My parents were nothing like what you describe, but the relatively minor thing I remember is cramps/growing pains in my legs. I’d get those as a kid, and for however long they lasted, 10-30 minutes probably, that was all I could focus on, and my parents strategy to help me was essentially to tell me to stop whining about it.
Now when my kid has similar I offer sympathy and pain relief. Did Children’s Tylenol not exist in the 80s?
Few things are more annoying than someone who’s less sick than you acting like they’re more sick than you
You want to know one of the things more annoying? When somebody who is bed ridden with the slightest sniffle starts accusing you of “man flu” and gets condescending when you actually have a fever, body aches, etc. and just want to lie down for awhile.
This is what a good parent does. You are a good parent.
I mean, a great parent can tell when the little fuckers are faking it, I spent much of my junior school days umsure if “running a temperature” meant too hot, or too cold, so I would either raid the freezer for something to make my forehead cold, or I would rub my forehead hard with a towel to make it hot.
My mum was not stupid. My tricks never ever worked.
Does Tylenol even help with muscle spasms? In my experience, OTC analgesics take about a half-hour to kick in, which is about how long the bad pain from a spasm lasts, anyway. The only things I’ve found to help in the short term are heat and massage.
The opposite in our house. The wife is ill? She takes over the living room and sleeps on the couch for days (which is annoying in itself - go sleep on the bed and let the rest of us use the room!). She has to be catered to, fed, brought tea, tiptoed around etc while I do all the housework.
When I’m ill, I’m still expected to do everything I normally do, including make dinner, feed the cats, do laundry, do the school run, etc.
At least for me and my kid, it’s not spasms, just pain. The muscle isn’t too tight (I’ve had that, and it’s different), it just hurts.
The pain is likely to go away on its own by the time the pain relief kicks in, but not always, and they would often come and go several times over a few hours, and then not come back for a week or two. As long as used properly OTC pain meds are safe and effective, so there isn’t much harm in using them, even if suffering through the pain is also a safe option.
You have my sympathy. I think of it as not being allowed to be sick, even when I actually am sick. Here, if I’m sick, those kinds of things just don’t get done.
I’ve spent more than 30,000 hours working in ERs. People vary widely in their reaction to illness. The perception is that men are tougher and more stoic. So when this is not the case it is more noticeable. But FWIW I don’t see much gender difference, some people will drive a truck back home for three days after a heart attack because they fear American medical bills. And many nurses use the phrase “man flu”.
You get people who don’t tell friends and family they are moribund. And the teacher who clearly feigned^ back pain the day before school was to start and asked for three weeks off.
(^ Even a doctor cannot tell how much pain someone is in, which is highly subjective, but there are many additional tests to weed out likely malingerers. Doctors should absolutely believe most patients, and never use condescending phrases like “the pain is all in your head”. Many people with pain are inadequately treated. But also some fakes are easy to spot. Like if they take ten minutes to melodramatically limp into the room but without pain treatment are somehow able to leave it in five seconds.)
I read somewhere that men have higher pain tolerance with damage to the extremities but women have higher pain tolerance with internal pain, like organs. Not sure where illness fits in, but I wonder if women are built for enduring things like menstrual cramps and childbirth and men for, I dunno, jabbing a spear through their hand.
Though when I try to find this article, I’m getting a lot of hits supporting the claim that men have a higher pain tolerance than women, in general.
Based on studies like this one and as a woman with a long history of having pain minimized by medical professionals, I’d say it’s entirely possible women over-report the intensity of their pain in hopes someone will finally take it seriously.
Variations on the OP
“I’m sick, therefore no one else can be.”
Person list off relatively minor ailments for 20 minutes. Other person: “I just found out I have stage 4 stomach cancer.” “Really? You had to make this about YOU?”
When my gf is truly ill she wants a bit of pampering. I’ll make her soup and bring it to her. Bring her meds. Ask frequently if she needs anything. I’ve learned that is how I help her and do those things happily.
When I’m truly ill, LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE. It took awhile, but she learned to just ignore me until I’m well, and that’s what makes me happy.
My husband is of the “leave me alone” persuasion. I’d appreciate a bit of care and sympathy. The bad part is that we’re both prone to giving the kind of treatment we would want. Thus, I fuss over him more than he wants, he leaves me a lot more alone than I would like. Gets really bad when we’re sick at the same time (such as when we both had Covid the same week).
