Be unwell: Where does "fashion" for disease come from
WE LOVE YOURSELF AND OUR HEALTH, BECAUSE OUR BODY - the closest and most understandable thing we have. But we love disease no less. Try to complain that you have a toothache - hear a few stories and recipes in response. But some diseases become more popular than others, sometimes it seems that everyone around us suffers from one disease - from stars to the nearest neighbors. This is not similar to hypochondria, when a person is afraid and checks himself for everything, rather, on an epidemic, except that many fashionable diseases do not spread with the speed of flu. When and why do diseases become popular?
Unable to hide from disease
It is not always possible to understand what people actually suffered some a hundred years ago. They had stomach aches, seizures, died from strokes and black blood, because medicine was far from today's achievements. It was impossible to protect oneself from diseases, even the ideas about hygiene were very different from those to which we are accustomed. From many diseases there was no protection, and in such conditions the appearance of fashion can only be explained by a protective mechanism: in order not to be afraid of the disease, one had to be proud of it. In the 18th century, medicine began to develop in Europe - to the extent possible. It was at this time that it became fashionable to get sick, and literature and art only fuel interest in ailments: many wanted to be like heroines fainting from an excess of feelings.
In fashion came the consumption. Largely because until the end of the next century, people did not know how to treat tuberculosis, and they hurt a lot. And also because earlier many diseases fell under the concept of “consumption”, not only tuberculosis. It was believed that consumption comes to scientists, to those suffering from unhappy love and to the bereaved. Romantically, it was possible to get sick with tuberculosis in the 20th century, as it happened with the heroines of EM Remarque, but after tuberculosis was learned to heal and prevent, he became associated with a low standard of living, and the romanticization was over. Nowadays, tuberculosis is still one of the leading causes of death in the world, but no one can call it fashionable and interesting. There is nothing mysterious in it, and scientists are interested in the problem of resistance to antibiotics for tuberculosis, but not public opinion.
It can be assumed that “diseases of abundance” are becoming fashionable - those that appear in wealthy people. If earlier the poor simply could not afford the disease (because of the lack of medical care and banal hunger, people from the lower classes simply died from any more or less serious illness), then the rich could. The propensity to disease in general was the hallmark of high society. Peasants and workers were supposed to be invariably healthy and strong, because their “simple” nature was allegedly not subject to breakdowns, in contrast to the complex and fine-tuned nature of aristocrats. "How could you think of suddenly appearing in society, not having been sick yet? Such good health is decent only for the peasant generation. If you truly do not feel any discomforts, then hide, please, such a terrible crime against fashion and customs. Please feel ashamed. strong addition and do not block yourself from among the gentle and ailing people of the great world ", - the satirical work of Nikolai Ivanovich Strakhov, published in 1791 and recently reprinted, just illustrates this.
However, not all common diseases became fashionable. For example, hysteria hurt only women - it was a mysterious disease with many symptoms, its cause was seen in the uterus, which of its own will wandered or sent in pairs the brain. Nothing attractive in hysteria, despite the prevalence, was not, on the contrary, it was considered a sign of weakness. But melancholy, in which you can see signs of depression or affective disorders, was much more popular. It is enough to recall the images of Byron or re-read "Eugene Onegin" to understand: in the 19th century, in order to become fashionable, you had to declare yourself a melancholic.
A disease that has not been studied before
There is a so-called third year syndrome: medical students at this particular time are moving from the basics to studying diseases, crafting dangerous symptoms and immediately finding them in themselves. Approximately the same effect happens when a person feels unwell and opens a medical encyclopedia or drives the symptoms into the Google search bar: there are many diseases that even a healthy person can easily detect. There are enough non-specific symptoms that manifest themselves in completely different diseases: weakness, dizziness, fever, drowsiness, and so on. Finding a couple of such signs is a simple task, especially if you have a bad night’s sleep or forget to have dinner for a week.
The same mechanism works when some disease becomes the subject of close attention of physicians and scientists: for example, they open a new method of treatment or single out a separate diagnosis, create a program to support patients. Information about the disease, its symptoms, risk factors appears in the information space, people learn about it and massively detect signs of the disease in themselves. Opinion leaders, the same stars who talk about their illnesses or support charitable foundations help it: against the background of the general interest, it is easier to collect donations. For example, a few years ago, autism spectrum disorders and "mysterious" Asperger syndrome were very popular. After the release of the series about Sherlock, “sociopaths” appeared in large numbers, and at the same time there were guides on how to communicate with them.
According to psychotherapist Dmitry Isaev, there was a period when every second patient, entering the office at the reception, reported dramatically that he was depressed, although the patients had no clinical manifestations of this disease. Then the depression was romanticized on stage, in literature and in movies. The fashion for tough female beauty standards quickly spawned anorexia and bulimia. The fashion for the mysterious children of indigo and the desire to rise at the expense of her own child has opened an unprecedented interest in autism, the signs of which have expanded beyond the boundaries of other well-known pediatric and psychiatric features. Dmitry Isaev notes that anxiety disorders are at the peak of fashion.
According to the psychotherapist, this is due to how society is changing: our time is becoming denser and more rapid. With increased comfort, the survival conditions paradoxically become much tougher. This inevitably affects relations between people, especially close relationships. And when it is necessary to change something in oneself, in the structure, in relations with relatives, in order to catch up with the elusive time, fear sets in. It is the fear of real change in life that causes panic. She masks phobias about their own health or the health of loved ones. After all, only the acute fear of death can block the anxiety of the need for real change, and now every second person enters the doctor's office with panic attacks.
This does not mean that talking about diseases is not necessary - just the opposite. In this case, fashion, no matter how ridiculous it may be, only helps. If one out of hundreds of supposedly ill people at least one seriously thinks about their condition and goes to the doctor to stop the disease in time, it is great. Actually, this is what stories are needed for. To some extent, such a fashion helps the sick person to feel better, she removes the stigma "once sick, then bad." People who learn to try on the state of others may be more relevant to them.
But the fashion for disease has another side. First, popularization is the depreciation of the patient's condition. “Oh, think, I had depression too, I went to the cinema and everything went away” - an example of such a craze when the word “depression” was called any decrease in mood (and is still called). Secondly, the more fashionable the diagnosis becomes, the simpler and more unequivocal it is perceived, and this already forms a misconception about any diagnosis: if in the film the hero falls ill with cancer, then, most likely, in order to die and show tragedy. There are exceptions in which the patient manages to overcome everything, but they are much smaller.
Disease from which it is profitable to sell medicine
Dysbacteriosis, vegetative dystonia - these are the diagnoses that can be made to anyone, anytime, too many non-specific symptoms combine these states. But it is convenient to treat them with beautiful medicines. And it is profitable to sell, so we are constantly told in advertising how everyone began to suffer because of poor digestion or modern ecology, therefore, we urgently need to get rid of toxins and remove toxins. This is not the fashion for the disease in its pure form - rather, on the methods of treatment and prevention. Sometimes they directly confront any diagnoses, for example, “acidification of the body,” sometimes a specific disease is not called, and the whole treatment process is called a beautiful word, for example, detox.
Fortunately, we have the ability to critically address intrusive popular tips. Isaev notes that adherence to fashion is always an imitation, an attempt to protect oneself through compliance with the strong and famous. And with the fashion for the disease is the same, even though the disease may pose a direct threat to life. Individuality is always a little apart from the accepted in society, from conformity to the majority, including from mass fashion.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (1, 2), BBC
