Crosses to bear, and messages from migraines and stuff

[oursin]

I don't know whether there was one precipating event or a coincidental confluence of things, but people have been posting hither and yon about the assumption that anything that helps you deal with a physical or mental condition is a 'crutch', which the Truly Strong and Determined person will endeavour to do without.

As people have already commented, wow, what a really bad metaphor that is anyway once you start thinking about the literal uses of a crutch as assistive technology.

And I remember a comment to a post of mine at some point about the sheer well-meaning authorially-approved cruelty of the parents who persuaded Ethel May (in Charlotte Yonge's The Daisy Chain and sequels) that even though she was severely myopic (and surely that had a lot to do with the clumsiness for which she got criticised?) she should endeavour to refrain from wearing glasses. Yes, on reflection this is even worse than the reproofs for trying to keep up with her brother's academic achievements instead of concentrating on her domestic duties.

When did the idea that it was okay to wear spectacles (rather than a sign of moral weakness) finally gain widespread acceptance? Because by the 1920s one of the arguments that was being put forward by advocates of birth control against claims that 'tes flyin' in the face of nature was that did their opponents not wear glasses? How was that natural? it was the beneficient development of science, etc, etc.

(Not that people thought being myopic was entirely okay - eny fule seem to no these days about M Stopes dissing on her prospective daughter in law for her 'hideous specs', but a number of interwar eugenists, including the Communist Dr Eden Paul, were all about short sight as one of the genetic evils of modern society.)

People have also been posting about migraine. What has massively improved my life (besides, you know, glasses to correct my extreme short sight) has been a) effective migraine prophylaxis and b) effective (providing I take it early enough) treatment for attacks that do happen.

There was once a point when I was encountering the claim that Migraines were sending A Message that one needed to hearken to.

On reflection, the ratio of noise to signal on that was so enormous that any message except 'Can it please be over?' got effectively drowned out. I'm not denying that there was an emotional component affecting frequency, which halved once I quit the Slow Motion Train-Wreck Relationship, but they did not, in fact, cease entirely.

I will concede that possibly my slump into depression c. 1980 was sending me a message, but the message was not 'Tough it out', but 'get some anti-depressants to get yourself together and get into therapy'.

There may be times when suffering is inevitable, occasions when it is even necessary. It is, however, not in and of itself a good thing. Things that reduce it are good things.

Comments

[thatyourefuse]

There may be times when suffering is inevitable, occasions when it is even necessary. It is, however, not in and of itself a good thing. Things that reduce it are good things.

Yes. This.

Thank you.

[perennialanna]

I'm trying to remember if that was my comment on The Daisy Chain - it's certainly something I have ranted about at great length for several years.

Yes, on migraines, and many other things. I see migraine patterning as a Message, because mine are on a reasonably regular cycle, and if they become more frequent it's worth looking for a precipitating factor and removing it. But only as a means to having fewer migraines, since this is a sufficient good in and of itself, not as a grand plan to Fix My Life.

[serriadh]

In a similar vein, this article in the Independent made me spit:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/is-depression-actually-good-for-you-2274662.html

[sassbandit]

Well, FWIW, I wore glasses as a kid (1970s-1980s) and wasn't really teased for them or anything. I was aware of "four-eyes" as a taunt but never really heard it used outside of books and tv and whatnot. I remember my parents being concerned that I would have a hard time as a glasses-wearing kid, but I really didn't. By the time I finished my schooling (early 1990s) it was starting to be seen as cool -- glasses with plain glass being worn for fashion, that sort of thing.

[szandara]

anything that helps you deal with a physical or mental condition is a 'crutch', which the Truly Strong and Determined person will endeavour to do without.

To me, this is very backward. A TS&D person will endeavor to find things that help them deal with a physical or mental condition, rather than giving in or giving up.

Someone recently told me what she was doing to avoid falling back into depression, and then sighed and said, "I know it's just a defense mechanism." I replied, "You say 'defense mechanism' like it's a bad thing." And it isn't, really. When you feel besieged by life, what makes more sense: to defend yourself, and scrounge up whatever weapons you have at hand to deal with the it, or to strip yourself naked and say "come and get me"??

[dsgood]

Yes!

I'm not about to give up my allergy and ADD/ADHD meds.

