Guilt and Circumstance
by Caroline Hellman

In the last column, I raised the issue of guilt--the weird feeling that one's problem is not legitimate and the feelings of insecurity this can provoke.

I think that this is caused by a number of factors. It can be the faker in the gym class who claims to have asthma, coughs weakly once, and never runs again. The other people in the class know that person just doesn't want to make the effort, and forever after wrongly associate asthma with faking a problem.

It can also be adults who don't take the problem seriously and minimize things. My kindergarten teacher, for example, refused to believe that I was very allergic to nuts, and made me eat a cookie that she insisted was nut-free, despite my protestations. I was only 4.5 years old, and trusted her. I then got really sick. I still remember being about vomit everywhere and trying to tell her that I felt awful; she called me a liar. I then threw up on her skirt and shoes, which seemed fair to me.

I also had a swim coach, who, when I was deathly ill after having eaten a cookie that was made by a teammate's mother and supposed to be nut-free (guess what: it wasn't), made jokes about knowing CPR and being able to do rescue breathing if I needed it. This was when we were on the way to the hospital and I could barely breathe on my own. The joke was not appreciated.

Some people, it is true, do not understand illness in general, or are not mature enough to grasp severity of some circumstances. Others have trouble understanding simply because they themselves have always been exceedingly healthy.

Whatever the cause for this sometimes-guilt, it's not healthy for us, and we need to eradicate it.