children, a full time job and a house to run may have the exact same chronic illness and find that, under her circumstances, it's absolutely debilitating. However, it would be wrong to say that the young man is more or less courageous that the woman, their lives are not comparable, and we cannot make assumptions about their strength of character based upon their coping abilities under completely different circumstances.

Even now, there may be some readers that still insist that some people do use their illness as an excuse and let it hold them back and to that I say yes, most likely there are some that could strive harder and refuse to let themselves be defined by their illness. However, how does that affect you and your life? Can't you just live and let live? Fact is, living with illness is hard. Of course it holds people back, it's an illness! And of course, at some point, people may over-identify with their illness as a coping mechanism as they learn to accept the fact that they are suffering from something which may affect them long-term. This doesn't make them pathetic, it makes them human.

Truth is, though people may appear to be in love with the idea of being sick, there's simply more to it than the "poor, little, old me" act. Our relationship with the concepts of health and illness is complex, both in relation to ourselves and others. We have a responsibility to look after ourselves and strive to be the best we can be, but we must remember that this means different things to different people. We can't judge others for how they choose to look after themselves or for how they apply themselves day-to-day. All we can do is focus on ourselves, and support those immediately around us, such as family, friends and colleagues. As for strangers on the internet, let's stop judging them too harshly and just ignore them if they decide to judge us for things they know nothing about.