Why do we find it so annoying when a person is sick or hurt and constantly tries to bring attention to themselves because of that?

Just attention seeking behavior. I am annoyed by this sort of thing too.
I am not a complainer, and suck up my not feeling well a lot. If you tell somebody once you aren’t feeling well that should be enough.

You don’t know their pain, or what helps it feel better. Who are you? You know the diagnosis for everyone? Perhaps there are people who crave attention, and overplay the pain card, but I would not attempt to be the one to single out the fakers. For all you know, the pain is much more than they ever say, and they are suffering the best they can without attempting to bother others. My grandfather was bravely quiet about his pain. When he finally went to the doctor to see about it, there was nothing that could be done. He was put in an oxygen tent where he died two weeks later from lung cancer.

@Dutchess_III: “Why do we find it so annoying…”

We don’t.

It’s annoying because the rest of us deal with it and move on.

One guy at work will constantly keep talking about it. “Aww man my head, you guys know when you’re sick and you get this pounding in your head, what is that?”

Hey, dipshit, they’re called headaches and it’s a common symptom and they are already very well known. You didn’t just discover a headache, now stop finding an excuse to stop working and just work.

Another guy actually came into work completely fine, but decided he suddenly had ulcers and left, but made sure to ask for two redbulls from the bar before leaving. I’m pretty sure if someone has ulcers they’re not going to drink two redbulls at 9am.

Because they want sympathy, attention, and want people to feel sorry for them and cut them some slack,and the average person doesn’t have time for that.

To me it’s acting childish.

My husband keeps talking about how his leg is swollen and it hurts. He knows what this can mean (blood clots) and they’re dangerous. I keep telling him to go to the doctor, but he won’t. So if he’s not going to do anything about it, I don’t want to hear about his leg anymore!

BTW, I wasn’t thinking about my husband when I asked this. He isn’t that bad.

@Dutchess_III: “To me it’s acting childish.”

Must “childish” be pejorative?

It’s annoying when grown adults act like 5 year olds who just leave their shit lying around, clothes on the floor of the bathroom, whatever, and expect their Magic Mommy Fairy to clean up after them.

Yep, irritates me too.

Suck it up and keep on rollin’.

Yeah, attention seekers. But I still account for the fact that they may really feel that painful. Some people aren’t so good at endurimg pain.

It is annoying because they are playing a game (Ain’t It Awful) with you. It’s a win-win for the complainer. They win by getting attention. Good attention = poor baby does it hurt or have a fever? Negative attention = the bitch doesn’t give a damn. You lose both ways with the loss of your time and the added aggravation to your life.

I have a friend who has anxiety combined with some new medical issues. I am sympathetic to her medical issues, but her anxiety makes her more frantic about the whole situation. It’s a real eye roller.

I usually don’t. I don’t think most people in pain are seeking attention.

I see pregnant women rub their bellies, is that really doing anything? Or, are they trying to brag about their pregnancies in front of me?

I think it’s natural to touch parts of our bodies that we are “aware” of.

Some people don’t tolerate any kind of pain at all, while others just don’t make a big deal out of pain. Different personalities, different kinds of pain, different pain tolerances, all play a role in how people react to pain. Personally, I am very tolerate of pain while others in my family are not. I try not to get annoyed with people who react differently to pain than I do, different people have different ways of dealing with pain.

I read quite a good Lifehacker article on this: How to Deal With Chronic Complainers

Pregnant women rubbing their bellies in public is… off putting. I don’t know how else to put it without getting stabbed by a tentacle!

It’s kind of like people screaming in anger on a cell phone in public. You just get the feeling that they’re going to think that people are going to sympathize with them somehow. Take their side. Feel sorry for all the BS they have to put up with from some unknown person.

@Stinley Excellent article. I flinched a couple of times, though, because….I kind of saw myself here and there. Sigh.

@Dutchess_III me too…

@Stinley and @Dutchess_III Yes, it was an excellent article and indeed, I saw some of my behaviors described there as well. Hmm…. maybe I better do some self-improvement in some areas.

