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    A Sick Prejudice
    A Sick Prejudice
    A Sick Prejudice
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    A Sick Prejudice

    By Joseph H. McNolty

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    About this ebook

    Why can it be so difficult to be around someone with a serious illness?

    Something lurks deep within us, urging us to avoid someone seriously ill. A Sick Prejudice explores our innermost fears, primal emotions, and biases when we get into illness situations. It reveals the flawed reasoning and escape tactics that naturally arise in us.

    Joseph McNolty weaves together research with heartfelt stories that span over 15 years of his wife’s cancer and his own. He uncovers why there is a “sick prejudice,” how it affects us, and how it can make an illness worse.

    McNolty offers us easy ways to overcome the distressed and exaggerated feelings we can have. We then can create a healing environment for the sick one and an enriching experience for ourselves. More than just a look at the stereo-types and aversions people can have to illness, A Sick Prejudice explores the essential role of sickness in our lives and the personal growth that can come from the experience.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJoseph H. McNolty
    Release dateDec 8, 2017
    ISBN9780999714836
    A Sick Prejudice

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      Book preview

      A Sick Prejudice - Joseph H. McNolty

      A SICK PREJUDICE

      A SICK PREJUDICE

      OVERCOMING OUR PRIMAL EMOTIONS AND STEREOTYPES OF SOMEONE WITH A SERIOUS ILLNESS

      Joseph H. McNolty

      A Sick Prejudice. Copyright © October, 2009 by Joseph H. McNolty. First published in the United States, December, 2017

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process or in the form of phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use–other than for fair use as brief quotation embodied in articles and reviews without prior written permission from the author.

      Library of Congress-in-Publication Data

      Edited by: Jennifer D. Munro

      For more information about Joseph H. McNolty, visit: JosephMcNolty.com

      For Ann

      To all those who are sick and without enough help; and to all those who are well with good hearts.

      Contents

      Preface

      Introduction

      Defining A Sick Prejudice and Glimpsing its Repercussions

      Chapter I. Explaining Why We Have a Sick Prejudice

      Part A. Evolutionary Causes of a Sick Prejudice (And Similarities of A Sick Prejudice to Racial Prejudice)

      Part B. Reliance on Personal Experience Contributes to a Sick Prejudice

      Part C. Survival Statistics and Prognoses Fuel a Sick Prejudice

      Chapter II. Exploring How a Sick Prejudice Can Make the Illness Worse

      Part A. The Placebo Effect

      Part B. The Nocebo Effect

      Part C. Doctors’ Interaction Style Can Hinder or Help

      Part D. Our Interaction Style as Helpers Can Hinder or Help

      Chapter III. Sick Prejudice Avoidance Tactics That Keep Us from Helping

      Part A. The Nine Sideline Excuses and Concerns

      Part B. Knowing We’re Responding from the Past

      Chapter IV. Managing A Sick Prejudice and Enabling a Healing Environment

      Part A. Understanding and Treating the Sick Person as an Individual

      Part B. Realizing the Sick One has Sick Prejudices, Too

      Part C. Special Focus—Living with Illness in a Marriage or Loving Partnership

      Part D. The Great Eight Pain Relievers for a Sick Prejudice

      Chapter V. Helping

      Part A. Finding Our Calling As Helpers

      Part B. Offering Unsolicited Help

      Part C. Dealing with Sick Folks Who Adamantly Refuse Help

      Part D. Don’t Push Too Hard

      Chapter VI. Moving Past our Sick Prejudice

      Part A. What We Gain

      Part B. What’s Left After a Sick Prejudice is Gone

      Resources

      End Notes

      Preface

      What does A Sick Prejudice mean?

      A sick prejudice means there are prejudgments made of people who have chronic, life-threatening illnesses. It means people have attitudes and assumptions already in mind when they go visit a sick friend or loved one. They don’t view them or their illness as a unique circumstance. They see them through eyes that have been tainted by innate emotions, TV medical dramas, other sick people they’ve known, and how their families acted toward ill people. The book delves into how susceptible we are to feelings of a sick prejudice so we can understand and overcome them.

      The biggest issue with an illness, as we learn, can be how people respond to it rather than the illness itself. For those of us who haven’t had a serious illness, it’s almost impossible to understand the changes it can have on the people around us, let alone ourselves. From one day to the next, a seriously ill person becomes a member of those who have some defect or disease. Just the word disease invokes feelings of fear and repulsion. All of a sudden, they’re being treated like they are the disease. Further, it’s by their friends and loved ones during a time when the sick person is the most vulnerable. Worse yet, the sick one will likely have the same prejudices about sick people as everyone else and accept their bleak new role without question.

      Why haven’t we heard of a sick prejudice before?

      A sick prejudice is mostly an invisible type of prejudice. People don’t talk about it much; they don’t talk about the stereotypes, biases, and assumptions we have about the chronically ill of our world. There isn’t much in the news about how we interact with those having diseases and life-threatening illnesses. There are very few organizations representing and arguing on behalf of the seriously ill, unlike some other prejudices. Illness crosses all groups of people regardless of age, race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or political orientation, which makes the subject difficult to identify with. Lastly, it can seem self-betraying to talk of our true concerns and fears of sick people.

      How is a sick prejudice like other prejudices?

      A sick prejudice is like other prejudices in that conclusions are drawn about a person because they are in some particular group, such as a certain race, ethnicity or gender. A sick prejudice does an injustice to people who are seriously ill, just as racial prejudice does an injustice to people of color. A sick prejudice, however, doesn’t have the animosity that racial prejudice can have. It’s more about fear or apprehension, rather than dominance or hostility. A sick prejudice certainly has it’s a harmful side though - it can make people sicker.

      This book talks about how both a sick prejudice and racial prejudice likely began at the dawn of humanity, and are in some ways primitive, natural responses. In our modern world though, they are both useless and destructive. Of course, racial prejudices went on to become a great detriment in our society, causing years of oppression and miserable wars while sick prejudices, even at extremes, don’t result in wars and violence, but rather the quiet abandonment of millions.

      How large of a problem is a sick prejudice?

      A sick prejudice appears to be a very large social and world problem. How large? We have a rough idea by using data from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2012, they stated: Approximately half of U.S. adults have at least one of the ten chronic conditions examined. Furthermore, one in four adults have multiple chronic conditions.¹ That’s 64 million

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