To think we are becoming a country of hypochondriacs?

[YellowTulips25]

Firstly, let me preface this by saying that I entirely sympathise with people who have to live with serious long-term medical conditions. I don't wish to downplay illness or disabilities - visible or hidden - at all.

However, does anyone else feel like we're rapidly becoming a country of hypochondriacs, where an increasing number of people let seemingly minor health issues dominate their life?

For example, an article on the BBC this week features a woman who talks about having 'chronic pain, migraines and travel sickness' as reasons why it's impossible for her to work in an office. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp9x0819417o

I think most of us suffer from aches and pains and headaches from time to time? What'd happen if we all started using this excuse?

And I know plenty of friends who always seem to have some ailment or other troubling them, whether it's being in pain, being tired, having a cough or cold, etc etc. It seems almost as if constantly being ill is part of their personality, a badge of honour?

I know I'll probably get flamed for this, but surely I can't be the only one to feel like rolling my eyes at some people's lack of resilience?

Well I disagree with you, and what has France got to do with it? I don't live in France and never mentioned it. What I said was that I don't hear of nearly as many people here with all these health problems that half the UK/MN seem to have. I left the workforce just last year and hardly anyone had time off for anything more than the usual minor illnesses (and I have worked with a lot of people over my working life). No-one was signed off with 'stress', which seems very common in the UK.

I also never said anything bad about WFH, just that it is not such a big thing as it is in the UK, people here mostly go to their actual workplaces (which indicates to me that they are reasonably healthy, which was my point!!).

@justasking111 I would divorce someone for saying that !!unless it was clearly a very very bad taste joke

This whole WFH/back to the office debate is so irritating.

I get that there are some jobs that can't be done remotely. But, there are plenty that can and in which productivity really improved when everyone had to WFH.

I honestly think that because someone people enjoy the social aspect of being in the office, and of course it's profitable for local shops and offices lets etc of people go in and spend money on travel and sandwiches, this massive value judgement is being made that it's somehow 'better' to come in.

We shouldn't need an 'excuse' to work remotely if remote work enables us to do our job well and works for us.

The reason I mentioned France was as an example to show that the sickness culture is not unique to the UK. Also, lots of companies in the UK downsized their office spaces during Covid, so the link between WFH and sickness is not as strong as it perhaps is where you live.

I do think there is less resilience these days and people generally seem less able/willing to manage minor illnesses themselves.

I also think a lot of people are unwilling to use appropriate care services if they cannot manage symptoms at home e.g. pharmacists, nurses, 111 online. Many think the GP is the only answer to everything when a lot of things could be dealt with elsewhere.

I work in a school and there are a lot of fairly young staff hitting stage 1 absence reviews because they stay off for the slightest thing.

I have a permanent spinal issue which can be very painful at times. I make sure I do the physio exercises, use appropriate pain killers, book in for physio if needed etc. Basically, I manage my condition appropriately and therefore teach full time with very few adjustments needed. If I didn't manage it, I probably would struggle to work full time.

I give genuine sympathy to people who are ill. We can all tell who is really sick and who is taking the piss.
I wouldn't worry too much about the country.
It will be fine.

This is interesting. What kind of behavioural changes do you see? (I'm also probably ND of some description).

I agree about the cancer stats. Huge fuel for anxiety. Maybe we know too much nowadays and it's driving us crazy. The tabloids seem to love running a "otherwise healthy younger person develops deadly cancer" story and it really fuels my paranoia.

Typical ignorant response.

This really gets my goat. This week, huge surge in early onset dementia. Last month huge surge in young people with colon cancer.

Etc ..... Ad nauseum.

It's so variable, even by individual, so any sweeping statements are inevitably wrong for someone.

But in general, yes. Different generations have different expectations, and they do seem to be becoming less resilient.

I'm not sure why - maybe because of mollycoddling - but I think a more likely cause is the entitlement culture.

I hate managing people in the public sector because HR departments are terrified of getting rid of people. You add in neurodiversity or a LT health condition and they're paralysed. I saw one guy claim a salary for three years, whilst seemingly not delivering anything useful. It's hard not to get resentful.

