Tag Archives: society

If You Can’t See It …

invisibleOne point amongst many brought up during the Taxi Driver Case, is that invisible illnesses can be tricky.

That’s not to say a more visible form of MS than mine is any easier – far from it according to the large amount of emails I’ve received, in which people have told me taxis simply drive past them when they see a wheelchair or walking sticks.

It just seems harder to ‘prove’ you have a disability if, at first glance, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with you. However, some place the number of people with chronic conditions which could be deemed invisible as high as 96%. Whether or not that is true, it is indicative that there is more understanding needed.

This can take a tragic turn, as in the case of Brian Holmes, who was killed with a single punch in 2013 after another man took exception to him looking ‘like he could walk’ when parked in a disabled space at a supermarket. Little did he know, he was the driver for his wife – who was disabled, and had a blue badge – and who was shopping at the time. What he also didn’t know was that Brian was days away from an all-clear from cancer.

Cases like this show just how difficult it can be to judge who is disabled or not. On the flip side, I live near a busy shopping area; on weekdays, parents park in disabled spaces as they are one or two metres closer to the school than the plentiful other spaces, and ‘what’s the harm?’. On weekends, car after car parks in the supermarket disabled spaces, as they are ‘just popping in, what’s the problem?’ In the morning, builders vans park there, as ‘disabled people are lazy and don’t have to get up early like we do’.

These quotes are real; I’ve spoken to these people. They become aggressive, threatening and abusive. Such are the feelings disabled parking can arouse. Last year I called the school where the majority of parents took their children to. I spoke to the headmaster, who told me in no uncertain terms, ‘it’s not my problem’. I have also raised the point with my MP, who said he would look in to it.

Disabled parking spaces are there for more than convenience. If you are ill and finding it difficult to get out, it can be a smidgen of hope that after the palaver of getting ready to go out, you can just about be guaranteed to find a space. Granted, this is not always the case, but the hope is there. It’s psychological, apart from anything else health-wise.

It’s all too easy to languish at home, constricted by health, lack of parking and society’s attitude towards you.

You make people uncomfortable. And that’s all the more reason to be seen.

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Sanctioned Deviance

TalcottIf you’ve never heard of Talcott Parsons, you’ll almost certainly have felt the crushing effects of his ‘sick role’ discourse within medical sociology.

He’s the bloke who argued back in 1951 that being ill means you enter into a state of ‘sanctioned deviance’ and are therefore no longer a productive member of society. And there’s more.

My wicked deviance (for I am legally disabled) must then be ‘policed’ by the medical profession. In short, I disturb the normal social function of society. Chortle. Me?

I’m writing about this as I seem to fall into the camp of an Invisible Illness Unless I Do Something Spectacular, such as fall flat on my face or play pinball with walls. When my condition is obvious, there is an allowance so long as I play by the rules. 

Yet when it’s invisible (extreme fatigue, brain meltdown, endless nerve pain), I’m either faking it or playing up to it. I can’t win. I’ve variously been told to give up work, to find a ‘proper’ job, to go on benefits, to stay at home and watch telly. Wish they’d make their minds up. 

I’ve recently heard, ‘but you’re taking a Master’s, you can’t be thaaaaaaat bad’. The underlying insinuation being ‘oi  you lazy sod, no more malingering, be more… productive rather than floating around in hand-knitted scarves writing about trees and ladybirds’. 

Regular readers will know two things about me: first, I struggled badly during the last two years of my degree as I was going through a perpetual cycle of relapses. Second, I no longer have a set career path for a whole host of reasons. So why not push myself into something that will challenge me on every level? In all honesty, it has taken me to the limit. The emails between me and my tutor confirm this – full of doubt, fears of failure and a sense that I really had aimed way too high.

I have since settled down into academic life and my tutor is no doubt relieved not to have to handle any more tracts of self-analysis. And they were pretty badly-written streams of consciousnesses, natch.

So I challenge the sick role wholeheartedly, as have many critics. I am a productive member of society. I am single-handedly raising a well-rounded (and opinionated) Teenager. I run my house well. The cat is always fed. I work. I study. And I always turn up on time for my monthly blood tests at the doctor’s surgery. Early, in fact.

Yet there still exists in society a great desire to hold onto this sick role theory. It suits them; we can be parcelled and put to one side ready for them to cut our much needed support and mock us. We are in the stocks and right now society is taking great delight in chucking everything rotten at us.

Is it just me or does dear Mr Talcott bear a passing resemblance to someone else? Must be the moustache.

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