Being sick is a lot of work!

[This is a first draft of a piece I'm working on for the zine on physical illness]

In our economy, everything that we do is work. First, there's the obvious fact that more of our time, energy, and intellect is channeled into some sort of profitable activity. But more than that, everything else that we do is in the service of our labor. We arrange eating, sleeping, socializing, fucking, and our whole lives around the work day. We drug ourselves with caffeine and other stimulants to be better workers, and then drop anti-anxiety meds or sleeping pills to get a good night's sleep for the day ahead. Natural human life has been pathologized, medically treated, and eradicated. Lots of us have to spend our "spare" time and money on clothes and other styling products so that we look like the right class, race, or gender so that we "fit the culture" of our workplaces (because we we're not good enough as we are). Vacations are given so that we can be better workers; if that wasn't the case, we probably wouldn't have them anymore. Even time spent doing social networking and blogging is producing content for the consumption of others, providing a space for advertisements, and presenting identities embedded within consumer culture.

Sickness is seen as a challenge to this work culture. It's offensive to industry that some bodies aren't always available for use. While total health is the exception, not the rule, it's valued in our capitalist culture and thus presented as a norm, the same way that certain races, genders, classes, and sexualities are differentially valued by business. This differential valuation on the basis of health is not without consequences. Whether or not illness significantly impairs one's work, being "out" as ill often raises questions about one's (dis)abilities in the workplace. Many managers worry (aloud, or silently) that an illness or a disability is going to make you a crappier worker.

But sickness itself is work. We have to perform a lot of labor to keep our bodies going for our own reasons and also to be good employees. Non-work time is spent at doctor's offices, haggling with insurance companies, preparing special foods, changing dressings, driving across town to find the right kind of medicine, taking a vacation at the Mayo Clinic, having surgeries, and queuing in pharmacies. Since many doctors and nurses don't have enough time to explain our conditions, much less find radical new treatments for them, we're stuck spending more and more time educating ourselves. We spend a whole lot of time learning how not to be sick, which is like transferring labor from the medical industry to us as individuals.

The labor of staying healthy becomes a moral requirement of being a worker and citizen in this day and age, and doing anything that makes you less healthy is like a rejection of the system. It's a whole new application of rational choice theory- if you can figure out how not to be sick, you should, and if you know, you should do everything you can to stay healthy so that you're not holding yourself or your company back. Consequently, communicable illness is becoming an issue of personal responsibility, rather than the natural action of bacteria and viruses on their own. You found them, rather than them finding you! Is it possible that you got a cold because you didn't wash your hands before eating lunch one day? That's irresponsible!

People suffering from diseases that are not entirely randomly acquired (like environmental exposures, or sexually transmitted diseases) know this better than anyone else. They're often asked if they could have avoided getting sick somehow, and why they didn't. In some cases this can amount to victim blaming (it's YOUR fault that you're sick), and should be rejected outright. Also, it's the sick person's own decision whether or not to become a walking-talking spokesperson for their illness, explaining to everyone where it comes from and how to avoid it. While discussing one's illness can be vital to improving your own health and that of others, it shouldn't be obligatory labor, and especially doesn't need to be performed unquestioningly at the demand of curious healthy people.

Sick life actually ends up demanding more adherence to traditional labor as well, as many people with illnesses are chained to jobs forever for adequate healthcare or to repay medical care debts. Since there are not adequate safeguards for sickness in our society, many sick people take on increasingly professional jobs so that they'll have more money to spend on health care or better insurance. When we are out sick, we have to work twice as hard to make up for lost time. Many of us also overcompensate to quell any concerns that we're not doing well enough. As a result, we're forced to accept the better/faster/more/now mentality of contemporary business, and put up with the conformist nature of the work environment to keep these jobs. When things do go wrong in the workplace, we have less freedom to complain since many of us can't take any risk of losing our jobs. Ironically, it's those that need the most flexibility that often receive the least.

If nothing is done to change work culture as it is these divisions will only grow deeper. The few lucky ones who haven't had medical problems will go further and further, while a growing underclass will be effectively enslaved into work for their entire lives due to health care costs. Imagine a world where you can't take care of your sick and aging parents, or go do hurricane relief work, or take a vacation because you were sick earlier in the year, all because you need health insurance or you're stuck with previous medical costs. Oh wait, most of us are already there! It's just going to get worse if nothing is done to change the system how it is.

You might ask yourself what can possibly be done. The system is so dysfunctional and unweildy that it can be hard to imagine how to change it. But it's essential that you find some way to be active in health politics. Find a way to write, organize, or create art that addresses these issues. Bring it up at political meetings organized around other topics. Root out able-ism in other movements. Be as vocal in the workplace as you can be. If you're not sickly, learn to understand the limitations of others and provide compassionate support. If you're sickly, do what it takes to live a life that you find is respectful and worth living!