I have the exact opposite issue
Since I don’t complain and even when feeling really sick or in pain don’t play it up, I often get the exact opposite response from others. “You don’t SOUND very sick.”
I can be feeling extremely horrible and you won’t hear it in my voice.
For years when I called in sick to work I always felt they didn’t believe me because I didn’t sound all sad and whiney and pathetic. haha

I have had to actually tell people ” Well..I don;t know what to say, sorry if I don’t sound sick enough to you but trust me, I feel like shit! ” lol

Oh, I don’t complain about being sick or hurting or whatever. I have soldiered through so much shit when I had no one to back me up. Apparently I didn’t complain enough when I spent weeks coming down with pneumonia but didn’t know it. The last week before I went in the hospital Rick left it up to me to decide if he should leave town for that week. Apparently I said I was fine, so he left. I could have died that week. Very easily.

Someone rubbing their knee, shoulder, head, neck, etc. may not give a hoot about your sympathy. It is possible instincts are simply telling them what to do, but they don’t have enough information to really help themselves.
http://www.chronicbodypain.net/10-acupressure-points-to-relieve-knee-pain/
http://www.doc20.com/disease/kidney-disease/acupressure.html
http://my-acupressure.blogspot.com/2007/08/acupressure-heart-attack.html
Some of these replies make me think there are some very intolerant people here. I see all sorts of rants about freedom, equality, tolerance, but when it comes to people suffering chronic pain, or rowdy four year olds, or wildlife in our gardens, it is time to push back, load bb guns, and shut out. Some show of tolerance, Fluther!

@Coloma I think that is what happens most often. People don’t believe or take seriously other people’s pain if they can’t actually see evidence of it. You’re back hurts daily? Better have a knife sticking out of it for people to understand how painful it really is.

Chronic pain and illness is the worst. Most people don’t understand someone can be in pain and still smile and be happy. Still work all day, watch their children play soccer, and then collapse at times and cry alone.

When I had pain every day for years it was stunning to me that even my husband would forget. He would try to touch me and I would wince or pull away and he would accuse me of being what he called bipolar. Wrong use if the word, but what he meant was I can seem totally fine and then suddenly be complaining about how much pain I was in. The thing is, I am not complain the majority if the time while I’m still in pain. I could go for weeks and months not complaining, but when I did it was like it was a surprise I wasn’t better. I never said I was better. Believe me, when I finally started to get better I told him. Why would I not share that?

I’ve experienced the same thing @JLeslie. You don’t say much, if anything at all, so they get taken by surprise. Rick had no idea I was as sick as I was (although my daughter did, but she thought I was getting dementia.) I don’t know if I realized it, because I can’t remember that particular time in my life.

It also depends on how well you know the person. If he or she has other indicators in their life that suggests they still want to be a child and have their Mommy looking after them then it’s a pretty good guess that they’re going to dramatize their pain or illness.

@JLeslie I hear ya, while I don’t have any particular major issues I do suffer from chronic sinus and allergy issues and tendonitis in my wrists and thumbs. My allergies have been horrible the last few days, I think it is mold outside, damp but on the warm side and it hit me really hard on Thursday. A lot of people don’t understand how debilitating allergies can be.

My whole body aches and I feel like I have the flu because my immune system is in overdrive. When I tell people my allergies are bothering me they start giving advice, “do this, take that, eat local honey” blah, blah, blah, on & on. It is really annoying because I have done and tried everything and nothing really helps. I now have a standard reply of ” Trust me, I have spent the last 10 years trying everything and nothing really makes much difference.”

What I really hate is when people presume to know your issues better than you do. haha

@Coloma If I didn’t know you I would assume you are sick no matter what you said. I think allergy sufferers hate when people do that, but I really hate getting sick and I know so many people who say “it’s allergies” and it lasts for a week and then their spouse comes down with it that I don’t trust people.

