The Cost of Being Upbeat

Submitted by tonyplant on December 5, 2006 - 15:33.

An article in the Sunday Times discusses The price of keeping up a brave face. Cathy Galvin gives her own response to the news that friends of Gordon and Sarah Brown report that they have remained upbeat since learning that their baby son Fraser has cystic fibrosis, a chronic, incurable condition.

Galvin doesn't pull her punches and paints a picture of poor support and family tensions that is too familiar to too many families in the UK. She says that being "upbeat" had become

the ultimate betrayal of the estimated 1.9m families in Britain whose children have some kind of special educational need, who play down the load they are carrying and rarely tell it how it is. Why? Because to say, “Well, he’s doing well on the medication but we were up all night because he couldn’t breathe. And we’re worried because his sister is being bullied at school because he’s different. And we’re running short of money because one of us needs to be at home in case there’s an emergency during the day” is not what people want to hear...

To hint at the daily, gruelling realities of looking after a disabled child is to risk — especially if you move in healthy, wealthy circles — being boring, to sound as though you’re not coping, to awaken in your listener the worrying prospect that the gap between their lives and yours is so vast that you and your family have become something alien and other and, among your colleagues, the suggestion you might not be up to the job.

It's a good piece but I have to criticise the Sunday Times for failing to provide an outline of what adequate provision would look like or what it would cost (an UnLtd colleague attempted a costing of mental health care and school provision for 1 million children earlier this year).

Too many families do break up under the financial, social and personal strains of living with a family member with a disability. I don't believe that it is being "upbeat" that is the pre-eminent problem so much as the social isolation and other problems that can be associated with these circumstances.

I do distinguish being "upbeat" from being resilient. Some people's personal coping style is denial; that can manifest as being "upbeat". I ran another Happystance event over the weekend and it was plain that for some people, black humour is their preferred coping style. It is all a matter of individual preference. No, nobody should feel obliged to be "upbeat" just because other people can't cope with their reactions to someone else's circumstances. But, that style of "upbeat" is grounded in unfounded optimism or social apprehension.

Other people embrace "upbeat" because it suits them: they can be fully aware of the gravity of their situation but it suits them to present a different face to the world because it changes the way that they interact with others. I've met a number of people who claim, "I'm fine" no matter how they feel. They usually say that it is because they know how ill they are and don't want to spend more time discussing it than they need to. They acknowledge that this sometimes means that they don't feel they can always ask for support when they need it but also feels that this is their method for maintaining some illusion of control.

Choosing your attitude should be a matter of personal choice rather than something that is forced on you because of fears about the reaction of others.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project

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