[libskrat]

Mileage may vary on this, but I've always liked the hints and suggestions in UKL's story "The Diary of the Rose" (collected in The Compass Rose) about the complex dance between illness and environment.

I've had the experience of illness, specifically depression, being a Message that I needed to change my environment: specifically, that I needed to leave the Ph.D program I was in. My experience hardly means that depression specifically and illness generally must be generally understood as Messages! That's just fail. I can absolutely see why that article made you spit!

Nor am I fond of the privileged assumption (speared well through in "Diary") that even if a change of environment is indicated, it's always possible. I had a couple of bad spells of depression at age thirteen that probably did have a lot to do with my environment -- but I was THIRTEEN; I had no power to change what was wrong!

So I'm with oursin 100%. That which helps is good. Why is that even controversial, is what I don't get.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I would like to point out that (a) Mrs. May believed, as many people did then and some do now, that spectacles would make Ethel's eyesight much worse, (b) she does acquire corrective lenses of some kind (the lorgnette thing Harry sends her) after a while, (c) in The Trial she has spectacles, and (d) Tom isn't allowed spectacles until he is older, either. So, bad enough, but NOT quite as bad as it's sometimes painted, though of course I agree with oursin. (I have probably said all this before; excuse me for prosing on, if so.)

Kipling was, I believe, the *only* boy at his school to wear spectacles. Ethel's plight must not have been uncommon.

[perennialanna]

Interestingly, there was a fashion a few years ago for underprescribing lenses for children, in the belief that this would help their eyesight by making their eyes work harder. It turned out to have precisely the opposite effect. I was in that generation whose sight was made worse than it needed to be.

I'm eagerly awaiting the offspring's sight test appointment, to see just how they measure sight in a non-reading toddler. With my astigmatism and short-sightedness, and her father's one short-sighted eye and one long-sighted eye, she could have inherited just about anything. Or nothing.

[oursin]

Do they still do the eye-patch thing for lazy eye, which strikes me as sort of the same thing?

[oursin]

And Kipling was of course severely short-sighted - if 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' constitutes a reasonably accurate record of what the doctor said.

[perennialanna]

I've met several toddlers with eye-patches recently, so I think so. My sister had a mildly lazy eye, and had to do daily exercises for a while, but no patch.

[ironed_orchid]

I love my crutches, because they help me leave the house.

The crutch part might be metaphorical, but the leaving the house is not.

[redbird]

*nod* Sometimes it may be worth thinking about whether you're using an inefficient or outmoded defense mechanism—do you need a moat and alligators, or would a good lock and an alarm system be more appropriate—but that's different from deciding that the way to deal with a threat is to let it knock you over.

[jesse_the_k]

I had the lazy eye and a variety of patches for three years (1960-63) and then tried again to manage double vision with more patches, exercises &c last year. The first bunch meant my lazy eye was invisible for the first 40 years of my life. Second, no joy. The other approach is prism, which has its own drawbacks.

[vito_excalibur]

Yeah, and that narrative was part of why it took me so long to get proper treatment for my depression. For the longest time I thought I was depressed because I was unemployed &etc. Eventually it dawned on me that I was unemployed &etc. because I was too depressed to do anything about my situation!

[vito_excalibur]

As people have already commented, wow, what a really bad metaphor that is anyway once you start thinking about the literal uses of a crutch as assistive technology.

I had that exact conversation with Mr. E once. "That's just a crutch." "Yes, but when your leg's broken, you NEED a crutch." "....I never thought about it that way before."

[antisoppist]

I took a 4 year-old to an optician and they showed her a card with about 5 big letters of the alphabet on and she had to point to the one that was like the one on the other side of the room. But I'm not sure what they do with smaller people who haven't mastered pattern recognition.

When I was having lazy eye operations when I was 4 they made me look into a machine like a pair of binoculars and turn knobs to make the lion go into the cage. I couldn't get the lion to go into the cage at all, although I tried really really hard, and when I tearfully announced my failure, they laughed and said "oh we know you can't do it, we just wanted you to tell us what happens when you try". I promptly hated them for ever and refused to speak to any medical staff the entire time I was in hospital because they plainly couldn't be trusted and were trying to trick me and make me look stupid. I hope things have improved now.

[lilacsigil]

Being extremely ill (with cancer, as it turned out) was sending me a message - the message that my doctors were full of shit and I needed to get a new doctor!