Part of this is caused by government policies. They've made it so "time off with a disability" can't be used as 'sickness' in an absence policy. But the criteria aren't applied strictly enough. So if you have "migraines" or mild mental health issues, that can count as a LTC then thay can be seen as a disability. It's way too lax and genuine disability is lost in the midst of the morass of opportunitists.

Personally I don't think it's doing people any favours to accommodate this stuff. In the end, no employer wants someone with no commitment or work ethics. You have to show up to work. I can see why it annoys the old school.

I think also, people's expectations of health have changed. Menopause symptoms, for example, are unpleasant but will not ultimately do you any harm. Depression, unless severe, won't do you much harm.Chronic pain won't kill you.
Some people argue that we should strip it all right back - I have seen views approaching that on this thread. But thankfully progress means that we can make life better and minimise suffering.

Menopause can do you a lot of harm if you lose your job..

There are a vast number of health conditions that won’t even come close to killing you but that doesn’t mean we can’t utilise modern medicine and modern knowledge to improve our quality of life.

I read the article and it is much more an example of what WFH can do to bring people back into the workforce who otherwise would have just simply been signed off with a disability. It talks about how the flexibility WFH brings gave them the opportunity to find and sustain a job they otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do. This is the opposite of what you’re going on about, so maybe a different example would demonstrate better what you mean by hypochondria. Statistically women are much more likely to be affected by chronic migraines, which is not just a headache, and I wish you don’t have to find out the difference yourself. Joint pains can be debilitating, especially if no cure/ operation is offered on the NHS to alleviate it. Routine ops like knee replacements, hip replacements could keep people working for much longer, but aren’t offered for years until the person can non longer move, let alone commute. Again, these illnesses affect women more than men. So on balance, you might be right, but these are not the evidence that would prove it.

The expectations of wellness and happiness have also changed. We are taught to strive for happiness and wellness, but maybe we need to lower our expectations.
When I was a child, if I ever told my mum that I was unhappy about something, her response would be "most people aren't happy, just be glad you aren't sad." If people took the view that it is normal to feel a bit physically and mentally crap, it would probably take pressure off everybody. People wouldn't feel Inadequate if they weren't "fulfilled", and would realise that the people they admire are probably feeling low level depressed themselves.
Note, I am NOT talking about clinical depression here, just normal everyday blah feeling that everyone gets.

I think 111 have a lot to answer for tbh as I think they often advise people to attend A&E inappropriately.

I also think budget cuts are a massive problem. I feel quite lucky that in my area, our services didn’t seem to really suffer until much later than other places, and it was only a couple of years ago that I had my first awful experience with the GP. Our local minor injuries unit has very limited opening hours, which puts more pressure on A&E, and sometimes GPs are advising patients to go there in lieu of an appointment (which is what happened to me).

Before my late diagnosis of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), I was often labelled as “lazy," and I believed it too. At the time, I just thought everyone lived with daily pain and that I was worse at coping with it. After my daughter was born, things took a serious turn. I became very ill, very quickly, and I knew something wasn’t right. Thankfully, after working with an amazing GP and specialists, I received the correct treatment.
While I’m much better now, I still live with chronic pain and daily joint subluxations. I've learned to recognise my limits and try not to let them slow me down too much. I work from home, which has been essential for managing my conditions and actually helps me be more productive. It’s frustrating that many conditions like mine are underdiagnosed, leading people to be unfairly labeled. My daughter has the condition too. I am happy for what I went through because it will help my daughter now go through the same.
.

This is disgusting. I have multiple disabilities. I was born with one, developed another in childhood, and then more in adulthood. My life is hard. Disability is very much a part of my identity because it informs everything i can and cannot do.

