Who Gets our Empathy?

Publicly sharing about your health can be challenging. There are a host of issues and problems that can come with it. In the past week, I witnessed what I considered a lack of empathy for someone being truthful and an excess of empathy for someone who was lying.

It started me thinking about who we deem worthy of our empathy. It seems to me that there is some kind of invisible hierarchy or checklist of what you need to earn empathy.

I feel a need to preface that I am using the word empathy, but recognize that sympathy may be the better term for some of these things. That is a whole other blog post for another day.

Those who are worthy

This week, I fell down a true crime rabbit hole of online cancer scams. It started with the podcast Scamanda, the story of a young woman in California who faked cancer for years to gain attention, notoriety, and money. Which then led to another one, Believe in Magic, a young woman with cancer and her mother in the UK starting a charity to serve other children with cancer… or do they?

I am intimately acquainted with young women getting cancer and dying young. As a matter of fact, I have two cousins who almost exactly fit into the demographics of the women in these scam stories – a young mother in her 30s lost too young after a long battle and an even younger woman, just lost before entering her adulthood.

The similarities of these two stories within my world and the ones I listened to this week are… something I am still very much processing. They both have also made me really think about what it means to share about your health online… as someone who has entered that journey recently. I am going to write about these in the future, but for now, I want to focus on just the empathy these scammers garnered.

It’s clear to me why their scam worked. Three major factors:

They were “dying”

People are automatically empathetic for those who have a terminal diagnosis. I feel like a jerk just typing that so bluntly, it’s just a fact though. We all have lost someone we have loved or have been afraid of our own death, so to see someone facing that down is heartbreaking.

It’s also kind of easy.

Not easy for the actual close family (trust me, I would never want anyone to think those going through it were not suffering), but as onlookers, it’s easy for us to see how this will impact their life. If it’s a miracle and they get better, we get to rejoice with the person and move on. If they pass, we send our condolences and move on. Our involvement is temporary, but we get the good feels for a lifetime that we contributed, prayed, whatever.

A chronic or prolonged illness is hard. It’s messy. And, we don’t like messy.

They appeared giving

Both of these women had a facade of a giving nature. Amanda of Scamanda was a young mom and teacher who was active in her community. Meg of Believe in Magic was using her precious time on earth to help other kids with cancer. They were worthy because they were giving back to the world. Even though that giving was truly just a front for them to take from others.

They appeared grateful

Again, both women were effusive with their thank-yous. Whether this was to those who contributed, shared, connected, whatever. They expressed their gratitude loudly and to anyone who would be willing to listen. This isn’t inherently bad in anyway, but people love being appreciated, so seeing others be appreciated makes it a little easier to want to give and be appreciated yourself.

Let’s see how this contrasts with…

Those who are unworthy

This week I also watched people being outraged at a woman sharing her story of asking about accommodations for Time Blindness at a job – a real and proven symptom of ADHD for many people. She was hurt when someone at the job belittled her for asking; she shared with the internet, and the internet belittled her even more. She has a legitimate health condition, inquired about legally acceptable accommodations, and was ridiculed.

I think the opposite of those three factors that made people give to scammers are what made it acceptable for people to ridicule her.

The help she needs wouldn’t stop any time soon

There were so many people in the comments showing empathy for this woman’s potential future co-workers. That she would be a problem for them in the future. They were recounting or reliving an experience with a previous unreliable co-worker. I get that jump to frustration because of previous experience… here’s the thing, wouldn’t accommodations help alleviate that unreliability?

One time blindness accommodation I have seen is a window of arrival time instead of an on-the-dot start (this is obviously for jobs that could accommodate that which is part of the “reasonable” aspect of the modifications). If you know that your co-worker will be arriving between 7:45 and 8:30… doesn’t that give you more information to go about your day and not wonder about them? Doesn’t that lay the groundwork for an environment that could possibly accommodate a need of yours in the future?

I have been afraid to commit to anything outside of my control for the fear of letting people down. My health issues don’t seem to be going anywhere… does that mean I am not fit to succeed in our society? I am a smart, talented person that has so much to offer; I think that’s everyone’s loss if we don’t get comfortable with the fact that chronic and lifetime issues are worthy of empathy.

I am afraid to ask for help, worried that I will be worse in the future and not have the support I need because people are tired of helping me. That people will think I am just a mooch or a taker… speaking of that.

She appeared to be taking

The hardest part of it for me was many people in the comments talked about how they had ADHD and went about getting around their time blindness. Instead of seeing themselves in her and providing empathy – they saw themselves in her and passed judgment based on their lived experience. They used extensive systems of timers and alarms, why can’t she? How entitled and lazy does she need to be?! They suffer so she must suffer. They don’t know her situation, the job she was trying to get, or even possible reasonable accommodations.

She was the problem; she did not deserve her empathy. She is only wanting to take from others. And because of that…

She appeared entitled

By having the audacity to ask if there was an accommodation, it was determined she was entitled. Look this woman may be entitled, but asking about the existence of something is not the same as demanding it. Also, who are we to determine what she does and doesn’t need?

This is the exact reason why I struggle to use a scooter, mobility aid, or something like it at a grocery store. I look healthy; I would walk up to the scooter and sit down at it. Most people would think I am a lazy and bad person. Could I walk through the store? Yes, I probably physically could. But it would mean that I could do nothing else for probably a day or two. So I don’t go. I don’t go many places because of this reality of being an invisibly ill, publicly.

We need to think beyond our assumptions based on appearance.

I’m not, nor would I ever advocate for people to give less empathy to one group over the other. The blindness of allegiance of who is and isn’t worthy is the problem. More empathy is the solution.

It’s so funny that in both cases, the ruse went on so long because people gave these two women the benefit of the doubt and declared anyone who would question them heartless. Who would fake anything so awful as terminal cancer?

Frankly, the same people who would fake ADHD, Chronic Illness, or disability to take advantage of others. They’re going to put the work in either way.

Maybe if we start giving empathy to more people, we can see more places where that empathy isn’t worthy. Someone claiming to have ADHD but never attempting to get the diagnosis or help to arrange for reasonable accommodation (there is a whole other issue of access and diagnosis but hopefully we can at least start with this step). A healthcare system that believes people and doesn’t require raising thousands of dollars for medical bills to be a normal occurrence (which is actually what the British person did – raised money to go to America for “treatment”).

If my own health experience has taught me anything, it’s empathy to try to understand first and judge later. At the end of the day, it’s my hope for all of us.