Why We Need Signal Flags In Everyday Life

We’ve all been there. The embarrassment of misinterpreting someone else’s unspoken communication; the awkwardness or downright unpleasantness of someone misunderstanding or just plain missing yours.

Unclothed woman behind question mark sign
But you don’t feel comfortable just coming out and flatly saying these things – or bellowing them across the room, as the case may be. I believe I may have discovered a solution, and very poetically, this benefit for the future has its roots in the past, back before texting and DMs and all the rest of it. Back, in fact, in the days of sailing ships.

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Gargoyle Chip Report XIII

Anyone else wondering where the year went? Well, we have another eight weeks before we run out, at any rate.

But I doubt that will be enough time to finish the rose quilt, alas. Particularly at the rate I am currently going, i.e. ridiculously slow. Partly due to tiredness, probably partly due to a lack of self-discipline, and largely due to the horde of other things that have all decided to descend upon me at present.

Lion Faced Gargoyle - Circa 11th Century CE - Bhumara - Madhya Pradesh - Indian Museum - Kolkata 2013-04-10 7751
Splat.
But happily, I can always take a fresh look at my motivation and start again.

Any progress with your gargoyles? Or has life leapt upon you from a great height as well?

My Husband Is Not Lazy

Suppose you know a man who doesn’t have a paying job (and isn’t looking for one), who gets up late, goes to bed early, and often spends a good deal of his waking hours lying on the couch; a man who doesn’t always get his share of the household work done on time; a man who frequently isn’t available if you need a volunteer.

What would you think of him?

"On 29 October 1941 the 53rd Brigade (18th Division) embarked on the Polish troop carrier 'Sobieski' at Gourock in Scotland, to sail for an unknown destination (Egypt). It arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 8 Art.IWMART1574619

Here’s the thing: that man is my husband (aka The Caped Gooseberry). And I think very highly of him. Because he isn’t lazy; he has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

And unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think that unless you’re visibly ill, you must be a hypochondriac, a malingerer, or just plain lazy. “It’s all in your head.” Well, so is a brain tumour, and who would tell someone with cancer that they just need to pull themselves together?

There are two particularly frustrating reactions to my husband’s illness. One is the suggestion that he just needs to try [insert pet vitamin/mineral/other here] or getting more exercise, or self-hypnosis, or… As though being cripplingly unwell for years at a time only happened to people who didn’t think to try a herbal remedy, or eat lots of oranges.

Evidence of Toronto people

The second is the suggestion that he’s only ill – or pretending to be – because he prefers it to work. Which isn’t true. My husband does a larger share of the housework than a great many able-bodied men (although, to be scrupulously fair, they’re more likely to spend hours each day at a paying job). He’s worked when his health has allowed it, to the extent that he could, and he gets very frustrated when his energy levels force him to stop work.

He could just go on a benefit and lie in bed all day watching TV, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even spend all day in his jammies (which, I must admit, I would be very tempted to do in his place). He dresses well, even if that’s the only thing he has the energy to do that day. And when he can, he works – on programming, audio-book narration, or other projects – even though the work is unpaid.

The thing is, the Caped Gooseberry doesn’t look sick, apart from an occasional tendency to resemble a tomb effigy when at rest.

St-Denis Heinrich-II

So it’s easy for people to assume that he isn’t really that unwell. Easy to assume that if they see him out doing the grocery shopping or going to church, he must be all right. They don’t see the rest of the day spent lying down to make up for it. They don’t see him when he’s too tired to leave the house, or too tired to even sit at the table and chew.
In some ways, it’s an invisible disorder, because not only are the symptoms frequently not visible, the sufferers often ‘disappear’ as well.

But Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelits/ME and chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome/CFIDS) is a very real illness.
According to Wikipedia, symptoms may include “malaise after exertion; unrefreshing sleep, widespread muscle and joint pain, sore throat, headaches of a type not previously experienced, cognitive difficulties, chronic and severe mental and physical exhaustion…. muscle weakness, increased sensitivity to light, sounds and smells, orthostatic intolerance, digestive disturbances, depression, painful and often slightly swollen lymph nodes, cardiac and respiratory problems.”

General Thaddeus Kosciusko by Benjamin West

And then, with classic understatement, the article adds “Quality of life of persons with CFS can be extremely compromised.”

And there are few things worse than having your life maimed by illness, only for people to treat you as though you’re a slacker, a bludger, or just hopelessly inept. As though you aren’t really suffering, and if you are, it’s your fault.

Of course, most people are too polite to suggest to the Caped Gooseberry that he just needs to pull himself together and get on with it. So they suggest it to me, instead. Because there’s nothing offensive in telling a woman that you think her husband’s a lazy slacker who pretends to be sick to avoid having to get a job like a real man.

'Around the Moon' by Bayard and Neuville 04

Seventeen million people are said to have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That’s a lot of people being looked down on by people who don’t know their circumstances, and, sadly, by many of those who do.

So please, before we judge the person doing the grocery shopping in their pyjamas, or the person whose house or yard isn’t up to neighbourhood standards, please, let’s remember that we don’t know what else they’re going through, and they don’t need the weight of our condemnation added to the burdens they’re already bearing.