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ILLNESS DOESN'T NEED JUDGEMENT

by Maura Hanrahan

Ring-a-ring a rosy
A pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
We all fall down

Children's nursery rhyme from the time of the plague

The Black Death devastated London in 1665. Telltale circles and lumps appeared on skin, foreshadowing a gruesome demise. It started first in the crowded poorer areas and then consumed the city. The plague had been in England for over 300 years, but London had swelled with new migrants just prior to 1665. Then the sun blazed mercilessly all summer, and the bacillus carried by fleas living on the city's abundant river rats thrived.

     Climatic, demographic, and economic conditions converged to create an epidemic that emptied England's greatest metropolis. For many, it seemed to herald the end of the world. They interpreted it as a punishment from God for sins committed. This vengeful god, apparently, did not distinguish between the infractions of newborn babies and those of wealthy burghers. He --and this god was most definitely a He-- wanted to teach people a lesson so that they would repent.

***

There has always been illness and disability in human history. The Bible tells us of leprosy (that most dreaded and stigmatized disease), of blindness, uncontrolled bleeding, and seizures. We know from art and ancient artifacts that there have always been disabilities too. More recently badly needed light has finally been shed on the illnesses of the mind, most interestingly through memoirs, such as William Styron's Darkness Visible. But we cannot believe that the scourge of depression is new.

     So there has always been illness. And there has always been blame.

***

Blames lingers on. So does its close companion, shame. When I lived along the shores of the Mediterranean I noticed a disturbing attitude towards people with disabilities. They were basically shunned. Their families were ashamed of them and hid them away. Even in the 1990s, some people with disabilities, children among them, spent their time behind closed doors, all to accommodate the twisted needs of their family members.

     You saw so few people with disabilities in the towns for this reason. It seemed to be a little different in the villages where everyone knows everyone; this perhaps made infirmity more difficult to hide.

     A friend of mine in a South Asian country found herself afflicted with a condition that caused miscarriages. She was terribly depressed due to the condition itself, but also because those around her attributed her troubles to some offence she might have caused God.

     Well, thankfully we in the modern West have progressed beyond all this, right?

     I don't think so. We continue to blame the ill and the disabled for their conditions. We just do it in a novel and frequently more subtle way.

     In the West you are expected to account for your illness. It starts out as questions about whether you've tried this remedy or that concoction --this is not offensive in itself. But it quickly progresses to pinpointing the root cause of your affliction. A woman with gynecological problems is told she has sexual issues she obviously hasn't dealt with. The parents of a child with a disability are asked if the mother drank alcohol or took this or that drug during pregnancy. Or maybe her thinking during gestation was too negative. A newspaper report refers to the "innocent victims of AIDS, those who contracted the disease through blood transfusions," as if some people with the condition deserve it.

     I'm reminded of Dot on the BBC's East Enders. She saw HIV/AIDS as God's punishment of homosexuality. When a neighbour asked her why lesbians seemed to be escaping the epidemic, she answered, "Oh, I expect God's got something much worse in mind for them." At least Dot was honest with her perspective. The modern, New Age-influenced, way of looking at things is often a bit more cloaked.

     Let's zero in on breast cancer. The notion that breast cancer is linked to nurturing in any way is probably preposterous, but more importantly, it is also hurtful and damaging. Yet it is pervasive. Women with breast cancer, many believe, have given too much and their breasts are sending them a message or they have not nurtured themselves enough. Why can't a woman get breast cancer because she is daily exposed to countless chemicals, too many of which make fatty breast tissue vulnerable? I could ask this question for the woman with the gynecological disease as well.

     The implication --and sometimes it's more than an implication-- is that you can heal yourself if you just try hard enough. People with multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, migraine headaches, whatever, are told they can turn their health around if they adopt an unfailingly positive attitude. They will be healed if they listen to and learn from the message that is their affliction. Today this thinking comes from (wealthy) self-help gurus, and some alternative medicine practitioners, but it has trickled down to the general population as well, so much so that in our post-religious world it is almost commonplace.

     There is, inside all this, the notion that our minds are incredibly powerful, and certainly more powerful than our bodies. Besides the New Age devotees this comes at least partly from the Western split between the body and the spirit: The body reduced to a burden, the source of sin, and something that we must and can control.

     It's difficult enough being ill without this kind of thinking coming at you. How is it different from being told that God is displeased with you and wants you to repent, as plague sufferers were told in 1665? In many cases there is little that sufferers can do about their situations. Such thinking only makes them feel more powerless. It makes them feel as if they have personally failed in some fundamental way. What those who are ill need is a listening ear, compassionate words, and sometimes a helping hand. They don't need judgement, especially not from the healthy.

     The ill also need permission to be angry, to rail at the universe for their intolerable bad luck, and to cry in frustration when things become too much. The ill are, after all, human. Being positive and putting on a brave face all the time is impossible and, I think, unhealthy.

     Incidentally, I believe we can learn from our disabilities and illnesses. I know from experience that these things can even be a gift, as is everything in life. But that's a discussion for another time.

Maura Hanrahan's new book is Domino: The Eskimo Coast Disaster. Her website is www.maurahanrahan.com