Why the guilt when we're sick?
When work culture invades our rest time + creating and working while horizontal
In the 15 or so years I’ve lived with a chronic medical condition1, I wonder how much time I’ve spent horizontal. I lived with sinus headaches and surgeries, asthma, and fatigue. How much during this period did I fill my time with useless input (like scrolling or watching crap shows), while I gave shameful output into the world? When it came to working and mothering, my illness made me waver between desperately trying to participate — or not at all because I could not physically or mentally do it.
While there’s no cure for my disease, a couple years ago I found a medication and regimen that keeps symptoms pretty tame. I can catch my kids’ colds without worry because my colds are just colds now and don’t escalate into something worse. We knew I turned a corner when my husband noticed my son cough in my face and I didn’t run myself into panic and paranoia about how ill I’ll feel for weeks afterward.
Last Saturday while playing charades with my family, my voice sounded funny, a little deeper, a bit raspy. By Sunday, I rested in bed feeling under the weather and the guilt hit me. My past fear trickled into my present with familiar inner dialogue: I will not get better anytime soon. I’ll be glued to this bed, never get anything done, watch other people care for my kids, while I exist here.
In my attempt to “rest,” I scrolled on my phone, feeling sorry for myself. Guilt kicked in hard when I clicked on the latest Architectural Digest video, “Inside Jon Batiste & Suleika Jaouad’s Soul-Filled Brooklyn Home.” Suleika, who has a wonderful Substack, has written extensively on living with leukemia, which returned earlier this year and she underwent a second bone marrow transplant. Her home is gorgeous, filled with quirky secondhand items, high ceilings, and hand-painted Tunisian tiles in the kitchen. What threw me into a spiral was a blue couch, located in Suleika’s office and painting studio. This fainting couch, she explains, is where she writes, reads, and naps. The camera zooms behind the couch, scanning framed paintings, images inspired by fever dreams in the hospital. She painted these originals, so beautiful and filled with emotion — from her hospital bed.
She mentions Frida Kahlo, who was also chronically ill, painted masterpieces in bed with an easel.
These brilliant women made works of art while horizontal.
Yet I’m here zapping brain cells while online shopping, watching reels, and deep in the comparison trap, ogling over everyone else’s life but my own. I felt like a piece of shit.
Why do I speak to myself so unkindly?
Apparently, it’s not just an affliction of the chronically ill. The feeling seems to be mutual for many adults, regardless of their health background.
It’s called sick guilt.
The CEO of a boutique HR firm said in an article: “It's when a person feels remorse or shame that they can't work, or perform at their best, when they're sick. It may consist of remorse, feelings of shame, condemnation, and even regret that one cannot execute the daily tasks.”
The first google search page for sick guilt produced lots of articles with the conclusion that we’ve got a work culture poisoning the way we work. We inevitably get sick but we’ve got a weird way of approaching rest and sick days.
A CBS News piece from this week reported, “Nearly 90% of U.S. workers say they worked through sickness over the past 12 months, according to a survey […] And despite the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shining a spotlight on worker health, sick-leave policies in the U.S. remain subpar.”
Seems about right. People who have jobs right now are taking the slack from the Great Resignation, fearing their jobs after so many industries have gone through layoffs in our economy. Remote workers feel they need to demonstrate they are indeed working, finding themselves working harder, longer hours to prove themselves.
There’s a phenomenon called presenteeism, which is the act of working through sickness as a performative measure, despite having reduced capabilities.
This act was me this week. I eventually got my booty up, worked on my podcast, and wrote two posts.
In a span of three days, I wallowed in my guilt but pushed through creativity and did my work. But if I really listened to my body, it would have told me to rest more.
This got me thinking about the sick mothers out there. How many power through to care for their kids, keep up with the house, and all the other responsibilities on their plate?
My post doesn’t have a solution.
It’s merely an observation of an experience that happens to many of us. As we are into the school season, our kids come home with snotty noses and sneeze on our plates of food. Getting sick is inevitable.
The next time you’re unwell, notice your feelings. Is there guilt for merely resting? Do you make a decision to go forward with life even though your body might need rest? Do you have a choice? Will work still be there when you get back, or do you need to deal now?
While you’re observing these thoughts and feelings, know you’re not alone in them.
I recently spoke with Rae Katz for her Ladies Illness Library, which hasn’t been published yet. Read her series with other women (and now a man!), a fascinating exploration of unconventional illness journeys. Here are a couple that really spoke to me.
Aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD), also known as Samter’s Triad, is a chronic medical condition that consists of three clinical features: asthma, sinus disease with recurrent nasal polyps, and sensitivity to aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that inhibit an enzyme called cyclooxygenase-1. This sensitivity usually manifests as respiratory reactions that occur upon ingesting or inhaling an NSAID, though the exact cause of the reactions is not known. Approximately 9% of all adults with asthma and 30% of patients with asthma and nasal polyps have AERD. In general, AERD develops quite suddenly in adulthood, usually between the ages of 20 and 50, and there is no clearly understood trigger that causes the disease.