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.

Actually, thinking this through - I think the way society expects sick people to act is the same thing they expect of carers.

They don't want to hear that it's hard, they don't want to hear the reality of the situation, that actually waking up in the night being sick is horrible, or that you're losing the patience to cope. They want you to be a martyr or an inspiration and heaven forbid if you show a bit of mortal weakness - you get thrown to the wolves!

While I do agree with you, I think it is unfair to tarnish everyone with same voyeuristic brush. Of course you will get those who make everything about them but some people do genuinely give a shit, they care and want to show their support in some way for that person, their family etc.

I certainly wouldn't say that everyone is voyeuristic but there are many who do seem to enjoy peeking at other people's tragedies. The magazines that got in touch with me were the ones that dish up a spread of misery each week under sensationalist cover lines. There's a market for them and that makes me sad and angry. They approach people at their lowest ebb simply to fill a page - that is voyeuristic to me.

I think you may have missed my point. I did say that I agreed that many people do love revelling in other people's hardships but I said it was unfair to tar everyone with the same brush.

YANBU. DS2 is a wheelchair user. When I take him out complete strangers expect him to behave like some kind of saint as they pat him on the head and say "poor little boy". We hate it because he's not a hero or a saint, he's a 6 year old boy who can't walk very far.

DS4 has various health issues that will be ongoing but not life limiting thank goodness. DH's step nan keeps going on to all her friends about his tragic life and they all lap it up, it's horrible. He's my son, not a tragedy.

YANBU

It's all very like What Katy Did, isn't it? The ill must be saints-on-earth, and our sympathy for them is conditional on them living up to our expectations.

Absolutely Candy, I'm not tarring everyone with the same brush and really don't want to - that's what I was trying to qualify with my last post. Obviously not very well!

Going back to OP's original point, it's often the trashy tabloid-style mags I'm talking about that perpetuate narratives like 'strong cancer sufferer' and 'noble family who are suffering but striding forward'. They do this as it's easy journalism to just write a new variation of the old theme and plays to what people accept as 'correct'. It does us all as a society a disservice.

YANBU OP.

I think if you are ill there is huge pressure to be 'brave.' People expect you to fulfil a role. They expect you to be ok, so that they can reassure themselves that dying is ok.

I have M.E and I think one of the reasons why society in general doesn't give much of a fuck about M.E in general is that there is nothing to get behind; no fight, no end goal, no chance of being seen to be 'the best friend of someone who died, poor me.' M.E is just invisible suffering which goes on and on for years and at present there is nothing to be done (we are desperately trying to raise money for trials, but it isn't as interesting to the general public as cancer). I do see some very M.E ill friends falling into the role of the brave ill person and it makes me very sad, because it is a lot of pressure on them. But people want to see it, so I can understand why some fall into it.

Anyway, I bet some of the parasitic people sobbing over the latest tragic cancer death have forgotten Alice Pyne, or Nicole Dryburgh or I don't know, any of the other young people who have tragically died over the last few years and who mattered equally. And so many people are suffering and dying and their bravery won't ever be recognised in any way and that must be hard in its own way too. Like it's maybe something that makes some very ill people feel inadequate, if they haven't raised thousands or been in the press or had the general public declare them 'brave.'

As a society we just have a massive issue with illness and disability and death. It would be great if they weren't issues, but they really are.

Wonder I think I got confused too! it doesn't take much these days...

God yes, the "tragic little hero" stories in Bella, Chat, Woman etc make for uncomfortable reading. Not due to the content but how the 'magazines' portray peoples' REAL lives.

I think its interesting to explore why society does 'appropriate' certain deaths. I don't think its necessarily from a weird, bad or a voyeuristic place (although I don't doubt to the people involved it adds another layer of horrendous-ness)

We are lucky not to encounter so much death as we would have in the past, but of course, it means, as PP have said, we are less able to deal with it. There are few outlets for discussion, it is brushed under the carpet: we talk about sex all the time, but illness, dying, death and our related fears and hopes, not so much. Earlier this week, I was laughing at Richard and Judy's suicide pact, but actually - good on them!

So when a 'story' (like this) comes around, we hang on to it, psychologically we need it, and it becomes a kind of practice or rehearsal for our own inevitable deaths.

This story had particular appeal because it had an image of a lovely young man - so instead of teenage cancer being faceless, we had someone we could identify with - either the young us, or our sons/brothers etc.

The story also feeds into an age-old narrative from Bible times and Greek myths of a young person, full of potential, achieving great things, cut off in their prime, so the story is kind of reassuring and familiar as well as utterly dreadful.

As for the terminology, I think that points to how inadequate most of us are at finding the right words. Cancer has always been talked about euphemistically - I remember Mum talking about 'The Big C' - its just a case of the euphemisms having changed. And also in general, as we've all become our own marketeers or masters of the sound bite, we use more 'sexed-up' 'fighting' language.