To think you can just be sick. you don't have to be a hero too?

[Deverethemuzzler]

This is not a thread about an individual.
I don't want this to be about someone in the news.
I respect them and their family.
I would prefer people not to refer to anyone by name on this thread because I don't want this to be googable and for it to be turned into something it isnt.

This is about what our society has become.

I don't respect the media. I don't respect a society that feels it has to add inspirational labels to sick people in order for them to matter.

There has to be an hook to hang their admiration on and they can only care if they are given a BIG reason to do so.

A child has died. It is a massive personal tragedy. Every time a child dies a family dies too.

People who are sick should be allowed to be sick without being expected to be an inspiration.

To live with chronic and life limiting illness is enough. To get though each day is enough.

Why do we expect so much from people who have so little spare to give?

To everyone out there living with cancer, whether it be yours or your loved one's....I wish you the strength you need to get though another day.

Some people do fantastic things, and just because they happen to be terminally ill also this sometimes makes the news.
It isn't about sick people doing extraordinary things, it's about extraordinary people being very sick.

Oh, and if I was the mother of one of the people you are referring to, I would recognise this instantly as being about my son.

I think you should have the thread pulled. You have no idea whether his mother is a MNer.

YABU, by the way.

Its NOT about that person.
It is about the cult of inspiration. The pressure put on sick people to be heros.
The person you are speaking about is a wonderful person.

The way you have immediately leapt to a conclusion just says it all.

I think you're absolutely right. From my experience it comes from people wanting to do something to 'help' and the way to do that is to feel good about supporting them. Not everyone can do that in an intimate way, so to have a 'cause' to direct their help towards makes them feel less useless about the thing that they have no control over.

The trouble is, it becomes an out of control machine with no breaks, or at least brakes that have to be applied so hard that the people involved often don't have the energy to apply.

It's sensationalist and I am staggered by how we have so much access to individuals' personal tragedies that are the height of the press, then tomorrow, next week, next month, we can't even remember the name, because they've found 10 more stories to carry on the 'theme'.

What did Lord Northcliffe say? "Get me a murder a day...." Tragedy is what sells and everything else is just a fluff story.

You seem to be telling me I cannot discuss childhood cancer. Or do you mean I can only discuss it in terms that you approve of?

That wasn't to you Lougle

strawberryangel I'm not referencing the person you've assumed Deverethemuzzler is referencing, either. I'm referencing a situation I've seen first hand.

Thank you Lougle for taking the time to think about what I was trying to express.

No worries

People forget that 'that news story' of several years ago is still someone's reality each and every day.

You made it pretty obvious from the start who 'that person' is, it's not jumping to conclusions!

Anyway, to answer your point, I don't think society does put pressure on sick people to be heros. That's exactly the reason why it's special when someone can be that sick and still give so much.

If this pressure was on every sick person, then when a sick person manages to be a hero, it wouldn't be newsworthy. The fact that it is newsworthy tells you that it doesn't happen very often.

Yabvvu we all know who your talking about, this person is an inspiration, he raised £3.5k whilst struggling with a terminal illness. Not everyone without an illness can do this, let alone someone with a terminal illness,as a result more teenagers will be helped.

YABU.

There are thousands of people with horrible illnesses who are not in the public eye and labelled as "heroes".

I agree with you. There is something reductionist about the way these things are framed in media coverage.

I know someone who was born with a life limiting illness. To reduce him to his illness and the way he deals with it, and always see him from that perspective would completely sell him short, even though the way he lives his life is admirable and brave. It would also be quite oppressive for him always to be expected to live up to that 'brave invalid' archetype.

And nothing the OP has said is at all disparaging of any ill person. It is about how we react to them and define them, not about how they are.

Years ago, when Jade Goody was terminally ill I can remember similar feelings: it felt almost invasive to be watching her die (which in its very nature is private) but it was my issue as she really did raise awareness of cervical cancer.

So on the whole I think YABU but I know what you're saying, I think - that someone can be ill and is allowed to be grouchy, fed up and bitter about it. Because it's horrible.

But in my experience, people aren't. :)

Don't tell me what I am talking about.
It is no a criticism of a lovely young man whose family are in hell.

This is a criticism of our society and how it think it owns people. They way they go on about how heartbroken they are, how inspired they are, how it makes them think of how sad they are to think of their child being sick.
But its all ok because whoever it was they are talking about was heroic, brave, inspirational.

It is about how self centred people are.

How everything has to be a media circus for people to care.

Did you care before? Did you think about this before? Will you think about it in two weeks time.

But children will still be dying.

I think yabu. You talk in your op about expectation. I think this is precisely the reason this story is so "newsworthy"

No one expected a teenager to spend his last days raising so much awareness for such a terrible illness and to seemingly be so positive whilst doing so.

There will be many many others whose work and efforts deserve recognition that don't get it, for me that is an issue.

The family in This case have stated how much comfort they have gained from well wishers, as did their son before he sadly passed away. Personally reading it I knew that in the same situation I wouldn't be as brave or selfless. That's the inspiration an why not recognise that?

There's a discussion to be had about fighting illness and inspiration. But ffs have a heart. Now is not the time.

You have started the most goady thread ever and you know it, I am going to report it as you seem to be spoiling for a bunfight.

dotodot talk about missing the fucking point.
Why should they be heros?

What if they are not heroic? What if they don't want to be?

That doesn't suit society though does it?

Got breast cancer? You had better wear pink and smile a lot.
Your kid got cancer? You had better tell us all what a warrior they are.

Because no one wants to hear about what it actually feels like.

Well, talk us through the thought process that led you to post this, if it wasn't linked to the person who is in the news at the moment.

And you seem very aggressive in your responses to anyone who disagrees with you.

Is this very personal to you OP?
I think you should say. Because otherwise a lot of people will (rightly or wrongly) assume you are trying to goad and provoke rather than discuss.

Ok.
I have watched as the boy has had to defend himself against trolls.
I have watched as my friend's have had to deal with people demanding DEMANDING that they give updates on their child's conditions.
I have seen thousands of comments talking about how heartbroken strangers are that a little girl or boy they don't know has died.
I have seen FB pages invaded by people telling parents they mustn't give up, they have to pray, they are wicked for prolonging the lives of their children, they must be brave, they should be happy their child is with Jesus.

They take over.

It is horrible.

I agree with you. When my dad was dying he hated all that fighting cancer rhetoric, it wasn't a war it was a shitty debilitating illness, some cells in his own body that had gone wrong and that rhetoric implies that the ill person has some weird responsibility to be brave and inspiring and positive and all that stuff (he was all those things at times, at other times he was sad, angry, grumpy and just himself too) and somehow transform that experience into something that wasn't just fundamentally shit.

Is it personal?

Of course it is.

Not this lovely boy because I didn't know him.

The issue is personal. Very personal.

It matters to me.

This is not about goading. This is about wanting to know why people think they have the right to invade the lives others.

Yes sandor.
I am sorry about your Dad.

There is nothing inspirational about this disease.
It sucks.