When did the idea that it was okay to wear spectacles (rather than a sign of moral weakness) finally gain widespread acceptance?
My dad was born in 1946, and wore glasses from the age of 4. All his school photos have at least 4-6 kids with glasses (out of about 40 kids), and he remembers being teased for being short, not for wearing glasses. His father was born in 1916 and was just as short-sighted, but didn't get glasses until he was 17, and then was encouraged not to wear them unless he had to. He was from a middle-class family, so it wasn't a money issue in itself. I do wonder, though, if the introduction of National Health with free eye testing and glasses for kids in the late 1940s made a difference - suddenly so many kids who needed glasses could get them, so it slowly became normalised through sheer numbers. (My dad is Scottish, so this may be a UK-specific theory!)

[oursin]

That model would work for the UK and swathes of Europe, but I imagine there were similar developments in USA? Though read an autobiography once of someone who was of a v poor US family and that they had to apply to some charitable body (Lions' Club?) to get funding for her to have eyes tested and glasses as a child (may have been Dorothy Allison).

There was a bit of 'four-eyes' at my primary school, plus a bit later (for girls, anyway), the idea that glasses were unattractive ('men seldom make passes', etc) and that you should save up for contacts.

[cereta]

There may be times when suffering is inevitable, occasions when it is even necessary. It is, however, not in and of itself a good thing.

I remember as a child/teen in Catholic school, reading through the lives of the saints, and noticing two things: first was how many of the women saints' stories involved either resisting sex in marriage or forgiving their rapists, and second was how many of the stories involved needless suffering. I understood the virtue of going hungry to feed someone else or forgoing comfort to be where you could help people, but the idea that taking cold baths when hot ones were available, or sleeping on stone for no reason other than to deny oneself comfort was just bizarre to me. But somehow, that narrative has sunk itself deep into our culture, that suffering is a strength and a virtue. And God, how I hate it.

[aron_kristina]

I understand exactly what you mean by this. Even though my metaphorical crutches are a bit shit, at the moment...

[aron_kristina]

"But I believe that people who go through it come out stronger." Yeah, that may be true for people who actually manage to go through it, because it's a one time thing, not a lifelong disease they have to live with...

"Though depression is horrible and no one would choose to go through it, it can help us be more realistic. And because it's so painful, we dig deeper and find out how not to go through it again."
Helpful for people who are depressed because of an outside reason perhaps, but not for the rest of us.

On the other hand, there were some people saying otherwise in the article, but it still felt like the "cheer up, emo kid!" people got more space.

[oursin]

It's a narrative that Rebecca West did a lot of incisive unpicking of in Black Lamb and Grey Falcon - the idea that suffering is good and that sacrificing yourself is always good and so on, and how deeply embedded it is in European culture.

[perennialanna]

I got "four-eyes" at primary school (1984-89), but from a boy who also wore glasses, and his tone was one of duty rather than actual teasing - someone had to say it, it seemed, so he took on the job.

On the other hand, my continued wearing of glasses when I 'ought' to be wearing contacts does attract comment. As it happens, my combination of sight problems means that contacts would be extremely expensive, I am very squeamish about touching my eyes, and have hay fever in my eyes for 10 months of the year. Glasses are really the best option.

[sasha_feather]

This post has been linked at access_fandom.


...And if I can self-promote a little, you might enjoy my blog post about crutch as a metaphor:
http://disabledfeminists.com/2009/11/09/guest-ableist-word-profile-crutch/

[oursin]

Thank you!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

My son had an eye patch for amblyopia, and it worked very well. We had been afraid he would need surgery, but no. I don't think patching is controversial.

[sashajwolf]

I agree with all of that. I also don't understand why abled people seem to think there's a binary choice between Hearing the Message and Using a Crutch. I'm quite capable of taking an anti-spasmodic for my IBS and then, once I'm no longer cramping and worrying about where the nearest bathroom is, asking myself whether I accidentally ate one of my triggers or whether I've been putting myself in stressful situations. I can also take a painkiller for my back, wait for the pain to stop fogging my mind and then ask myself whether I've been neglecting my exercise or forgetting to lift with my legs rather than my back. Such superpowers we disabled people have!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Our family doctor did a quick eye screening on my son at age three or four, and was pleased to be able to use the letter version of the test rather than the symbol version, as my son did know his letters. I forget what the symbol version looked like, though, so that's not much help.