Hayfever is for people who are weak of spirit

[nevergoogledragonbutter]

I think I must have hayfever as my 'cold' was miraculously cured by taking an antihistamine yesterday.

But there are some medical conditions which I struggle with due to Stigma.

I suffer periodically from asthma and depression also. And I also give myself a hard time about these.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I believe these conditions are for wimps. Although wouldn't think it of somebody elses depression, just my own.

Is it media portrayal? a stoic upbringing?
Why do I feel this way about things I have no control over?

All i need now is some sort of food intolerance, and i'm going to lose patience with myself.

I think the problem with some of these conditions is that they are mostly invisible. With athsma you only have to see someone having a real attack to realise it's serious. But most athsmatics seem fine most of the time assuming medication is taken properly. So you rarely see a real attack

Depression is the worst of the lot though and so many people beleive it's just feeling a bit down, or being a wuss, or 'all in the mind'. Very frustrating. It doesn't have synptoms that others can readily see.

I don't think that hay fever is the same. So many people suffer from it. It's symptoms are obvious. But it's easily treatable for most of us.

Blimey - I could have written that post. The day before yesterday I was sniffing in the office and someone offered me an antihistamine tablet. 'No thanks' I say 'I have some' So why don't I take them? I get through boxes and boxes of tissues every day and it makes no sense. The only reason I even have antihistamine tablets is because I can get them over the counter.

I have an inhaler somewhere too but never use it.

It's bloody weird isn't it?

were you treated very briskly as a child?

whenever I feel ill - regardless of what it is - there's a voice in my head telling me I am malingering

I can hear my mother saying "Oh give over fgs"

she w as the kind of mother who clobbered you for being sent home sick and tried to send you back again

Honestly though, as an intelligent adult woman you KNOW thes e conditions are clinical and are not under your control. Do you think other people are being pathetic when they s uffer from depression or hay fever? I bet you don't. You need to afford yourself the same credit!

My mother rarely took me to the doctor and with hindsight there are times when anti-biotics might have been useful. Her actions were mostly out of ignorance. She doesn't like doctors but thinks homeopathic remedies will work much better than anything the doctor might prescribe. She also thinks vinegar will cure most things.

My father doesn't like sick people. They make him uncomfortable. His father was a doctor.

Is it their fault?
Most of my problems are

my mother's motto was "if I can't see rivers of blood then you are Going To School"

I think it was a very common attitude back then

but it makes it difficult for us as adults to self-care properly

I was Greensleeves and I'm sure that's at the root of it. My mother was horribly unsympathetic (to the point where she kept sending me into school when I had glandular fever because she thought I was making it up - took them weeks to diagnose it). Worst thing is that I have found to my horror I am very unsympathetic if I think people are making a fuss (not if they're really ill but I don't have much patience with people who say they've got flu rather than a cold for example).

arf, at rivers of blood.

When my sister broke her leg age 11, i remember being in the car to the hospital while my dad roared..."it better be bloody broken after all this fuss!".
(we missed our ferry to france)

I must have been about 3 but I remember the upset.

dh has a tendency to go very weird if I am ill - he is normally a very empathic and s weet per son - but he can be a s hard a s nails if I am ill

his mother didn't believe in minor illnesses illness and thinks depression is just laziness

and his dad was chronically ill and died young

I think it's one of those areas where we are very prone to learned behaviour

I am a bit too much of a wuss about my children's illnesses, because I don't want them to feel the way I did

I took my DS away for the weekend when he wasn't very well when he was 9 months and when we got back he was admitted to hospital. Although he had a virus, I'm convinced that it was entirely my fault that he became so ill and I will never forgive myself for that. Now I think I err on the side of hysterical caution which I'm not sure is much of an improvement

I'm sure it's all down to parental attitudes. I can only remember being off school when I had chicken pox - other than that, I went in. Our upper lips were permanently stiff.

But I seem to have become my mother - I have used the "if you're not bleeding from the jugular or on fire then you're fine" approach, and as a result my DCs are fairly stoic. This is complicated by the fact my mother had cancer (died when I was a teenager) so having seen extreme pain over a long period, I find it really hard to be sympathetic about aches and colds - which I realise is very unfair of me. DD suffers from depression, DH has asthma - I'm as supportive as I can be, and feel genuinely very sorry for them, but I'm fighting my instincts/upbringing all the time.

Hayfever isn't for wimps, only us hard as nails folks can cope with it. I've spent the last 3 days with puffed up eyes, sneezing all the bloody time, sore throat and a tickle under my chin, which is driving me demented.

Not that I would complain of course

I don't deal well with sick people. I find them irritating. DH gets cross with me about it. I do what needs to be done but I don't make a fuss. When I'm ill I don't want anyone fussing round me. I think that attitude can be good to a certain extent - nowt wrong with being a trooper, but there has to come a point when you give in and take some pills/go to bed.

I like to be left alone when i'm feeling ill, but i like a little bit of fuss.