3 thoughts #6: On feminist economics, ‘recovery mindset’, and burnout
Read or listen to my three thoughts of the week.
Hi! How is everything with you this week?
First of all a big welcome to all the new subscribers! Honestly, I love seeing more and more people here. You give my life a lot of meaning.
Here are my 3 thoughts of the week. You can choose to listen or read it below.
This is one of my most favourite quotes from the book A Care Crisis in the Nordic States by Dahl, Hansen & Horn: "Feminist economics would argue that care is the invisible heart of the society compared to the invisible hand of market economics. In this sense, care is not an expenditure, but is at the core of the economy and its ultimate aim." Imagine a society where care is at the core of the economy — disabled people wouldn’t have to live with constant anxiety.
If a treatment didn’t work for you it doesn’t mean you did it wrong. It doesn’t mean you didn’t do enough. It doesn’t mean you don’t have a ‘Recovery mindset’. It just means it didn’t work for you. I need to remind myself of this too all the time.
There is a lot of research about burnout among doctors and health care workers but not a lot about burnout in patients living with a chronic illness. So all we know about it is from personal and lived experience. We need more research on medical burnout.
What about you?
What is your relationship to medical burnout? Have you had it? Would you like to know more about it?
How are you cared for right now — or are you caring for someone? What are your hopes and dreams for care in our society?
What feelings go through you when a treatment didn’t work?
P.S Did you read my blog post about dealing with chronic illness isolation by becoming my own best friend? There are also some great comments under it. On Wednesday you will get a new blog post and next Friday a new meditation. In case you missed the last one about connecting to the earth to receive compassion, here it is.
P.P.S I’ve started sharing snippets of the various lyrics that didn’t make my forthcoming album over on Notes. Hope you’ll join me there, too.
Thank you Madelleine, I’ve not heard ‘medical burnout’ applied to those of us with chronic illness but I relate. The hope, the labour, the labour of hope (managing the cycles of hope, disappointment and shame). Oof.
More and more over the past year or so, I’ve realized that managed-care medicine has nothing to offer those with long COVID and ME/CFS but throwing pharmaceuticals at us like throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. I’m so over it. But to some degree, I have to stay on the Ferris wheel because my disability benefits require me to do so. Ugh. The medical burnout is real.