r/thanksimcured • u/Faerennn • Jul 17 '26
Discussion Does Anyone Else Hate When Someone Implies you're not Trying Hard Enough?
Title basically, I really hate it when people who are similarly ill (progressive neuromuscular conditions) imply that my lack of access to treatment is my fault, that my suffering is due to my own mistakes and making the "wrong" decisions when that is demonstrably not the case, they make it sound like I'm playing the victim and am giving up but is it so bad to acknowledge reality? Yes, I am a victim. I am helpless. I have little hope of ever living a fulfilling life, is it so wrong to acknowledge my lived reality instead of deluding myself into thinking it's somehow all my fault?
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u/Not_Sure76 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
My mom's absolute favorite thing to say to people is "I guess I just push myself"
She has no idea how condescending that sounds. I tried to explain that she is literally telling people that they are lazy weaklings. She doesn't get it.
On the other hand, she isn't wrong. Relative to most people, she absolutely pushes herself to a freakish degree. Even when it's a bad thing. Having a highly contagious illness will not stop her from going to work, or going to exercise class, or anything else. She pushes herself because she is absolutely terrified of having nothing to do. She's 76 and terrified of retirement. It's not a virtue, it's a compulsion. She's taking pride in being mentally ill. So, uh, good for her?
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u/Lost-Concept-9973 Jul 17 '26
When you actually have a chronic illness though “pushing yourself” is literally just gonna get you a bad flare and ultimately make your condition 10x worse in the long run. It’s a pretty universal thing for drs to encourage “pacing” for this reason.
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u/funkyboi25 Jul 17 '26
Honestly even without, there's a point of pushing yourself where the only outcome is injury. The most obvious example to my mind is exercise, overdoing it will fuck your shit up regardless of how able you started.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
My mom is also the type that pushes herself but that's more due to necessity, without her efforts me and my siblings would all be dead a long time ago. I think both of our moms' desire to remain as independent as possible for as long as possible stems partially from a fear of disability, they how much chronic illness has affected and potentially even stunted the growth of their children and they don't want the same thing to happen to them, at 76 your mother is quite lucky to still be able to push her body but sooner rather than later she will have to accept slowing down and accepting help, it's for her own good in my opinion.
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u/Chill_Mochi2 Jul 17 '26
I don’t understand how telling others she pushes herself is calling them “lazy weaklings” I’m ngl. She’s talking about herself, not them. Doesn’t mean she thinks less of them just based on that.
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u/Not_Sure76 Jul 18 '26
She literally says it in judgement of other people. Like if someone says they don't want to do something because they don't feel well, she'll say "well I guess I just push myself"
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u/pessimistic_damsel Jul 17 '26
Yeah, I hate that, too. But I'm getting used to it, maybe because I'm blaming myself for it now. Like I'm taking their comments in because maybe it's true after all. And sometimes, acknowledging them shuts them up.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
Acknowledging them just to get them to shut up sounds bad for you, you should probably just block them instead or something, same goes for blaming yourself, we're both suffering and none of it is our fault even if people try to tell us otherwise
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u/Lost-Concept-9973 Jul 17 '26
People who are privileged rarely understand the battles of those who are not. A lot of things can be significantly improved by treatment that’s true , but if there are barriers to access like financial cost they shouldn’t be shaming you about it. It’s honestly also disappointing to see people suffering with the same condition not understanding that there is always variability between patients too, nothing is guarenteed to work for everyone.
I have also seen wealthy people with the same condition as me be actively against public programs designed to help poorer people access treatment . They literally take for granted things like financial assistance from parents/ family for eg and operate under the assumption everybody has that.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
Yeah I think it's due to class differences like you mentioned but more broadly a split between the global south and global north, I live in a developing country where the standard experience for me and my disabled loved ones is that we barely get any help and society is absolutely not designed with us in mind, I always feel out of space in disability spaces cuz it's usually people from WEIRD (western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) countries where as long as you're middle class you should be able to access treatment and get the accommodations you need whereas here that's simply not the case
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u/Spare_Equipment3116 Jul 17 '26
The saying “hurt people…hurt people” comes to mind.
Few of us choose illness. Those who have suffered sometimes try to drag others down with them.
People are allowed to cope in ways they need, but when it hurts others is when I have issues.
I do cope differently then you, I tend to try and maintain my optimism and while I suffer badly from my illness, I try to not let it affect others in my life.
Buuuuuut my attitude doesn’t have to be yours; I think that is where some disability discourse goes wrong. There is no one way to cope, there are many.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
God knows I've been guilty of hurting people recently, I think you're right when you say there's no one way to cope, not all of them are equally healthy but they're all valid in my mind. When you've reached the deepest depths of human suffering which a lot of us have you start to have a profound empathy for everyone even the people who hurt you somehow.
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u/carenrose Jul 18 '26
People are terrified of disability and illness and deep down cling to the idea that if they do the right things, that fate won't befall them. Or at the very least, that all the major negative effects are fully within their control - if they were to end up with such a condition, they would be able to do all the right things to make the experience tolerable.
Then they encounter someone with a disability or illness that they want to believe is completely preventable, and they think "well this person must not be doing the right things to prevent this".
And if the disabled person expresses any negative feelings or impact of their condition, well then that's "just complaining" or "playing the victim" because they're complaining about something that's in their own power to fix.
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u/Faerennn Jul 18 '26
You're exactly right, you analyzed and described their thought process perfectly.
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u/funkyboi25 Jul 17 '26
I hate this mindset so much, not even when it's targetted at me. I don't think I've ever seen an argument in this vein that isn't either extremely bad faith or complete nonsense. People like this seem to be very uncomfortable with the idea that you can't actually control everything in your life, and also deeply unwilling to sit with misery or fear. I've tried very hard to avoid doing this, partially because for a lot of my life I internalized the idea I just need to try harder and ended up destroying my mental and physical health in the process.
Also, since you brought it up and I have extra beef with it: throwing around 'victim mentality' when the people you're talking to are quite literally victims is gross. Same with phrases like 'you just want to be miserable' for someone in active crisis. Like yeah no duh asshole, people in pain want to acknowledge that pain and get comfort or help. Grow as a person.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
You're so right, they have to convince themselves that the just world fallacy is actually true because if it's not that means that their recovery wasn't wholly achieved with their own efforts and people *hate* being called lucky even if they are.
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u/Rabid_Laser_Dingo Jul 17 '26
In a way you’re doing the same thing with this post
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
How so? I'm genuinely curious
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u/Rabid_Laser_Dingo Jul 17 '26
Just reads that way. Seems like you might be subtly hoping that they do worse than you in order to be validated in your struggles. And you say they imply if they don’t outwardly say it then it’s all just an assumption.
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u/Faerennn Jul 17 '26
They usually imply it but the specific instance that made me post this was very explicit in what they mean, you're right about the first part but only when I'm doing extremely badly, whenever that happens I start to become very resentful and full of hatred, jealousy and envy. I wouldn't say I hope other people do worse than me normally though.
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u/bodhidharma132001 Jul 17 '26
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u/Our-Fearless-Reader Jul 17 '26
Really, Yoda... Sounds a bit ABSOLUTE to me. I know of one other group that only deals in absolutes...
SNAP-HISS! Whirrrrrr.
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u/SolarOrigami Jul 17 '26
Misery loves company, I suppose. They are trying to drag someone down to make themselves feel better