Secondary Gain: Win Win Challenge

My husband should be arriving in Florida right about now for my mom’s funeral tomorrow. I’m taking my time with “writing up” my mom, because as all humans are, she was wonderfully complex. I want to avoid defining her. I want to lightly illuminate her, and allow her multifaceted vibrancy to survive and not be fixed, as so often happens. I’m also planning my private accessible ritual to say goodbye to my mom, probably centered on singing her songs to my horses, but there will be other aspects to it. For now, however, I want to present a challenge.

I woke up with this idea. A theory is floating around that people claiming to be adversely impacted by low levels of chemicals like commonly used perfumed products (that incidentally contain respiratory irritants and neurotoxins, among other things) are engaging in secondary gain, driven by attention-seeking and mewling for sympathy.

I won’t say where I think this theory comes from, but it could be the same place that this idea originated: We are ALL responsible for the BP oil disaster because we drive vehicles with internal combustion engines. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t design them, fight to prevent innovation, or throw roadblocks in the way of alternative energy the way certain unnamed entities have--it is our fault. Ha! I reject that idea. No, I am emphatically not responsible for BP’s crimes and profane destruction of the Gulf Coast. Similarly, I don’t think I am engaging in or benefitting from secondary gain, but I am willing to throw down the gauntlet and submit to a crude test. I have absolutely nothing to lose.

I predict that secondary gain will be disproved, and that I will maybe some day get a smattering of sympathetic posts from complete strangers who are similarly situated. Here’s the win win situation:

Heads, I win

In response to my post, I receive so many condolences and such an outpouring of sympathy that the endorphins are knocked off the charts for the rest of my life, or at least for a while. Come on, hit me with it—give me the love and acceptance I crave (either because I’m a person with an imaginary or feigned illness, or because I am simply a human being)!

Tails, I win

I disprove secondary gain by showing that there is no real advantage in claiming to have an illness that I don’t really have.