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.

Completely unrelated to illness but I did some press for a charity in a much smaller way and from that people genuinely believed they had a right to tell me how my family should live.

It's like they tried to take ownership of our choices and that's wrong.

That, along with pressure from my extended family, means I've declined further requests.

Sometimes people want to draw attention to the situation, not themselves. But that's not allowed.

What's awful though, is that the next teen that tries to do the same fundraising for the same reasons probably won't be as successful, they won't have celebs and politicians outpouring for them. They will feel lesser.

A short life ended is a tragedy.

The boy in the media seemed like a beautiful soul, his death is a truly awful mind numbing tragedy. Which it still would have been had he not raised a penny towards charity.

That is true Loony
This lad was a wonderful, funny, brave kid in his own right.

I understand why this issue is very personal to you and can see the point you are trying to make. I know you arent being goady at all. But i disagree.

I think some people are the type of people who would publicise their/their family's illness and they are just the type of people that go in for the whole social media thing, regardless of whether they get ill or not.

But there are also many thousands who just dont and they get on with it in private because that is who they are. Social media wasnt their thing before and illness doesnt change that.

I do understand why this is an issue for you though an can only send virtual hugs as recent events must have been really hard for you xx

YES
Thank you Peanut.
Exactly.
The loss of him is an immense tragedy.
It would have been whatever he did or did not do.
Because he was a lovely boy, a son and he is loved.

YANBU!

OP

I thought of you straight away when this news broke, and I know what you are saying and I totally agree.

I also think Lefty summarises it really well

"Sometimes people want to draw attention to the situation, not themselves. But that's not allowed" (by the media)

I really don't want to make this about one person Youre but do you think he really understood what would happen?
I know that so many have been caught out find themselves having to manage something huge.

Its such a lottery. When you start raising money or awareness you never know if it will be picked up by the media or if you will be allowed to chug along at your own pace.

Those that create these media hurricanes don't care about the people involved.

That is what bothers me.

and I also totally agree that our society has become focussed on the individual

I have no expectations of people who have terminal illness.

I like most people have been touched by cancer, some who struggled through it and died, one who raised money and awareness and died and a couple who pulled through and got on with their life.For my friend she felt she was doing something useful and made it feel like she had it for a reason.

I have also watching the story of a young child fighting cancer on FB. I feel sad when the family have bad news, happy when they have good news but if the family chose not to post again I would respect that.

I completely agree with you OP.

I dont think anyone who opens up to the public nowadays can know or predict what will happen or how thu will be perceived. The public, press, media, internet etc is a lion's den IMO and it seems to me to be pure luck that dictates whether you are a hero or 'everything that's wrong in the world'. I personally couldnt open myself up to that. Far too scary.

"Those that create these media hurricanes don't care about the people involved."

Yes i totally agree with this. They will have forgotten him next week.

Me too You're. It something that really scary. The thought of what could happen if you were to be pulled into a news story

Yes, totally agree.

Isn't that a terrible shame though youre?

That people who want to say 'Look at my child/brother/husband. Look at how wonderful they are. Lets do something to raise money/awareness' can't because they will have no control over what will happen once they start?

I'm with you OP. A family member is an oncologist and they get enraged by how the media has sensationalised and glamorised cancer. Cancer is not a battle to be won or lost, rather, it is a life sentence to be endured, one where you go into remission or you die.

^^ my last post was to YoureBeingAsillyBilly

And yes, even worse if you choose that publicity and have no control over what it will unleash

I think Peanut has put it in the most articulate manner.

I agree with you, OP, but I also think that this is the nature of life. Some people will achieve a certain level of fame or respect etc and some will not. Is this not just reflecting that?

On a smaller scale, people may now know more about a disease and be more accommodating to the needs of those with it, or more likely to donate. That can only be a good thing.

I agree with you in some respects, and not in others. The fuck yous didn't help though

What about those who just can't?
That does not take away from those that can. It doesn't take away from the achievements of those that use all they have to do amazing things.

You can look at that two ways.

Those who can don't take anything away from those who can't either. The amazing achievement of the few doesn't take anything away from the smaller, personal achievements, made by many, or from the suffering and sorrow experienced by any of them.

It really doesn't.

I think people just want to find a positive somewhere, it's human nature, and possibly wrongly, the media hands it to them.

But people who genuinely love and appreciate someone will do that whether they are sick or healthy, and whether or not they can have a positive attitude.

People just latch onto others who have traits they would like to see in themselves, it doesn't take sickness to do that.

I get the impression that the mob thinks 'but the main thing is all that money was raised'

It so isn't though is it?

The main thing is that a beautiful, vibrant life full of promise has been lost.

Take Doreen Lawrence. People look at her and they don't get that she would give everything back, every.single. thing back if she could see her son again.
If she could not be the inspirational heroine that she is, if she could go back to being the mother of two live boys.

I am not commenting on the poor young man who was amazing until the last.

I am commenting on the way society stereotypes the sick and disabled. It's real characture stuff, saint or sinner, hero or victim, striver or skiver.

I personally find its another way to 'other' the disabled, to put them on a pedestal or take away their dignity by displaying them as a vulnerable non competent 'not quite humans' sort of entity.

It was prevalent all through the Paralympics, and I lost count of the times people said 'oh you could do that / or so and so could do that' ... As of becoming disabled somehow makes it easier / reasonable that you'd become a world class athlete... Very dodgy reasoning based on a need to elevate disability to beyond human and ordinary... And away from having to understand the reality of being disabled.

I find the whole thing distasteful, but I do understand why people do it.

I don't know. I know that I get the rage when a news item uses the phrase "lost their battle with cancer". It's not a bloody battle, it's a disease. The implication that that person did not fight hard enough makes me mad.

"Isn't that a terrible shame though youre?

That people who want to say 'Look at my child/brother/husband. Look at how wonderful they are. Lets do something to raise money/awareness' can't because they will have no control over what will happen once they start?"

It is terrible, however i do have 2 family member (both children, not cancer but life limiting) who are doing awareness and fund raising quietly and on an ongoing basis without any media involvement. I would imagine there are many just like them that we dont and wont ever hear about who are just left in peace. I dont know what the catalyst was for this particular person's life to have been so publicised, perhaps just pure luck that it was given more media attention than others but i know many dont get that an sk arent exposed to the public in such a potentially damaging way.