My husband babies me, but not himself. He doesn’t get sick nearly as often, and when he does, he seems utterly bewildered by it. Even though he complains more than me, I still make out better between the two of us. I try to take care of him but he’s always trying to do stuff.
When we both had COVID, I was sicker than him, but I was sick first, so I was slowly getting better while he was getting sicker. Even getting sicker during Christmas vacation he insisted on me sleeping in every morning while he got our son up and around. And the thing is I kinda needed it. By the time vacation was over, I was just well enough to return to work on time. So he has good instincts I guess.
It’s possible I’ve had personal experience with this.
Separate anecdote: When I was a teenager, I sprained my ankle. Didn’t go to the doc, but it was almost impossible to walk. I wrapped it in an Ace bandage and iced it, but for a few days it was rough.
A couple of days after the sprain happened, I was scheduled to work at my job as a tour guide at a local set of caverns. I forced my hurt foot into my shoe and tried to work, but after my first hour-long tour I had to take my shoe off due to the swelling. After the second tour, the Ace bandage was soaked through and I was basically hopping, so I clocked out and went home.
My mom gave me grief for the rest of the day for not finishing my shift. Having a hurt ankle cut zero ice with her; I was supposed to work, so because I wasn’t working I was goofing off.
My wife and I both tend to unjustly not take illness and exhaustion of the other part seriously, for opposite reasons.
My wife tends to dismiss me saying I feel ill, or exhausted, because I said it only once (so it cannot be serious).
I tend to dismiss her saying she feels ill, or exhausted, because she said it multiple times (so it cannot be serious).
One instance was when on a hike in Albania in summer I stated that I was not feeling well, then stopped talking in order to concentrate on setting one foot before the other on the way to shade. When I waved away conversational overtures she concluded that I was being difficult. When we reached a beach hut she asked me “Why don’t you go into the shade?” and I fled to collapse under some bushes because I could neither muster the mental energy for responding “Because someone is standing in the door.” and the inevitable conversation, nor the aggressiveness to shoulder the person out of the door.
That’s not because of any sort of stoicism but because when in physical distress talking is one of the first expenditures that I triage out.
My opinion falls somewhere between “sorry to hear that; do whatever you need to look after yourself” and " cut the drama; you’re a grown ass adult". I’m not totally heartless but I have very little patience for whining adults. That goes double for women who want to detail every painful symptom of their period.
I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but, oh well. Long, long ago I read a newspaper article which explained people’s ways of responding to illness by where they stood on two axes, whether they want to fight through their illness or not, and whether they want care/sympathy from others. Obviously leading to four categories;
Stoics. Refuse to give in or even admit to illness. They insist on carrying on with work (even when they have something contagious and really should stay home) and don’t want to talk about it or have others try to talk about it or do anything to ‘pamper’ them.
Dying dogs. Accept that they are ill, want no sympathy or special attention from others. The ‘just leave me alone to die in peace’ folks as several have mentioned.
Martyrs. Tend to be loud and dramatic and love to whine about their pains BUT they insist on carrying on with their jobs. The “I’m not allowed/can’t be sick” folks.
Babies. Loudly whine and complain about their illnesses AND want all the pampering and sympathy they can glean.
The real problem comes from people of different types interacting. You tend to default to the Golden Rule (Do as you would be done to) which is pretty much the opposite of what the sick person actually wants.
A good categorisation, that. I am in the ‘dying dog’ group here, only it’s not ''just leave me alone to die in peace" but “just leave me alone to recover in peace”. (I suspect those animals that hide when dying do not do that because they sense that they are dying, but because they sense that they are weak and cannot defend themselves, so they hide).
For me, to say “I have a problem.” means “Please go away.” while “I have a problem, please help me” means “Please come and help me.”
These are all extremes obviously, but I think I’m reasonable when I’m sick. I complain more than some people but less than others. And I pamper myself as much as I can. If I have nothing pressing, I’m not going to grind through non-urgent work on a sick day. I will work exactly as hard as I have to, no more. But I don’t typically require anything from anyone else, unless I’m very ill.
My husband is a bit of a Martyr and I’m a bit of a Baby.
It’s the Stoics who fascinate me. Do they not feel as lousy as I do? If they do, what’s wrong with me that I can’t just carry on? I don’t know if I should admire them, but I do.