It’s different if I know you and observe you battling the allergies ongoing. My dad has bad allergies, especially dust. It’s not that I don’t believe it’s a real thing. He does get sick a lot, but he knows when he is sick, so I trust him to know what he is talking about.

@Dutchess_III – I have noticed a couple of things…

1. You seem to be suffering in the way that you relate to people and their pain. If this is something that people do, would it not be best to phrase this question in a way that allows you to respond in a way that causes you to suffer less?

2. We have absolutely no idea what people are going through, and any attempt to attribute a certain level of suffering to a person is an exercise in delusion. Let me give you a couple of examples:

a. I have some major health issues. And while I have found that my only option for getting by is to do a ton of faking it till I make it, there are times that I break. I haven’t slept since November 2012 and have been unable to lie down since July of 2013. Yes, I cannot lie down. I won’t go into the details – I’ve mentioned them here before. But the important thing to note is that I don’t complain to anyone about it. I am only able to get through chronic pain and crippling exhaustion (among other things) by just saying to myself that I need only get through this moment. And now this moment. And now this.

But once in a while, I just break. The pain might be causing my eyes to well up, and I have to pull the car over to do jumping jacks to keep myself awake, and the thumping in my ears is drowning out anything but thoughts of suicide. In those moments, I may not be the happiest camper. I might even complain. I might wince and hold my back in pain. If you were to see me, you’d have no idea what I’m really going through. You’d just see some asshole holding his back and acting pathetic. And you’d come here to judge me as “childish” or something else.

I’m not looking for your sympathy. And it’s not about me. I’m suggesting that your judgments are made with a complete lack of data, and therefore they are bound to be completely inaccurate and humiliating. Your assumption about people is causing you to suffer, and is resulting in less empathy in the world.

b. The guy who sits next to me has had 3 kids. A few years ago, his son was killed at his high school. It was a special-needs student who had never met his son, but wanted to feel what it would be like to kill someone, so he picked a kid at random. You might have met this guy before (* or someone like him), and you judged his reaction to something by making assumptions about what he is going through or what you may have done. You never would have known the pain this guy is carrying around with him.

Maybe you could try to figure out how to deal with your inability to deal with people and their struggles, rather than worrying about how they could handle them in a way that would be more invisible to you. Just a thought.

@hominid Do you mean you have not slept MUCH since 2012 or not slept at ALL?
If not at all how can you be alive?

I was thinking of this question today and I remembered something. Two of my kids were living at home, one had flown the nest. She had a 4 year old son.
The two kids at home went down like dominoes with some 24 hour flu bug. One went one day, the other went down the next day. It was the whole 9 yards, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, you name it.
I’ve been through it before and I made them comfortable, kept them hydrated and fed them crackers and chicken broth.
They were fine in 2 days.

Then the oldest showed up and she was sick too. So I put HER to bed and prepared to nurse her through. However, her version had her vomiting loudly in the bathroom and groaning like she was dying. She was just moaning and crying and whimpering and it scared the shit out of her 4 year old son.
The ridiculous drama pissed me off because she is a drama queen. I mean, her son burned his hand badly when he was 2. We took him to the Dr’s and everything Jen did was designed to turn the attention on herself, the poor suffering mother.

Anyway, I hollered through the door “You’re scaring Ryan! Knock it off!”
Well, that pissed her off. I’ve never seen someone go from dying to raging so quickly. She came storming out, grabbed her son by the hand and snarled, “I’m going to the hospital!”
I told her to leave Ryan with me but she said “NO!” I don’t know who she left him with.

So she checked herself into the ER, they put her to bed, put an IV in to keep her hydrated and fed her crackers and chicken broth and sent her home the next morning. And sent her a nice big bill. She was telling anyone who would listen how she had to go to the hospital.

