I know I could not get up in the mornings if I did not hope that some day this disease will leave me. I cannot face the horrifying prospect that I will be ill for the rest of my life: it is too unjust and frightening.

Yet, with my positive belief that I will‹I must‹recover, I am still sick. Those who would say that a positive attitude is all that it takes to recover are wrong. As important as it is to mental stability, and as it may be for its physiological effects, a positive attitude is not a miracle cure for all ailments. Nor is it an easy thing to achieve when one is beset by low blood pressure, nausea, dizziness and fatigue. I have been known to get downright curt in such circumstances, and I defy the 'think positive and you'll be fine' brigade to do otherwise.

The public is so often presented with 'miracle recovery' stories that I wonder whether their understanding of the illness experience is increasingly out of touch with reality. Think of the familiar line, 'Doctors told him he would never walk again!', and the accompanying report which details our hero's valiant contradiction of his doctors' forecast, supposedly achieved through sheer willpower alone. One almost imagines doctors are deliberately telling patients they'll never walk again to spur them on to recovery.

But what of the patients for whom their doctors' opinions are correct? What of those who passionately love being active and healthy, but are denied a normal life through illness or injury? These people are doing their best, but, due to the devastating power of their disability, cannot reclaim perfect health. Not because they're not trying or aren't positive, but because some assaults on the body are too great to be overcome by the mind.

Doubtless, these less fortunate indivduals (who are never destined to be the subject of a good news story) find ways to enrich their lives despite their misfortune. They probably grow emotionally and philosophically in a way healthy people never imagine.

Here we uncover another aspect of the 'think positive' exhortation: it implies the patient is not already doing their utmost to survive and prosper during this challenge. It is allied with the insulting assumption that the existence of illness in a person signifies the absence of a desire to recover.

The fact is, illness strikes without fear or favour, and not all those who are ill want or deserve to be. We all try our best to live in spite of illness in whatever way we can.

I think this succinct and beautiful quote from the writing of Albert Camus typifies my experience of maintaining hope:

In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.

Lovely green sofa and orange chair supplied to me by Eric Henes.
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