You are not in other people’s flesh. You do not feel what they feel. And to any of you who say you’ve got a friend who says they feel x, but don’t bother or don’t look ill etc.- you haven’t got a friend who says and does that, because you’re no friend at all. You have no clue what they’re going through

Well said Kitten1982.
I think some folks read too much Daily Mail!
Lots of people work when they are ill and lots don't work when they are ill. Unless these folks think doctors lie then the country's health is getting worse.
No surprise......poverty is a killer.
During Tory rule nearly 340,000 excess deaths were attributed to austerity cuts.
I'd think these people would have more important things to worry about, rather than muse about whether others are sick or not.

For every £1 spent on disability benefits, they make back something like £1.48. It’s literally profitable to support disabled people. It’s purely ideological not to. And yes, there’s some very DM informed posters here. If they’d like to swap lives with me and go through what i go through, which includes constant pain, constant projectile vomiting, frequent seizures and dislocations, with multiple critical health incidents, they are more than welcome. I’d like to hear how they find having to live like this. I have my young adult sons as my carers because you can’t even get a full-time carer without them taking some of your benefits, and you’re barely given enough to survive on in the first place. £4 per day of my money goes on incontinence pants alone, because i have sensory processing disorders due to being ND and cannot cope with the sensation of the non-elastic NHS ones- which you’re lucky if you can get anyway.

The government's panicked over-reaction to Covid taught people to become hypochondriacs. Yes, Covid has severe consequences for some. But I echo what previous posters said about people expecting the government to solve all their problems. After all, there are many other threats to people's health and well-being that the government pays no attention to at all, or says the cursory "lessons will be learned": sewage dumped in rivers, for example. For one reason or another, the government sacrificed EVERYTHING we had on the altar of Covid, including the well-being and education of our children, and the livelihoods and careers of many people. If it had been a two-week lockdown much earlier, to get the NHS in order, with a definite end of "after this, we cannot lock down any more, because of the massive damage it will cause", things might now be very different.

Instead, they painted themselves into a corner by pledging "we will do whatever it takes to beat the virus." Saying this made it politically impossible to end lockdowns for months on end; at first you-know-who was pledging to eliminate Covid entirely. "Twelve weeks, and we can send the virus packing." I think he should have said "We cannot protect everybody. We cannot eliminate the virus, we can only lessen the harms. Prolonged lockdowns will cause massive harm, probably more than the virus would." That's what he thought privately, but his handlers didn't allow him to say it. I also think it was a very bad move indeed to pursue the strategy of "frightening the pants off the public" (the government's own words). It worked too well. People pleaded for more and more lockdown. And now, we are seeing the effects of our "saviours from the virus" decimating the country's wealth, health and well-being.

Absolutely this. One of my oldest friends from high school was horrid to me after I had PND and it exacerbated my symptoms of my medication induced neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia. She actually said that she didn't have the energy to talk to me... and this is coming from a nurse! 😞😳 She told me to find a decent therapy or something that would help me, beyond the things I'd tried already as they clearly weren't working 🤔 I've got over it now, but at the time, I was really upset. How anyone can have so little empathy is beyond me.

I'm genuinely sorry for those of you who have shared your illnesses.

But do you really believe that there aren't people who swing the lead to get out of things they don't want to do?

(Yes I did ask this earlier in the thread. I'm still interested because most posts seem to be from those people to whom that does not refer to).

(Also no I'm not referring back to the OP as the article is referring to a person with what looks like actual medical problems).

But do you really believe that there aren't people who swing the lead to get out of things they don't want to do?

Of course that happens. But whatever system you have you'll have people who want to take the piss. I don't think there's any way to design a system that always helps those who genuinely need it, and is able to accurately weed out those who don't.

Erm.......Brexit is currently costing us at least 4% of GDP every year........the Tories only helped during the pandemic because doing nothing would have been worse for the economy.......they didn't really care........3 million self employed people got no support at all.........amazing how some MPs and Lords made a killing out of Covid contracts.
The covid support was the lesser of 2 evils. They'd have been happy to
"let the bodies pile high"
if it meant the economy was better off.
Thinking about it sensibly, Covid exacerbated conditions that were already chronic because of poverty.
Tories we're hardly generous with their £20 extra a week for benefits.......that went straight back to them with increased tax revenues.
When Labour left office in 2010 the country's health, education and services were the best they've ever been.