I don’t go to the hospital for the 24 hour flu, but I am a cry baby about it. Not about other illnesses. I was in the ER after my accident banged up beyond belief and didn’t complain about the pain (except when a nurse was purposely hurting me and wouldn’t believe what he was doing was seriously hurting me and totally unnecessary—asshole). If I had thrown up? I would have been upset, pissed, whimpering, all of it. I take care of myself when I have 104 degree fever without asking for much at all from my husband. Throwing up for me I think is more traumatic than for other people. It probably feels different to different people. Just like some people freak out from getting their teeth cleaned. Maybe it is actually more painful for some of them?

When I checked in to the hospital getting ready to have my daughter, they put off checking to see how dilated I was because it was in the middle of shift change and they didn’t want to do it twice. So, we’re hanging out. Finally shift change was over, and some one checked me and went….“Holy shit! She’s at 10!” Then she looked at me and said, “You should be screaming by now! How can you be laying here so quiet?”
I just shrugged. Then asked if I could walk to the birthing room per LaMaze. The staff were all shaking their heads!
So, finally get to the room. They break my water…which threw me fully into transition. If there was any screaming to be done, then was the time to do it! The pain was incredible. Indescribable. But I never did scream. I sung “Swing low, sweet chariot” at the top of my lungs once, tho.

With my son, when I checked in, my husband said, “She’s at 10, by the way.” They didn’t believe me, but it turned out to be true.

Yeah, I don’t do much screaming from pain. I do sometimes mumble about it, or kind of whimper. It has to be really bad. Usually, I am quiet about pain. I’ve never been in labor, so I can’t speak to that. Some women seem to get through it fairly easily, tolerating the pain well, and some not at all. Im sure each labor is different also. I know my grandmother walked herself into the ER when she was in labor with her first and they told her to take a seat. She sat for a few hours and then finally spoke up and said she thinks she is going to need to deliver soon. The staff freaked out when they realized she was ready to push. She barely made a peep about it. A woman I worked with said labor was easier than menstrual cramps, because at least you get a break between contractions.

That could have been my Mom. They kept telling her she had a long way to go, so she quietly laid there. Then she said, “Um, I think the baby is coming.”
They didn’t believe her…until they checked. My sister was crowning!

Mom says, “But I didn’t have to go through the painful part of pushing because they gave me an epidural right away.”
I said, “Mom, pushing actually feels good compared to the contractions!” She went through the whole thing with out a whimper. Amazing woman.

I throw up when I am in extreme pain. When I was in labor I would have a contraction, dry heave, have a contraction, retch, contraction, gag.
It was horrible!
Hours of retching, I never did get to “rest” between contractions. haha

I’m a barfophobe too, I HATE throwing up, knock on wood I haven’t for about 6 or 7 years now.

@Dutchess_III My mom, who I think of as tolerating pain well, says labor and delivery was crazy painful. However, she also had short labors, 45 minutes and 2 hours. My guess is she actually was in pain before that, but just ignored the early stages. She had false labor with me one time, and they sent her back home. Less than a week later she really went into labor. I was 3.5 weeks early.

@Coloma Oh Lord, that would be my nightmare of all time. It wouldn’t surprise me if that happened to me. Somehow I think we are linked in certain ways. Maybe God spared me that by giving me fertility problems.

I haven’t thrown up since 1989.

@JLeslie Hahaha…..NOTHING worse than that “OMG, I think I’m going to throw up” feeling. You get that awful weird salivating thing goin’ on. Aaaaagh!

@JLeslie and @Coloma: One clue I had that I was pregnant was that all of a sudden, when I brushed my teeth, I was gagging and throwing up. I was like “I can deep throat a banana and now I’m gagging on a toothbrush?” That was one clue that something was going on…..

@jca That happens to me anyway, haha
Yes, I remember knowing I was pregnant when I started getting a queasy feeling drinking my morning coffee. Nothing puts me off my coffee.

Whoa, TMI @jca!

Yeah, the early contractions were easy enough to pretty much ignore, although they might not have been for someone else.
And my labors were also short. Had the kids about an hour and a half after we got to the hospital. I’m sure it helped that I was in super great physical condition.