the value of sickness
After a one to one yesterday, I have become fully aware of the value of sickness that exists in my family. It took me a long time to realise it but now that I do, I think I feel quite I dunno angry or frustrated or something along those lines that makes me clench my fists and grit my teeth. I guess I have always grown up with ill-health and spent alot of my childhood in hospital. I thought that this was normal, it felt normal for me. But I realised that when the doctors told me I was perfectly healthy again, that my mum wasn't as loving and adoring with me anymore. That was ok, it didn't bother me too much, we arent all that close. But now as I look back on the pattern in my house from then on I see that every member feels that being sick makes them important and gets them attention.
I see now that alot of it comes from my mum. She is always sick in some sort of way yet never goes to the doctor. She plays the martyr and continues to go to work, this I see now is pointless. When I was younger I used to think she was so strong for keeping going and this is where I learnt my value of sickness. Now I see that it is pointless to drag an illness to work so you feel worse for longer.
I see it has passed on to my sister and brother. My sister constantly craves attention. She likes to be the centre of attention. She makes up illnesses and is constantly at the doctors for one thing or another. My brother needed help but felt he couldnt outrighlty ask for it like me I guess, so instead went to the extreme of attempting suicide to get the attention he badly needed. Thinking of all this makes me so so angry. Correction Im fuming.
I guess Im fuming because for so long I fell into this value of sickness. It played into condition and I simply couldnt see the value in being healthy, until now. Now I see that all this that I have grown up around is not normal. Valueing sickness like this is so unhealthy. But I feel like I am at a crossroad. I feel torn between the condition dragging me into this trap of loving 'sickness' and the other sode of my head, the positive one telling me it is so much better to be healthy, its cheaper and life is so much easier, I see that there is so much more of life to experience and it can be pretty crap if you don't feel one hundred and ten percent.
I feel im battling against my family's beleifs and ideals, trying to form my own values and not letting myself get tricked by condition fall into the value of sickness.
amandaxxx
I can really relate to this
It's amazing to see how damaging these values are to grow up around.This value for sickness is like hooking the condition up to a life machine. It keeps everyone miserable & struggling. It shows holding these values can be a total danger to be around
I spose I'd ask you one of the most helpful questions someone asked me
"Do you want to end up like your Mother?"
"Do you want all your children to be sick &unable to feel secure& solid in their sense of self-worth? Do you want them to grow up dependant on conditional attention & then feel suicidal because they have no idea how to self-care & feel so desperate to get that from the outside?
These are questions that don't suit the ED
I feel these manifestations of illnesses come as signals to tell us we are off balance, going the wrong way & not taking care of oursevles in the way our body & mind needs us to. Sickness comes when we have moved away from who we are
I've seen family over the years steeped in negativity, talking non-stop about medication strengths,operations,tablets, doctors....going to endless different specialists & always coming back with the predictible "That didn't work" This used to really upset me. I wanted to make my family see that constant focus on sickness takes away personal reponsibility for our choices, strips us of our inner power & forces us to live in a victim role with an underlying feeling of desperation & helplessness all the time.
This way of thinking is completely incompatible with power & well being
Over & over I tried to pass on the education I received only to nearly be in tears with frustration
"Does this person actually want to be sick? They are choosing this! & then complaining about it all the time as if they've nothing to do with it!
But I realised that I could only work on myself & hope the positive energy spread.PPle need to take responsibility for their own lives - worrying about how miserable they are won't make me any happier
It is nice to get attention, to feel valued, but it came to a point where I thought "Can't I be valued for something worthwhile? Am I really that sad & small that this is the only way I can b worth something& get attention? Why would I want attention for this anyway? Have I absolutely nothing to offer? And if people only value me when I'm sick - what kind of people are they? In the end I came to have more faith in my friends & other pple - it was an insult to their character to believe they wanted an unhappy, sick friend - rather than a glowing, fun, happy, uplifting one - who can be reliable, can keep dates without cancelling,can listen,be available, be out of myself enough to appreciate them & feel easy to be around.
I think it's great you realise this - it's a sign you want freedom. Maybe a positive about going for treatment was finding Marino & seeing there is another choice
Why not be the one who changes this show them how life is not about that inspire them hun x
Hi Amanda
I can really identify with this. In condition, I wasn't giving it enough unless I looked like the walking dead, and at times I still get days where I want that look , to reassure myself. As we well know this is ridiculous and distorted thinking. My mother also thrived on this sickness behaviour, taking to the bed with a migraine to avoid situations or seek attention. Every year without fail, when doing school or college exams, the fuss would be around my mother and all the stress she must be under! whatever about me!!
But as you say, this is not something I admire, this is not something I value and it was a behaviour that drove me nuts in my mother. Yet here I am tending that way myself. So no more, I now want to put more value on mental health, spiritual well being, attention to balance in life, good nutritional care. I value and admire those that are centred and focussed and at ease in them selves.
kiz
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